Marriage Is: A Tent

I've been thinking recently about the words we use to define marriage. This blog series has allowed me to do that more freely, because I am dedicating real time, during real life, using my real marriage as a context in which to write this. We expect marriage to be so many things, and it is rarely any of those things all of the time--or sometimes it is none of those things, ever. We want it to be beautiful, but instead it's confusing. We want it to be glamorous, but instead it's messy. We want it to be interesting, and fun, and easy, but instead it's predictable and practical and--hard. 

And that's where people tend to lose interest--those sorts of words can cause people to disengage with things much less important than marriage. There is nothing romantic about messy, practical, or hard. Gosh, aren't those BAD things? Isn't it BAD for things to be hard?

If you think I'm making fun of you... I am. 

It is a childish perspective to believe that saying something is hard or difficult also means it is bad, or has some sort of negative aura. There are children I tutor several times a week, and at the end of each segment of the lesson I ask them their opinion about that particular assignment. "Was that easy, okay, or hard?" Most of the kids say "easy" 99.9999999% of the time. But occasionally a student says it was "hard." You might expect that these are the kids with dyslexia, or who come for lessons at 9am, but you're wrong. The kids who say things were hard are always my most academically-inclined students. When I ask them why it was hard, they tell me it was because they mispronounced "appropriate" once, or accidentally did problem #8 instead of #4 because they lost their place. I am not exaggerating. These students will get all of the answers correct, I will praise them for good work, offer encouragement when they get confused, and STILL if there was one slip up the entire process was "hard." They automatically connect "bad" things with the word "hard."

Isn't it silly to think that just because something is imperfect, it's difficult? And isn't is also silly to think that just because we say something is difficult, it's bad? And, to take it a step further, isn't it also completely ridiculous to think that just because something is easy, it's good?

There are plenty of hard things in life. Baking a pie, learning to ride a bike, driving in Chicago, making a tent, going to college, organizing paperwork, bathing your dog in a small bathroom, or being married. These are all things I actually quite enjoy, and they are difficult in varying ways, but today I am only going to talk about about two of them.

Today's topic! Marriage Is: A Tent.

I went camping this week, for the first time since my honeymoon (yep, we did that!) and man, was it fun. But it certainly wasn't easy! In fact, you might say it was pretty difficult. Some parts more difficult than others but for the majority of the trip it was all heartwarming difficulty with my best friend. 

First we organized our campsite by moving the picnic table and deciding on a good spot for the tent. Then we unloaded the car, and began putting up the tent. If you've never put up a tent before, you are seriously missing out. Maybe for some people this is a stressful experience, but for me, the work is very rewarding. (It would be more rewarding, except Joey likes to do a lot of it himself because it's manly, or something.)

So we dump the tent out of the bag, and for the next 20 minutes or so worked together to get it standing, get all the poles in the right place, and then we stood inside it to appreciate our efforts. Not a big deal, right? How the heck is marriage a tent? Where am I going with all of this? I'll be brief, this time. Promise.

1. You need 2 people to put up a tent. Sometimes you need more, if it's a bigger tent. During youth group retreats, we used to have these gigantic army tents. It took upwards of 10 people to get them up. A big tent like that can't be raised efficiently with just one set of hands. You've got to hold a stake here, stretch the canvas there, pull that pole this way. Marriages also need 2 people. You can't make one all by yourself--that's just weird.

2. Sometimes, you just have to trust the other person, even if they don't make sense. Joey is much more of a "tent expert" than I am. However, I am pretty quick at figuring things out, and I get a little thrill by figuring them out on the way. And yet, when he asked me to come hold a part of the tent or push something or find a velcro strap, I didn't argue. I just did it, because he was trying to build something with me, and if we both tried to put up the same tent separately, we would be intensely frustrated. In the same way, sometimes your spouse is going to ask you to do something that makes no sense, or something that you don't feel like doing. You might not want to take the trash out, or change a diaper, or get up in the middle of the night to make sure the front door is locked. But these are all important things, even if they don't seem like it.

3. Be patient. There are two people trying to do the same thing--but they can't read each other's minds. If that bungee cord snaps you in the face, it's probably not because your spouse was trying to give you a cool scar. In marriage, you will likely get hurt and assume someone did something on purpose--but they didn't! Don't jump to conclusions. Ask questions. Talk it out. Don't rush through the communication process.

4. When your tent is done, you now have a place of protection. You step inside, you zip up the door, and you are safe from the rain, sun, and raccoons. When you build a marriage together, if you've put all the parts together correctly, you have a place to come to when you need protection, or rest. 

Building the tent wasn't easy. It was hard. We bought this tent at a thrift store for $20 just a few months ago, so we'd never put it up before. I had to ask Joey to vanquish a few spiders. The pole for the door overhang kept coming undone. The canvas on top had all these tangled cords when we took it out of the bag. The whole process was difficult. But I loved it, and it was worth it. 

It was hard--harder than usual because it wasn't our old tent. But it wasn't bad. I don't look back on it and think, Well, I hope I never have to do that again.

Marriage is hard. It's hard because you have to step outside yourself every single day and love this other person with your whole soul. You have to deal with them rolling onto your hair while you sleep (Seriously, that hurts!) and not instincually punch them in the face because you're not quite awake. You have to remember to put the toilet seat down so your wife doesn't fall in (this is also a major catastrophe.) You have to make a very organized schedule because you share a car. You have to do so many things, and do them on purpose, and you have to say so many things on purpose (and purposefully apologize for the accidental things.) And it should be that way. Loving someone the right way should come naturally, because you love them and want what's best for them, but it should also require effort, intensity, and it should be intentional. 

I love my husband. My love for him comes second only to my love for God. He is my entire world. Loving him is not always easy, always fun, always glamorous. But it is always good, because God is love, and HE is good. 

Putting up a tent does not happen by accident. Building a marriage does not happen by accident. Love--the action, not the emotion--does not happen by accident. It's hard work. But it's GOOD.

**You may have noticed I'm not writing about singleness this week. But it's not hard to figure out. Singleness is a tent too... it's just smaller! Or, it's a huge tent for a big group of people. Then you have lots of hands. Either way, I find building a tent is incredible. : )