It’s Thanksgiving again. However I think it has become a day to feast and watch football. So I am going to do my best in this post to talk about what I am most thankful for. No, I am not going to get all sentimental and cheesy. Stay with me and you may like this post.

What I am most thankful for in my life is my marriage. My marriage means so much and teaches me truths I would not have known unless I was married.

What I love most about my marriage is how simple it is. Stay with me and I will explain.

So Mitch, how is marriage simple?

Saying how simple my marriage is sounds strange and may even be kind of an oxymoron. Our marriage did not start simple and it has never lacked complexity. However we get better at marriage every year that we are together. We have simply realized that we only have so much time and energy in each day. We have only been trusted with a certain amount of money as well. It is important to us how we budget and spend the resources that God has trusted us with. That was a simple reality that has changed the way we live our lives together and in the real world.

But life is so hectic sometimes and it’s hard to find balance.

Life can be hectic and can quickly find its way out of balance. You have to work to get things back into balance. During our first year or so of marriage we worked hard and did not have as much time together as we would have liked. My wife and I work outside of the home and both of our jobs can sometimes cause us to work longer hours than normal. However we’ve learned to make it a point to spend time together and put it on our calendars.

We also have different personalities, but a lot of the same interests which make spending time together so enjoyable. We both love cooking together, music, travel, sports, great food, and we love talking about things that matter to each of us. Our values also align, which is so important, and we still make each other laugh and smile.

What’s so important about marriage that your are writing a whole post on it?

What is important about a marriage is it is the only relationship in the world that can show the love between God and His bride. We all can look at marriages and learn. We have the ability to explore the mysteries of God in marriage.

One thing that I have learned in marriage, that I hope other people can learn, is that marriage is not always equal (you give 50%, I give 50%). Sometimes one partner will be carrying a heavier load than the other. Sometime you will carry a heavier load. The point is to be a support for your spouse and to sometimes make sacrifices for your spouse. Sometimes you will have to give 90% of yourself. But you know what? You bring out the best in each other, and your support and giving  love is the way to do that.

If you are giving of yourself and your spouse is giving of themselves, you will begin to model a “how-to” do this thing called marriage and not a “how-not-to” to your kids and grandkids.

All that to say this:

As we enter the Holiday Season, be thankful for your loved ones and your marriages. Even if you are not in a marriage, every relationship gives you chance to be thankful and a chance to give of yourself to them.

It’s important to realize that your life does not belong to you. It belongs to the one who gave the ultimate sacrifice, and you are here to give of yourself and leave your mark. You were given gifts and talents to give of yourself.

It is important to give of yourself. It is important to have relationships and to give selflessly to those relationships. It is not possible to have a fulfilling life without having open arms to give to others. If you close up and decide not to give of yourself (which is pretty selfish), and you decide to go it alone, you will find anything that you get from life will be meaningless.

You and I were made for relationships. We were made for God and for each other. We need each other. So remember what you should be truly thankful for this Holiday Season, the relationships with your husband/wife, your children, your family, your friends.

All this because when you give, you will have so much more to be thankful for. That’s how simple it really is!

I was born on September 20, 1982. A significant day for me, because I was born. On May 25, 1984 something happened that would change my life forever that I would not realize until 21 years later. Rebecca was born on that day. 21 years later I would ask for her hand in marriage. God had created my companion and best friend, but I had not a clue. “God demonstrated this goodness by creating us male and female. . .who were made to be together and to find ourselves as we give ourselves away.” (Justin Taylor)

I believe whole heartedly that a great spouse is not found accidentally without guidance from God. You see a great spouse is a gift from God and does not come, as some imagine, in answer to our planning and sizing up. (Paraphrased from Martin Luther)  From day one we see that God purposefully creates Adam and Eve for each other, perfectly suited for each other. Which lets me know that if God made my wife, Rebecca, he must be in love with me.

What is interesting in this thing called marriage is that we truly find ourselves when we give ourselves away completely. Completely and unselfishly we are to give ourselves to each other. For a marriage to work it has to be all or nothing. Thomas Howard explains in the mystery of love, as God planned it, “No one can ever figure out who is doing the giving and who the receiving.” Real lovers, “know that giving and receiving are a splendid and hilarious paradox in which, lo, the giving becomes receiving, the receiving giving until any efforts to sort it our collapse in merriment or adoration.”

