Shann and I will be married for thirty-five years this June. A young man asked us if we were glad we married young in light of so many people feeling they made mistakes by marrying too soon. Shann and I both feel so much gratitude for the gift of marrying young. We needed so much work—hard, difficult, life altering work. I needed him to become a better person. He has everything I need to become more whole, more complete, more like Christ. All the attributes I pray for every day he models such as patience, tough mindedness, follow through, resilience; a beloved example to learn from in my day to day.

I am everything he needs to be more like Christ: full of passion, empathy, flexibility, delight, righteous anger and holy emotion. He deeply needs me, and I deeply need him.

This took time to learn but I am grateful because if I was older, I might have been too stuck in my ways. At first, I wanted to be Shann’s teacher, his dominating teacher wanting to shame, rebuke, remind, and lecture him.  Shann wanted to be my poor teacher. He says he used control, lecture, blame and shame as well. As we fought each other in our pursuit to reform and educate the other, we moved farther from our spiritual goals. What a foolish circle of chasing and blaming.

Then, instead of focusing on instructing the other on how to live, we switched the intention from teacher to becoming a devoted student of the other; instead of lecture, praising each other’s virtues, instead of focusing on shortcomings, focusing on the other’s strengths, instead of demanding him to learn my skill set, studying what he does well, requesting recommendations in his storehouse of talent and knowledge.

Eureka! Instead of blame, we thank instead. I praise God for this complete turnaround and for His gift to me in the beloved friendship of a lifelong friend and teacher.

“As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” Proverbs 27:17

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