The Unexpected Consequence of Marriage

As my blog tagline says, I’m have a type A personality.  I am extremely organized and am always planning, planning, planning for the future.  It’s actually pretty annoying most of the time, but I suppose it makes me reliable and trustworthy, even if it means I’m a bit obsessive at times.  While Mr. Converse Sneakers and I were planning our wedding, I started to think about all of the consequences (both negative and positive) that getting married would lead to.  I went through periods of being ecstatic to be married because it would mean things like even greater security in our already very loving and secure relationship, but sometimes I would become weary of the future state of various friendships and my relationship with my parents.  I’m not sure why, but I assumed being married meant everything would change.  I would tell my friends my fears and they would comfort me saying, “Sarah, our friendship will not change after your wedding.  I promise.”  But, I was hesitant to believe them.  I thought I would direct all my attention to my new husband and the rest of the world would kind of disappear and that there was nothing I could do about it.

What I most scared about, though, was drifting apart from my parents.  Although I have an older brother, Mike,  I was raised mostly by myself, since he and I are fourteen years apart.  Couple that with living on a farm miles away from the nearest town, and you have yourself a girl who is used to seeing lots of her parents and shares a close bond with them.  I knew getting married would mean a shift in priorities.  I would be expected to put Mr. CS first as well as the future family we hope to have, but I thought it meant so much more than that.   I thought I would have to break the bond with my parents and give my love only to Mr. CS.  I thought there was only so much love to go around, so I was expected to give it all to him.  Little did I know that marriage brings more love than I could ever imagine.

I have a hard time describing it, but at our wedding, my heart was completely full.  Not full in that it had been filled to its maximum capacity, but full in that it was exploding and overfilling with all the love that was there.  It had no maximum capacity.  Mr. CS’s family was now mine.  My parents were now his parents.  My parents were now related to his family and vice versa.  Looking around the beautifully decorated room that day, all I could really see was the Lord blessing me with more love and support than I knew how to deal with.  I learned I had to do nothing but soak it all in and cherish it.  Not only did I not drift away from my parents, I actually grew even closer with them.  I brought to them a new son and the fact that they accept him truly as a son fills my heart in ways unexplainable through words.  I did not expect marriage to bring us all together in such a unified way, but it has, and I’m not going to let it change.
*both photos were taken by Leah Maria Photography.