Happy One year Anniversary C & A!
June 4, 2023. One year!
Dear Clayton and Amanda –
The farther I get from being married the less I feel I can give advice. It feels irrelevant and yet I remember so much that I learned by being married to your dad. You have one year down and many more to go! Perhaps you have talked together or with friends about the perceptions of what married life would be like compared to the reality you have experienced.
Some of my favorite things about being married and that I miss include:
- Going to bed and waking up next to your best friend each morning!
- Praying with, living with and sharing life with your best friend!
- Being tied to Jim’s successes and his name
- Safe and endless intimacy – lots of hugs and kisses.
- A perfect traveling companion
- Relentless encouragement to stick to your goals, or break bad habits. Someone who is committed to helping you be someone better than you ever imagined!
- Laughter – all the time
- Being able to trust telling him or her anything and know that it won’t change the state of your love
- Making and raising children together
- Finding new ways to creatively, specifically, and selflessly love each other and God.
You now know more about each other and have created rhythms and habits that will continue to inform the relationship you enjoy in the future, One of the habits your dad and I started was to reflect on the past year and set a new goal for the upcoming year both as a couple and as individuals and we would work to help each other succeed.
We celebrated our marriage each year with awe that we had made it and with open hearts for what was to come. We would listen to our wedding ceremony (on cassette tape!) with our unity candle lit (which I just threw out!). We looked at our wedding pictures and renewed and reread our vows to each other.
We regularly had what we called Compass meetings on Sunday nights where we would talk through the upcoming week of ministry and realign ourselves with God. We wanted to make sure we were heading in the right direction together. Even when circumstances are filled with trouble and weakness, marriage provides the strength to face the worst, while holding hands with the best. It is so true that we were made for God and not for love itself. We are made to serve God together, facing Him and not each other!
There are the typical ways you could spend your anniversary today. Year one traditionally means eating old wedding cake so perhaps you can get some fresh cheesecake!
The point is to honor your marriage. I love you both and regularly ask God to bless you and protect your marriage, Happy Anniversary!
Mom Mohler <+><