That's Mrs. Charming to You

I grew up with fairy tale visions of marriage, bolstered by a good solid one in my own home to watch and emulate. When I married David, it was in a military wedding, with him looking oh-so-handsome in his mess dress and a saber arch of 10 officers. [Military weddings are about as close as we can get to fairy tales for commoners.] But 15 years later, what happened to the "happily ever after"? Fairy tales morph into real life and princess brides morph into middle aged women with stress marks and stretch marks.

With all thanks to God and a willing husband, our relationship grew into something much more lovely than romance. It grew into a firm, committed, loving relationship with a Godly man heading the house and an adoring wife who is grateful every day for this great gift. Catholics see marriage as a vocation--roughly that means a state in life where God draws you toward increasing holiness. There are vocations to the priesthood and religious life as well as a vocation to living a holy single life. The vast majority of us are called to married life, but seeing it as a vocation took me a long time. Love alone is not sufficient. Love plus sacrifice is the Christian model. Best example? Christ on the cross---love plus sacrifice.

A few days ago, my toilet broke. Well, the handle to flush my toilet broke. The quick fix was removing the lid and manually lifting the plunger everytime. I told David about it and he promised to repair it. He replaced that third rate flusher with a brass one with metal chain. And that small act of love got me thinking about marriage. I have a Prince Charming who can even repair my throne.