We sat across the table from a childhood friend a few weeks back at a brewery in East Nashville talking about his startup company that launched a few years back and what that journey had been like.
‘You know how a lot of people tell you before you get married that marriage is really hard?’ he said comparing his startup to marriage. ‘Well yeah, some days it is hard, but there are so many days in between that are just another day, another day at work, slowly building and creating.’
What he said struck a chord that breezy evening on the patio over cold brews because that is much the way I feel these days in our marriage, that we are living in the days in between.
Before we got married a few years back, we were predominately told two things about marriage. (1) Marriage is awesome and/or (2) marriage is really hard. These statements came from people who were, no doubt, well meaning and just trying to prepare us for what was ahead. But in reality, they didn’t give us the best idea of what to expect.
Marriage is awesome and marriage is also challenging but there are also a lot of days in between.
There are days that are just another day at work, slowly building and creating your life and marriage together.
The days in between are often filled with small victories and small losses.
The days in between are filled with;
cups of black coffee in the morning
goodbye kisses as you both leave for work
texts messages to make sure the dog was fed
evenings around the dinner table telling stories and recounting your days
loading the dishwasher while the other clears the table
snuggling up on the couch before heavy eyes carry you off to bed
and exchanging goodnight kisses before falling asleep to wake up to another day together.
Those are the days in between.
Those are the days that we don’t give much notice to because they are neither amazing nor particularly challenging.
But those simple days, the slow mundane ones where you are building a creating your lives and marriage together, those days are filled with such purpose and such simple beauty.
Without the days in between of building, practicing, and creating, the challenging seasons would be more frequent and the amazing moments would be more scarce.
These days in our marriage feel very much like the days in between and I am grateful for that. I am grateful for the days of building, practicing, and creating this life we have been given to live together.
The days in between are the days that give you the foundation and strength to see the hard seasons through and these are the days that make the amazing moments, the moments too sweet for words, just that much more incredible.