Five years ago, I was at a wedding rehearsal dinner and I was seated next to Lula Rawls, a quiet, elderly woman who had been married for over sixty years. She was the grandmother of the groom; and in light of all the hopefulness surrounding the young couple’s nuptials, I wondered what wisdom she had to offer.
The other day, my wife and I got into an argument over whether we needed to buy a bike. And although we recognize that this is not a huge deal in the grand scheme of things, somehow it escalated to the point that we were both starting to raise our voices. But then my wife suddenly looked out the window behind me and said, “Oh my gosh.” I couldn’t help but look.
When I was single, I assumed engagement would be one of the easiest and most blissful parts of my relationship with my future spouse. But the day after I asked my fiancée, Raquel, if she would marry me, I discovered how wrong I was.
Although I got a lot of things wrong when I was dating, I had one general policy I still do not regret: I felt it was best to keep my hands off the women I dated.
According to a recent study by the Barna group, at least 70 percent of single, self-identified Christian men view pornography on a monthly basis. Many Christian women probably look at this statistic and fear being stuck with a husband who’s more aroused by his smartphone than her. But I’m more worried many of these men will never get married at all.
I’ll be frank: when my mom first shared her zany idea for my wedding rehearsal dinner, I had my doubts. She had this idea that since I’m a lawyer, she would go with a courtroom theme. She would play the judge, and my fiancee and I would have to call “witnesses” to prove that we really should get married. You can imagine how weird and awkward this could have gotten, but it didn’t.
If there’s one thing that married folks quickly forget after they tie the knot, it’s this: Singleness often hurts. The most frustrating part for a lot of single people who desire marriage is the mounting pressure to get on with it, to find (or be found by) someone now. The unspoken judgment seems to be that the single man or woman would be married if there weren’t something wrong with them.
It was my first year of law school, and I was single. I wanted to be married, but it didn’t matter. I was spending 12 hours a day in class or in the library, so there wasn’t any real chance of my getting to know anyone.
It’s amazing how quickly unintended destruction can happen to a home. A few years ago in my hometown, a family was shooting bottle rockets in front of their house on New Year’s Eve. Someone lit a rocket and accidentally tipped the bottle over. The rocket shot out, flew through the open door, and into the Christmas tree.
Recently, I was headed down Connecticut Avenue in the morning while it was still dark. There are several pedestrian crosswalks on that street that nobody uses at 5:20 a.m., so I was understandably surprised when I saw an old man standing in the middle of the street waving at me and yelling.
The last three months have been pretty hard on my family. A lot of it had to do with me traveling too much for work and struggling to find the time to complete a challenging feature article. Plus, the girls started school, which changed our whole routine, and my poor wife has gotten pretty sick a couple of times. And as much as I hate to admit it, somewhere in the midst of all that stress, my wife and I stopped being our best selves with each other.
I’m the kind of guy who likes to chat with taxi drivers en route to my destination, and recently, I had two drivers who provided a little bit of perspective on marriage.
A couple of years ago, I was talking to a young fiancee who was upset because her future in-laws didn’t like her. As she shared her experience, it was hard to believe that these adults, who were otherwise decent people, could be so socially tone deaf, so oblivious to their own unkind words and actions.
I have a confession to make: before my wife and I had children, I didn’t read one parenting book. I know, I know – I’m such a bad father. However, believe it or not, three years after the birth of my youngest child, I finally read a book for new parents, and the reason is simple: the author interviewed me for it and included a couple of essays I’ve written. So basically, I read the book to see how I sounded in it.
Hey, single men out there, I want to tell you a story. A couple of Saturdays ago, I was doing Daddy Daycare at the house with my two daughters when I asked my three-year-old a question.
Joshua Rogers 