We Are On the Same Side
Dear Sister,
Many a little girl has dreamt of her wedding day. I never did. I remember so clearly when my day came...
I stood before him in delicate white lace and thousands of little beads and he stood before me with his vest and calla lily boutonniere as we said those words, “I promise to be faithful to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, to love you and to honor you all the days of my life.” We smiled and beamed in such incredible awe that this was real.
After five years of dating, it was happening. He was my husband and I was his wife. Just as I felt upon graduating high school, returning from missionary work, transferring colleges, and now this: the world was open to me. I could do anything. Now it was “we.” We could do anything. We could go anywhere. The world was open to us.
I could not really imagine what lay before us. These were our vows. We were on the same side. If we fought, we needed to remember the lessons we learned in dating. It is not, “me against him.” We are on the same side.
So the long vocational road led me to this: to marriage, to be his bride, to become the mother of his children. It was because I saw that he loved me as Christ loved me that I knew I could marry him.
As the years past, I would learn to love him as I learned to love God: to choose every day to love him, to accuse myself of my sins, to ask for forgiveness, to love even when love is the last thing on my mind.
The love I learned from him taught me how to love the Lord when the going got rough...
...as my infant son lay on that Pediatric ICU bed, just sleeping...sleeping so long and not waking because he is too weak...because he is two months old and below his birth weight.
...as we learned I was pregnant again before we were out of the present crisis and I lived half the time two hours away from home, at the hospital.
...as we learned this baby’s condition was genetic and I could be carrying another baby who could suffer the same.
...as we learned that it was much, much worse. The little baby inside me would die the day she was born.
We are on the same side. How could I have seen that on that day when I made those vows, that the success of this relationship would take me back to God, help me to trust him, at the very least, not to hate him? I learned to believe, as I sat on that hospital room, we are on the same side.
This is the journey of my life. Your life will look different. Your ups and your downs, your perfectly imperfect moments will all look different. Whatever you are going through, whether alone or with a partner, you are never alone. Someone is on your side.
With love,
Kathryn Casey
Get to know Kathryn
My name is Kathryn Casey. I am 31 years old. I am freelance writer, housewife, life coach, and in my heart of hearts, an artist.