You look across the aisle at your partner who has just a twinkle at his eye. You look at your reservation book, but it is blank. It seems as if you have to add a lot of money to your gift, but you credit it to your god-given talent for math. You know that you have to figure out how to do some real traveling in order to spread the gospel. You also know that for a small price you could end up somewhere you've never been before just by accepting a small offer. You try to find some sort of larger benefit to selling the tickets to those you love, and your decision is clear. You look up at your partner, who has an equally wide grin on his face, with a sense of intuition that he too had made the right decision.
"Well," he starts, "it looks like we have some time to play before we head home, right?” You're glad that your decision will bring you closer to your bride-to-be and her family, but you wonder if the feeling that you're missing something was in your imagination or real. It's no matter. You will feel her warmth and that's all you need. "And some fun, right?" You're glad that you can trust a man who is so good at math.
That evening, you and your fiancé have a lot of time to chat. The main topic for you is the many changes and obstacles that you are preparing for. Although at first you both said that you had a lot of hard questions about whether you should go to school or the ministry, recently you have been speaking more and more about how you will be a happy couple. You have nearly been speaking about how the two of you might start a family and eventually raise children. You can credit these recent expectations to the full day that you enjoyed unbounded togetherness a week, ago. You and your fiancé haven't been able to have that much time together in the past. You have realized that your fiancé has planned for a marriage that will give you both a sense of freedom, a sense of belonging, a sense of discovery, and a sense of child dancing skipping into life.
Besides the nearness of your impending nuptials, your partner has been quite the lively person for the past few months. He has shown a charming interest in the happiness of others. You can credit this to your fiancé’s candid honesty about the importance of tasks. You can attribute his rise in social grace to his aspiration to rise in his ministry. You can acknowledge his shift in temper to his changing attitude towards people. Besides your fiancé’s promotion at his new job, the last two years, and the first months in particular, have been quite an adjustment for you. You have found a home with your fiancé’s family, but you have also found yourself falling into a new attitude of habits and work. Your fiancé has shown that he wants you to grow in your ability to accomplish tasks, but his desire to establish a legacy has clearly inspired his dream for you. You wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. Your fiancé has always cared about you and to a certain degree you know that you have let this slip your mind.
“So listen. What do you think about living in two places? I’m thinking that the lodge could be a nice place for us to visit when we need a break from the family. So, when we go on trips to visit the family, we’d have this place to stay in.” Although your fiancé knows that you’ll be there to build your futures with him, he is already thinking about an alternative for needed space to explore. He’s focused on so many aspects of life: his job, his family, his faith, your future, and apparently now your ability to share the gospel. You don’t mind. He keeps you on your toes and you appreciate that quality. You don’t ask about his job or his church to make him uncomfortable. You don’t ask about his faith or even how he feels about your faith. You don’t even ask about his family. But you don’t ask him to tell you about himself either.
Soon you will teach at the same university that you attended at his and your first year together. As one part of the new program, you will teach space theology classes. You wondered to yourself how anyone could think about space and have a religion. But you have noticed that people like to know this stuff even if things like space aliens might seem perplexing to the common man. (space alien, space alien, space alien…)
You and your fiancé are still debating about your next couple of trips. While you’re looking through your itinerary for forthcoming trips, you still haven't even told your fiancé where your next destination might be such as Mars, Venus, Neptune, or even the moons around Mars. It’s been such a big subject that you’ve never really talked about. You tell your fiancé that you're looking forward to some adventures in the future and he’s always happy to hear that you're coming home. You have chosen your faith over him for that moment. So, for now, it is you who will decide where to go and when to go there. You really aren’t opposed to sending him packing one of these days. You know that if you take him in that direction and he does anything to make him uncomfortable, you’ll pull the plug.
Even with your fiancé so involved in his honor, you still resolve to have a big wedding. You're planning to have ten thousand guests with everyone knowing that this is the couple who is joining the people of the world. You have some work ahead of you, and to make things a little easier, you're going to need a very big tent. The sea is going to be quite prevalent, and you know that your fiancé is going to help you make it through this moment. He's going to be there with you, whether you like it or not. You don't mind, but you do look forward to the first moments you spend together as a married couple. At first, you looked forward to a nice blanket, but now you find the comfort of each other's company much more important than a little privacy. But, after you get married, you can have a very romantic night and enjoy the beach.
source