“Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm; for love is as strong as death, it’s jealous as unyielding as the grave. It burns like a blazing fire, like a mighty flame.” (Song of Songs 8:6 NIV)
This winter, it will have been twenty five years since I met and fell in love with Rob Thoreson. Looking back at my seventeen-year-old self, I realize I may have been a blissful blend of ignorance and hope. When future planning grew serious between us and we began to talk about rings, I told Rob that I didn’t care about the size of the stone, but it had to be perfect – as flawless as he could afford. Of course, he was a Bible College student with no money at the time but I happened to work for a jeweler, so he had access to a deal. As someone in the diamond industry, I was convinced that quality was more of a priority than quantity when it came to carats. I also possessed some untried theory about how my diamond would reflect our relationship: practically perfect in every way.
Of course my lovestruck beau came through. He got down on one knee with an emerald cut .42 ct D color VVS1 daintily set in a tiffany band and I said “yes” of course, with very little understanding of what marriage really meant. Who knows anything at seventeen? I’ve worn my near-flawless diamond on my left hand for well over two decades now: a lasting symbol of my commitment and my misconception.
Last week I met a woman wearing a storm cloud diamond. Someone in our group noticed the unique nature of her stone and she announced that after eighteen years of marriage, she and her husband had recently settled on the moody, grey and included stone as an ode to their union. She has decided to find beauty in the mess of two broken people learning to live as one flesh.
I was taken aback by her profession. I though back to my single self and how utterly clueless I had been to the intricacies of matrimony. I went into my marriage with impossible expectations and consequently set myself up for devastating disappointment.
My long-time married, more mature self knows that my relationship with my spouse is a living entity: subject to change, entropy, disease and death. It will never be perfect because it is a covenant between two fallen people still learning to cooperate with the sanctification process. Maintaining a healthy marriage will always require work: attention, intention and prayer. Even with proper care and feeding, marriage is still often tarnished and fraught with extenuating circumstances – the clouds and inclusions of a life lived together.
It was with this in mind that I began reconsidering my engagement stone. See, when my mom passed, I inherited a beautiful round brilliant. It had been my grandmother’s. It’s has to be over a carat. This stone sits in the bank vault because despite it’s stunning color, it has an obvious inclusion that catches my eye every time I glance over it. (Jeweler’s curse, I suppose.) My brain balks at the obvious gash in perfection and I don’t wear it because it bugs me.
After the encounter with my friend bearing the storm cloud diamond, I’ve reconsidered Grandma’s ring. It’s time to take it out of the lockbox and take it for a test-drive. Marriage is never perfect, but remarkable nonetheless.
“Many waters cannot quench love, rivers cannot sweep it away. If one were to give all the wealth of one’s house for love, it would be utterly scorned.” (Song of Songs 8:7 NIV)
*I chose today’s scripture because it is the reference I engraved
on the inside of our wedding bands all those years ago.*
Lord, we acknowledge today that marriage is messy and hard, but still beautiful. Help us embrace the clouds and the inclusions. Exchange our illusion of perfection for the reality of grace. Let us live confident in Your ability to redeem all things, including the hard or hurtful places in our marriages. Be glorified by our union. Amen.