So giving, receiving, being unselfish, what does it means to echo Eden? I can't really explain the mysteries of marriage and love, but I have a hint of what the echoes of Eden include. It includes what I have written above and so much more.

The echoes of Eden are apparent when I kiss my wife and I still get weak in the knees, it's her touch, her smile that picks me up and gets me through. It's that gleam in her eyes. It's the slow dances, the candle light dinners. It's when I am away I miss her, it's when I feel down because she is down. “These are the echoes of Eden, reflections of what we were created for, hints of the passion and freedom, that awaits on the other side of heaven's door.” (Steven Curtis Chapman)

True echoes of Eden come when you are completely and unselfishly committed to the one you love. That is where the passion and freedom comes from. It all amounts to this, “The quality of life does not consist in the number of experiences on has, but in the depth of commitments.” (Ben Patterson)

4 years ago tomorrow I said “I do.” 6 years ago in December I asked my wife if we could exchange vows, and on January 1, 2010 it will be 7 years since our first date. Those seven years have been the absolute best years of my life, because I have spent them with my best friend.

I remember the first time I said “I Love You!” I really thought I loved my wife then, but I had no idea the love I would feel today. I had no idea that if you let it, love will grow and be unspeakably more that you can even imagine. Of course we have ups and downs, which make me love her even more.

For the next couple of days I am going to make posts on marriage in honor of our anniversary. So for my first post, things I wished I would have known then. . .when I got married. These are things that no one seems to tell you.

1. When you are at your rehearsal, wedding, wedding reception people seem to have all sorts of advice on how to live “Happily Ever After.” I then realized that a lot of these people are not happily married themselves, some were not even married (divorced, never married). Some of there advice worked, most did not.

2. Have a bad experience with a roommate in college, heard horror stories? Well, some days in marriage you will experience the worst roommate ever. I find this especially true for the women. Trying to change a man’s habits and trying to domesticate him can be pretty hard. Remember that they used to leave cereal bowls out all day, clothes and underwear in the floor, and cleaning the bathroom? It works both ways. You can’t get rid of this roommate and the beauty is that you learn to love each other for who you really are.

3. Most wedding arguments early in marriage is because neither one of you know anything about money. You run up debt, so then you argue because you’re stressed about debt. May a suggest Financial Peace University (early in your marriage or before)? http://www.daveramsey.com/fpu/home/ After that, most arguments will be about being loved and adored. If you do not have to worry about debt and finances, most arguments are about not feeling loved or adored.

4. Marriage is constantly practicing patience, acceptance and compassion (kindness), not being jealous, not being prideful, not being rude, selfish, easily angered. And the tough one. . .you do not keep score, no records of who wronged who. See love is not that feeling you get, it is actual love, practicing all these things. That’s a tall order.

5. Your spouse doesn’t think like you and you do not think like them. Neither one of you can read minds. You both should complement each other. The art is studying your spouse to understand them better. You study what is important to you, you should take time and observe.

6. When you say “I Do”  your primary relationship is to your spouse and no one else. You have now started your own family. Even when you introduce children your primary relationship should be with your spouse.

7. Marriages will never outgrow a need for romance. Both need it and want it. Make time every week for a date night alone. You need to get away and really talk and concentrate on each other and nothing else. You need to make time for intimacy, it is very important. If it wasn’t so important there would not be a whole book in the Bible about it. (Song of Solomon)

8. It is ok to read books about marriage and improving marriage. Some of the best conversations in our marriage has come from our spiritual journeys together. It's like uncovering treasures buried when you read books from people that know about marriage and have been there.

9. One of the greatest gifts you can give is happiness. It really zaps the energy out of the marriage if someone is always negative. You can change your spouse’s whole day and yours if you can be happy even when they are not.

10. If something else is taking your best energy, you marriage will begin to suffer. If you have a demanding job, save your best energy for your spouse. The excuses of having no energy at home will get old and the feeling loved and adored will go. Keeping your best energy away from your marriage will put a distance between you and your spouse. Having energy will spark love, passion, romance, intimacy.