Advent, Day 23: a Christmas Marriage Letter

Travis,

Have I told you lately that you’re one of the hardest people to buy Christmas presents for?

It’s what I love about you, and what challenges my gift-giving heart to no end.

But the best part about who you are is that you’re constantly you.

We met in a season in which we were both transitioning–

I was learning college and stepping out of the traditional baptist church I’d grown up in,

and you were learning life without your jeep and a head of dreadlocks.

We grew fast and crazy together, and life wasn’t without its occasional bumps.

But you were that man then,

and you’re that man now.

Do you remember that Glen Hansard concert we went to in St. Louis?

Do you remember how it was worship to us, that it opened us up again,

reminded us to dream and feel and live in Spirit realms as well as human ones?

Marriage is the gift that allows us to watch someone else stretch and mold,

take new shape and try to sustain that deep, raw part of who they are

through each of those seasons.

This Advent, you are working hard at being a writer, political scientist and researcher, a husband to a woman who serves the church in every way she possibly can and a dad to two severely different toddler boys.

And still, you’re you.

Remember this Advent that the Savior Baby, born of Mary, calls out to you and me in all our seasons, in all our needs,

in all our wandering.

His voice beckons us to each other,

to home.

That is our greatest Christmas gift.

I love you.

Happy Advent,

Kait

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If you need a reminder that marriage is just as real life messy as it is sacred and beautiful, head on over to Seth or Amber’s blogs, my dear friends and the creators of the Marriage Letter movement.