Last weekend, Cyndi and Katie and I drove up to Raton, New Mexico, for a family wedding: Cyndi’s cousin’s daughter got married. It was a fun time, and very few from Cyndi’s family were missing. And I should add, whenever Cyndi’s family gets together, the room will be full of the tallest long-legged people you’ll ever see in one place.
I wore my dark gray suit, the one I bought last summer from the custom tailor shop in Bangkok (it makes me feel sophisticated and well-traveled to say that). It’s lightweight suit and very comfortable, and Cyndi thinks I look sensational in it. As far as the wedding goes, suits were slightly outnumbered by cowboy hats. To me, suits seem more appropriate than cowboy hats, especially for an indoor wedding, but I’m not part of the cowboy world so I’m fuzzy on the protocol.
For the reception, they had a band from Des Moines that played a lot of great country dance tunes, and several songs from my high school days: Brown-Eyed Girl, Sister Golden Hair, Peaceful Easy Feeling, Amy, etc. But much to Cyndi’s (and thus, my) dismay, they played no slow dance songs and no waltzes. How can I flirt with my date if they don’t play a waltz or two? At least I was wearing the suit that drives her wild. That helped.
Weddings always start Cyndi and me talking about why we still like being married after all these years, and how our appreciation for each other has changed from when we began. The things we know and love about each other are so different from the things that originally attracted us to each other, yet they aren’t different at all. I told Cyndi, “The things I like best about you, about us, I wasn’t even smart enough to look for back when we were dating.�
I guess that’s true for every committed relationship. As we grow in the relationship, our needs change and we notice and learn different things about each other. In the beginning we aren’t smart enough to know what we need.
In the movie, The Constant Gardener, Tessa asked Justin Quayle to take her with him to his next diplomatic posting in Nairobi as his wife, in spite of the fact they were practically strangers. He said, “We hardly know one another,� and Tessa replied, “You can learn me.� And in fact, the plot of the movie is exactly that: Justin trying to learn Tessa.
And now, after 27 years of marriage, after 30 years of being in love, I realize I still hardly know Cyndi. But I’m learning her; and she continues to learn me.
In Soul Cravings, Erwin McManus wrote: “I’ve tried so many things and done so many things, certain they would satisfy my soul, but they never did.� Me too. I’ve gone through life thinking I knew what I needed. Looking for what I thought would be soul-satisfying, only to discover, years later, that what I really needed was so different from what I wanted, but what God gave me was exactly what I needed all along.
Jesus said, “Follow Me.� It was the same invitation Tessa gave to Justin. The future disciples hardly knew Jesus, they were practically strangers, and they must’ve wanted to know more details His ministry, yet Jesus said simply, “Follow Me.� First, make the commitment, then learn the answers.
Marry me, learn me, follow me … they are all the same request. Getting married is a commitment to learn each other, to learn each other’s stories, to learn each other’s families. Unfortunately, some people approach marriage more interested in changing the other person rather than learning them. It’s a selfish approach. It doesn’t sound like love to me.
And another thing about weddings that I’ve learned to appreciate: they’re a reminder that I’m not the analytical creature I’ve pretended to be all these years. The most important decisions of my life, to follow Jesus, to learn Cyndi, had nothing to do with logic or analysis. They were decisions of my heart, not my head. They were decisions to learn their stories, to join their people, to become one of them.
I will close with this: I have two entries in the memo portion of my phone. Both are descriptions Cyndi used once about me, one in a speech and the other in a personal note, and both are proof of her commitment to learn me. Both describe the man I hope to be, and I can seldom read either of them without crying. It is good to be learned. It satisfies my soul.
