A series. (With Many Notes on Marriage & Singleness)

Some of you may remember a vintage comic by Kim Casali. I'll give you a hint: the comics were one panel, with one repetitive phrase, and... the characters were always naked. Sometimes they wore hats or glasses. Haven't guessed it yet?

I'm referring to the "Love Is..." comic strip. Each panel had a separated phrase like "Love is... taking the seeds out of her watermelon." Between the two phrases there was a comic of the only two characters, a girl and a guy, and the comic would illustrate the phrase. They were all extremely adorable, once you stopped being bothered by their perpetual nudity. They were pretty tasteful, for the most part. (Like this one, for instance.) It was pretty popular during the 60s and 70s. But, I digress. (Although before I stop digressing, I would like to mention that Kim Casali's story is intriguing. Look her up!)

So I have this "Love Is..." notebook. I've had it for approximately 5 years. I've never opened it because it's just so stinking cute. But I glanced at it in my stationary drawer today (yep, I've got one of those) and it started me thinking--love is lots of things. It would probably be a good writing adventure to come up with different "love is" topics. It would be even more of an adventure to write on different "marriage is" topics. And then I started thinking about a whole CIRCUS of ideas and metaphors and themes, so before I knew it, I'd come to a fantastic decision about my next blogging endeavor.

I've decided to start a blog series about marriage. On Wednesday the 25th I just completed 3 whole years of marriage. I'm no longer considered a newlywed, which is slightly sad and insanely exciting. All it really means is that the thoughts and ideas I've had in my head for the last 3 years are finally "old" enough to be respected by some of the public.

I'm not going to preach at anybody. I'm probably not even going to give you advice! I am, however, going to make this series funny and creative--this is me we're talking about. So today I'm going to give you a little taste of what that will be like. I'm running with the "metaphor/simile" theme, because it will give me a little consistency.

Marriage is like... a rubber stamp and an ink pad.

It is not a self-inking stamp. Some might argue that it is or should be self-inking. It's not.*****

A marriage is made of two people. Two whole people, who are made whole by God alone, and are not whole just because they are married. They are perfect for each other, but they are separate beings. Just like the rubber stamp and the ink pad are perfect for each other, you might even say they're made for each other, but they certainly are separate. (If they weren't separate, I wouldn't lose ink pads and stamps so often.)

The difficult thing is, the stamp and the ink don't fully function by themselves. Even though they're whole. Even though God made them that way. Even though they're separate.

The rubber stamp is very pretty all by itself.

Or, maybe it's not pretty. Maybe it just has the date on it. It's backwards, and a little hard to read.

The ink pad is also very pretty by itself. It, too, has some functions. It can still make marks. Like smudges, or big blobs. Still, we all know that's not the best way to use an ink pad.

But look at what they can do together.

*****A separate note on self-inking stamps.
******I KNOW THAT MY PHOTOS ARE NOT OF AN ACTUAL SELF-INKING STAMP. IT WAS THE BEST I COULD DO WITH MY LIMITED (BUT AWESOME) STAMP COLLECTION.

Yes, sometimes these stamps are made. They can be very handy, and have lovely designs. They are often used for addresses. However, they weren't meant to be used or paired with other things. You might find it extremely frustrating to try to soak the ink from a self-inking stamp onto a plain rubber stamp. Likewise, it would create quite a mess (and ruin the self-inking stamp, I might add!) if you tried to use a self-inking stamp with a regular ink pad.

It's because they were created to be self-inking. They are intended to work alone, in the same way that God calls some people to singleness. They create something beautiful without any other people, or other stamps, or other inks. I find this incredible.