This question deserves a post all on its own.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

Without a doubt, Ishi. By the time mid-November rolled around, I had several large writing assignments looming on the horizon and the end of the semester was approaching at the speed of light and sound combined. I was a physical and emotional wreck. Fractious, impossible to please, and panicky. But also strangely unresponsive to the pressing concerns around me. Instead of working or doing anything remotely productive, I would spend hours trimming the split ends off my hair, or playing some ridiculous online game. Then something would set me off, like, oh I don’t know, the sound Ishi’s feet made as he walked into the room? It really didn’t take much. And then I would snap at him, and sometimes cry. I frightened myself.

Ishi was an absolute rock. The kind you cling to in the middle of a raging river. The kind you pray for when you’re hiking and you slip on a particularly steep grade. The kind that gets up at 4:00 in the morning and makes a Timmy’s run for the double-double that will keep you out of bed as you struggle to get just one more page written. The kind who does the laundry, the shopping, and the spontaneous rubbing of tight, aching necks and shoulders.

The kind who holds you when you’re sobbing so hard you’re gasping, convinced you’ve gone as far as you can go and it’s all over, and tells you how proud he is of you. That you make him want to find the money to send you to this school as long as you want. That everything you see as a failure, he sees as an achievement and as another reason to love and respect you.

He outdid himself. It was nothing short of the absolute best he has ever done when it comes to loving his wife as Christ loved the church. He had his own stress and exhaustion to deal with and yet during those crushing weeks, he never uttered one complaint to me. I felt utterly borne up and sheltered, and the love I feel for him now as a result is tremendous in its weight and depth.

Even better, we both felt a hot and intense deepening of our love for God, as though we were being bathed in it. It suddenly felt very easy and natural to pray out loud together, and we’ve started doing even more praying than before. Truly, when husband or wife loves well, the effect is powerful and delightful. No wonder God loves marriage!