A million little details over shadow what is vital. And I am tired.
I think this is why I am not finding wedding planning to be all that fun. I deeply anticipate marriage, and life, with my beloved fiance. But the wedding? It seems to lie in wait, crouching until I least expect it, and then lunge and overtake me with stress. Does it really matter what shoes I wear on my wedding day? Does it really matter where everyone is seated and how many people come and what I wear in my hair?
No. It doesn’t. But something has me convinced that it does, and so my stress builds, and builds, and doesn’t ever really get relieved. Add to that not sleeping well, and I end up a very emotional, irrational, exhausted me. Not a very fun fiancee for Mason to deal with. I feel that life pulls me in a myriad directions, and I lack the grace to manage them adequately.
I so long to love maturely, peacefully, to be okay with a wedding that will be beautiful but not perfect, with a life that is hilarious and lovely but not planned to the tiniest detail, with the gifts of God that I did not invent. I have come to realize that I have lived my life, until now, in a completely self-centered manner. Such a manner is no longer acceptable. I can no longer demand (and get) my own way with impunity. I have to share, and compromise, and in turn be given a much better life than I could have planned.
In the end, I long for the grace of compassion.
In the end, I long for Christ.
I am a fellow nobody. This nobody love the honesty and sincerity of your post.
I write a blog about marriage and how men can better love their wives. I hope you and your fiance will check it out when you have a chance.
http://whatsheneedsfromyou.wordpress.com
Thanks
Dearest Katie,
I understand COMPLETELY. Compassion, grace and kindness is the only thing that keeps you sane and yet you wonder why its so rare, and so rare in ourselves also. I think short engagements are great in that they don’t drag out the ridiculousness that our culture has turned a marriage ceremony into.
I learned alot of things getting married. You don’t have to be a perfect bride (and you probably won’t be – I was stressed on my wedding day, not because I didn’t plan or didn’t enter it purposefully vowing to be calm and serene but because life happened and bridesmaid’s got flats and fiancé’s trucks broke down and flowers got stuck in traffic, etc. etc.) and I realized that even striving to be an ideal was a waste of my energy and a focus on myself. I learned that if it really doesn’t matter, then don’t let people try to make it matter. My shoes didn’t matter in the least, I grabbed a pair of cheap ones at the last minute. Having a cake didn’t matter either but it did to my mom, so I had one. Sometimes you just give and it ends up being less stressful than resisting and sometimes you say no and trust that life will move on. Sometimes you put your foot down – I really wanted real dishes and even though it seemed absurd to everyone, including my fiancé, I didn’t let pressures tell me I was being frivolous and went for what mattered to me and I’m so glad! I nearly cried in arguing with Matt about sitting down during the homily – that mattered to me also but I gave in and it was no big deal!
I regret not being calmer and I regret a detail here and there but regret is deceptive sometimes. It tells us things mattered that really didn’t and still don’t. My marriage is THE MOST wonderful gift I’ve ever received save Christ. And the wedding, at its highest point of beauty and lowest point of ‘failure’ was still just a pale reflection of that.
I know you know all this – but allow the grace of Mason, even in these crazy times, to remind you of the gift of him.
I love you! I’m SO proud of you! And I think you a fantastic bride already 🙂