The road to tomorrow

Leah's taking care of a thousand and one things to ensure the wedding day will run smoothly, and she's doing a remarkable job at it. But while I am happy to support her on her choices on the details she want for the wedding, there is one thing in all the preparations that we need to do which I'm not only vigilant with, but actually eager to pursue: the marriage counseling.

What is God's will in marriage? How can we love our in laws, despite the initial difficulties we have encountered? How should we handle the issue of money, especially since she's earning a ton more than I do? What's the godly way of raising kids? Is it better to keep the things that happened in the past buried or should we raise them like zombies? How do you keep the romance alive through the years? How do we break down the walls that we have built our entire lives and start living as one? Why is a man asked to love the woman, while the woman asked to submit to the man? What are the tips to having a mind-blowing sex life? And most importantly, on the moments when the thing we want most is to stab each other to pieces, where is the safest place to hide the knives?

These are just some of the questions Kuya Dong, our pastor, would guide us through in our sessions. They are far from being easy. Most of the discussions require us to look deep inside ourselves, oftentimes in areas we would rather keep hidden, and drag these baggages up into the open so we could surrender them to God.

It's difficult. It's painful. We think that some aspects of our personalities determine who we are (like Leah's fierce independence or my contempt for drama), but sometimes these traits are exactly what we need to work on. It's obtrusive, bothersome. Oftentimes I pity Kuya Dong when we're in our sessions -- with all our rants, he has to be our psychologist, our counselor, our Kuya, our pastor, our friend.

Truth be told, I would not normally allow myself to be subjected to such in-depth evaluation. Surprisingly, while I am usually set in my ways and 'obstinate' is the more polite description used for me (hard-headed ass is the common term), I approach these marriage counseling sessions not only with openness, but with hunger, because I know we need it. Past the pictures and the flowers, the venue and the food, the number of guests or the honeymoon, or even how much we profess to love each other now, facing these issues and realigning our lives with biblical principles is the only way to ensure that we would still be honoring each other five decades from now. It's not our money or our jobs or any form of preparation that will determine our future -- it is this: the surrender to our God, the gift of His grace, His headship in our marriage.

And though we are imperfect and -- as Kuya Dong is unfortunately subjected to every session -- and we still have a lot of things we need to work on, I am confident of this wedding not because of what we can do, but because I know my God is faithful to His promises (that He will not stop until the good work He started in us is finished), regardless of how flawed we are.