In Sickness and In Health

Apparently, my number is up and it's my turn to be sick. I've been sick for the past few days, but I'm feeling a little better now. I live by myself in a studio apartment, and I was soon reminded of how dismal it is to be sick and alone. I wondered how long it would take for people to discover if I had died in my apartment. A week ago, I gave a sermon on Heaven at our church, and I pictured people testifying at my funeral and saying things like "God recently prompted Ryan to speak on being homesick for Heaven and now he is there, how beautiful! (or ironic?)." When I'm sick, I start to develop cabin fever from being quarantined for hours and hours watching mindless, melodramatic movies. When I was little I sometimes hallucinated when I got sick. During one delusion, I watched a monster truck drive over our house, crushing me inside. I hope I don't die like that.

Oddly enough, being sick makes me think about marriage more. Maybe, that's selfish or maybe that's by design. Meaning that when we feel fragile and vulnerable it makes us need others. Especially God. I pray more when I'm sick. Not just prayers for healing, but prayers that are more like conversations. Maybe, it's just the cabin fever setting in or maybe sickness slows us down enough so that we're able to simply enjoy God's company. Illness often helps me rethink my life because I'm reminded of how mortal I am. It is humbling that a little germ can come in like a Trojan horse and conquer me from the inside out, leveling me for days.

I wonder which will be more glorious in marriage, to share happy moments or to share hardships? I'm beginning to realize that I look forward to both. These days, I find myself fantasizing about the reality of marriage (if that make sense), and that's a big step for a dreamer. In wedding vows, the words "for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health" have always sounded bittersweet and ominous to me, a death-wish of sorts. But I'm realizing that to love each other during the low points is actually a more blessed love. Real love seems to go deeper during the storms, and if two people love each other through those times then they will emerge closer in the end. In other words, when life gets hard, it is an opportunity to love harder.

Honestly, I have become so independent, that it's difficult to imagine becoming "one" with somebody else. I'm sure that I will get the better end of the deal. It is remarkable how marriage speaks of our "oneness" with God. Often, I feel like I'm trying to earn a oneness with God that I already have. I try to make myself more presentable, even when my heart is ill. But God knows and He continues to love me "in sickness," shouldering my burdens and nursing me back to health. And in the end, I feel closer to Him. More in love with Him. Desiring to do nice things for Him.

I thought I was done with this blog and then I realized that I left a culprit unaccounted for. We writers have a tendency to beautify things with lilting words, often avoiding reality. For instance, even the phrase "in sickness and in health" still carries with it a certain poetry. Part of the problem is that we are groomed to believe that love is always dramatic. But I just realized that it is neither the highs or lows that characterize most marriages, but it is the in-betweens. After all, that's where we spend most of our time, in the ever-present mundane. It is still somewhat romantic to think of loving someone through the dramatic lows, and yet I wonder if it isn't harder to love someone when there isn't any drama at all. Maybe, wedding vows should include the promise to love "even when it's dull and boring." Nobody looks forward to a marriage full of paying bills and cleaning the house and visiting the doctor. And yet those things are a part of the ordinary rhythm of life, whether we are married or not. I think I'm onto something. When there is no drama, we let our guard down, and it seems like that would be the most opportune time for the cunning devil to have his way with a relationship. So, I need to love not only when it feels good or bad, but especially when it doesn't feel like anything. In our relationship with God, we call that faith. The Christian life is often less epic than we make it sound. We soon find that it is hardest to live for God when Heaven seems to have stopped singing over us.

I think that the purpose of marriage is different than what most people look forward to. And it seems to be the same thing with Christianity. We sign-up to receive the benefits of love, but we are only able to relish it when we become mature enough to give it. It's the point in life when a child realizes that Christmas isn't about getting presents or eating cookies, but that it's about giving. That's why selfish people never find love, they don't recognize it, they're looking for the wrong thing.