I
love being married to my wife. We got engaged not very long after meeting one another, only six months. After converting to Christ, I entered into a long period of attempting, off an on, to date women in a way that was foreign to me, and it was a frustrating process, in which I was never sure whether what I was experiencing emotionally was "right" or not. The contexts of my dating life had changed so much, that I wasn't sure whether I could trust my intuition about how I ought to be feeling or not. Maybe Christian dating just had a feeling that I wasn't used to!
Then I met Elena, and all the doubt vanished. If you'd asked me to put odds on it, after our first week-long meeting in G----, I'd have said there was probably an 80% chance that we'd get married. So, so quickly, I knew that this was the woman for me.
We were engaged for a year and a half before marrying, and there was a great deal of uncertainty, in us both, about how well we would live together -- we'd been long-distance the entire time, and practicing the traditional method of waiting to live united until our wedding day. It turns out -- we both did an excellent job in choosing one another, and in preparing for our lives together. Granted, we've only been married six months to now, but the entire time has been so free, so easy, such a true feeling of consummation. I'm in bewildered wonder at the greatness of the blessing.
We were in a meeting this morning, where Elena was doing most of the talking, and just hearing her brought me almost to tears. I'm so proud of her, in a way that I think spouses are supposed to be. Look at who I found, I want to say. Listen to her voice. See how she laughs when things go wrong. Look at how much she cares about her inner life. See how hard she works. See how beautiful she is. But I can't tell you about what it's like inside, to live with her -- not really. Because you'd have to be there; and I'm afraid it's just for us.