The real price of marriage.
A cost so high for a love so great.
I wrote this the other day but have been having too much summer fun with Alex and the kids that I’m just getting around to posting it. But this piece is quite fitting for the 4th of July…for love costs everything. This price is too high for many to pay, but the ones who know and live what it costs reap rewards beyond measure.
So, a big thank you for all those who have served our country in love! And a big reminder for us all that the ultimate love - that being intimate Sacramental love - is worth anything it may cost us to live it.
~~
Alex and the kids are back home. Some of them are laughing and playing Monopoly (after having another chat about too much phone time), the two older girls are out shopping, and Alex is finishing up work.
And, while sitting at my favorite spot in the world, I am reveling in the fruits, in the happiness and peace and joy, of what happens when you give everything.
Realizing the actual price of marriage.
The other night was rough.
Normal every day stressors taking their toll, I sat in bed weary and tired from what life often costs.
No, I was weary and tired from what marriage often costs.
Everything. It costs everything.
This weariness wasn’t necessarily one of anger or resentment, although it can easily turn into those things.
Rather, it was one of the aftermath of giving everything you have and sometimes it still not being enough. Not enough for the situation…not enough for your spouse.
And they give everything, too. (Or at least we all think we’re giving everything.)
And the temptation to dream of life alone, without the costing and sacrifice, sneaks into the weariness. It tries to plant a seed that the price of love - of deep, mature, intimate, and holy love - is too much. That it would be better to be alone, without having to constantly give and it sometimes still not be enough…of having to dig deep to find even more to spend on your spouse.
And that’s when it hits you, when you realize that you have two choices.
Throw in the towel and say love simply costs too much…OR
Pour it all out. Give to the last drop. And then give some more.
That’s it. Those are the only choices. Anything in between leads to mediocrity…or pretending. (And we all know what God does with the lukewarm. We all know what happens to a marriage when it’s mediocre.)
Fortunately and unfortunately this is what marriage was created to do. It was made to cost everything.
Marriage demands everything at all times and it’s easy to dream of an easier life. But to stick it out and pay the price is completely and utterly WORTH IT.
If I never got married to Michael I wouldn’t have had to walk through his death. If I never got married to Alex I wouldn’t have had to walk through combining lives. If I never got married at all I could’ve lived on my own terms, with my own wishes and desires. I could go to bed if I were tired, sit in silence to recharge, I could shut down if I needed alone time, or fill in the blank with whatever my mind and body required in the moment.
But marriage doesn’t allow that.
Marriage says: you will love me despite your exhaustion, despite my flaws and failures. Marriage says you will love no matter the circumstances - whether cancer or kids or stress or shortcomings.
Marriage demands everything. At all times.
And, from someone who has lived and loved through better or worse, sickness or health, till death did us part, these demands, this cost is so completely and utterly…worth it.
Yes, worth it.
Worth every tear, every coming back, every moment of anger melting into resolve to choose love.
It is worth cancer and caregiving. It is worth burying your spouse. Marriage is worth saying yes over and over, through the mundane and boring, through the stressors and compromises.
It is worth sitting in weariness, with nothing left to seemingly give - only to dig deeper to find more to pour out.
And when it seems like you’ve spent everything on your spouse - when you’ve spent your heart and mind and body - that’s when it really becomes worth it.
Because what it born in its place is a taste of Divine Love.
A love so real, a love that transcends.
This love cannot be replicated any other way. The world will tell us otherwise. It will say that love costs too much and if we give everything we’ll have nothing left for ourselves. It’ll say that this love is actually somewhere else, maybe over there by ourselves or with someone new.
That’s all lies. For this love can only be found after the price is paid. The price of our very selves, in times and situations we can’t bear and yet somehow do.
Because we can bear them. And we can choose to love through some pretty difficult things.
And instead of escaping this task or dreaming of an easier life, it is well worth it to simply pay the price.
Because what we receive in return is actually priceless.
Marriage will cost me everything. But what I get back is beyond anything I am able to give.
Take it from someone who knows the real cost of marriage. Take it from someone who chose to be married again after laying her life down for her spouse so that, in laying his own life down too, he may taste God for all eternity.
I chose to undertake marriage once again not simply to have a companion. I chose to marry Alex because I was unable to reach even further heights of love without him. I chose to walk another spouse to his Creator and, in doing so, am being brought even closer to mine.
Like it did the first time, this marriage will cost me everything, too.
Who knows what price I will have to pay now or in the future to continue loving Alex. But whatever that price is, I will pay it. Whether it costs me time, dreams, money, sleep, my ego, or my very life, I will do what it takes to love.
And here’s the kicker…we can’t pay this price on our own. We need prayer, the Sacraments, we need examples and the Saints, we need grace to muster up the actions to love as we should.
But what no one talks about is what you actually get by paying this price.
In walking Mike to heaven, I received the gift of a glimpse into the other side of the veil. In combining lives with Alex, I received the gift of knowing God’s love in and through resurrection after the cross.
You see, after the weariness of crawling into bed, of finding more to give to Alex after I thought I had nothing left (of finding more to give to Alex after not wanting to give more to him and still choosing to do so) something changed once again inside of me.
I found a part of myself I’ve been trying to tap into. It is a place of peace and joy on another level, a sense of pride in being able to love someone in an even greater sense, no matter what happens to me. The greater good for the other, even if I got nothing back.
And I didn’t remember the price it took to get there. I only recall the gift that was returned to me a thousand fold in paying it. Pressed down, shaken together, and overflowing.
Because in doing do, in paying this very price, I received a Love that is beyond anything I am worth in receiving. A foretaste of heaven in the doldrums of marriage. A kiss of the divine after the kiss of a spouse.
All of it meant to call us out of ourselves, to taste and see the goodness of the Lord in and through paying the ultimate price.
The price of real Love.
Love, Kristine
~~
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