Anniversary Reflections

Today, my husband, Jonathan, and I have been married for three years.

Jonathan and I got married about ten days before moving from our town in Alabama to St. Louis, where (two days laters) I was going to start a summer job and (two weeks later) he was going to start summer Greek for seminary. We were both going to be full-time graduate students that fall.

These first couple of years of marriage have been…non-traditional. The “broke grad student” part of that time has been probably the most normal part of it. In the course of these three years, we had to temporarily move back home during the 2020 shutdown; we’ve faced health emergencies, upsetting diagnoses, deaths in the family, and periods of heart-deep hardship. But, in all of it, I have always been so incredibly blessed to have been struggling through it with Jonathan.

I think about before Jonathan and I started dating, back when we were just friends. I remember riding shotgun in his SUV, my constant chaperone while I waited first on getting my driver’s license, then on getting a car. I remember making each other laugh so hard we cried at the absolute stupidest things imaginable, and then a few minutes later having some serious conversation about history or politics or religion. But one of the things that I remember most was the incredible feeling of safety I felt around Jonathan. I used to joke that, in the event of a zombie apocalypse, I was taking myself and everybody I knew to “find Lackey.”

I still feel like that. I have always felt like that. I will always feel like that. Whether it’s been the thing going “bump” in the night or the bug on the ceiling or the copperheads in the river or the dark night of my soul, Jonathan is always there, always ready, always willing to do whatever it takes to shelter me. He so well embodies “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25, ESV). I do not always do a very good job at holding up my end of that passage, but that has never stopped Jonathan from patiently, lovingly doing his part.

I love you, Jonathan. Happy anniversary.