If My Plain, Old, Grey Sweatshirt Could Talk…

For nearly twenty years I’ve been wearing a plain, old, grey sweatshirt from The Gap. The stitching has come loose underneath the right arm, there is a stain halfway down in the front, and after loads of washing it has seen better days. But again and again, I grab it  to throw on to wear around the house. It’s the perfect weight of warmth without being too bulky.

My husband bought it for me as a Christmas gift back in ’97 or ’98 when we were still relative newly weds. It’s not a top I would be inclined to buy for myself and probably not what he would get me now:), but I love it all the same.

Today we celebrate our twenty-first anniversary. And, one of the beauties of an anniversary (if we allow) is taking a walk down memory lane. It’s helpful for our marriages and good for the soul to go back in time to remember where we’ve been together, what we’ve endured, who we’ve become, and if necessary how to recapture what might have gotten lost along the way. Along those lines I began thinking: What if this plain, old, grey sweatshirt could talk? What has it been a part of that I have long forgotten?

So if it could, I imagine this is what I might hear it say…

“Remember all the times it felt like your baby girl would never stop crying?  You wore me as you anxiously waited to hand her over to another set of arms. Finally the door would open and no matter how long a day he had at work he took her so you could have a break.”

“Remember you were still wearing me several years later when now you had three little ones at home? You would have rather put on something nicer than me, to do something that felt more important – not so mundane – but what you were doing alongside your man way back then was shaping your babies to be who you see them becoming now.”

“Remember then all those nights you wished it was me you could put on with pajama bottoms, but your house was swarming with college students gathered to hear your man teach the gospel? God was using him to impact students’ lives, and now a family like yours then is pouring into your daughter in her college town. It felt lonely for you at times, being the wife of a college pastor, but the sharing your husband’s time has created a family rhythm of inviting friends and strangers in.”

“Remember the many games you endured on cold and rainy nights and I wasn’t nearly enough to keep you warm? You had to build a wardrobe of coats in a place you didn’t feel “home.” Over time though even Texans can adapt to change, but only God’s grace is what led you to call “good” that hard change. God’s grace in a marriage is not always the easy, desired path. Sometimes it’s the taking you through trial and suffering to force you to pull together, in what might otherwise break you apart.”

“Remember two years ago on your anniversary, you had plans to go out? Instead you wore me as he sat next to you on the couch helping you with book edits so you could make the looming deadline. That wasn’t romantic or fun, but you were in it together, doing real life.”

“You could say marriage is like me, it can sometimes feel plain as you grow old and grey, but in the ordinariness and the comfortableness and the history, is there anything better than knowing you are weathering time together? I would say for me too, loyalty and love has triumped because after all the times you’ve cleaned out your closet you’ve never considered tossing me!”

In these tiny snippets, I see God’s goodness to us in the “better or worse” of life. And I am so, so thankful for a life partner who loves Jesus, sees his sin, and points me and our children to do the same. So if you see me in my plain, old, grey sweatshirt this year or in twenty more, you’ll know it’s a celebratory symbol of God’s design in marriage to make the mundane a magnificent testimony of his grace.

Happy Anniversary, Pete:)

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