I was watching an episode of Friends the other night, and, despite the fact that I’ve seen it 20 or 30 times, I was still surprised/confused by how excited Monica got about her “two-week anniversary” with her boyfriend, Fun Bobby. I put it in quotes because anniversary can’t refer to any number of weeks or months, since it has the word year (annos) built right in. Anyway, that’s not the point. I started thinking about how the way we experience time as single people is different from the way we experience it as married people.
As single people time passes in our relationships (sometimes before and between them) because we’re always watching the clock. We count the weeks, and months because they’re milestones…something of an achievement. But more than that we spend our dating relationships lying in wait for “the next step”. When you’re dating you wait to be exclusive, when you’re exclusive you wait to say, “I love you.” Once that happens you’re waiting for a proposal. Then you wait for the wedding. And all the while you’re watching the clock.
It’s easy to see why every week and month is important when you’re that concerned about what’s happening next. It’s been pretty different since I got married. December 1st was the anniversary of our first date. It was like one day we looked up and it was four years later. The last two and a half years have just flown by, especially when compared to the first year and a half.
I think a big part of it is that we’re not looking forward to the next thing. We want to have more children and hit life’s milestones, but we’re not counting the weeks and months. Now that the big leap has been taken, we’re able to just be together. Our relationship isn’t going anywhere, it’s there already. So basically instead of counting the travel time to our vacation spot, we’re on the beach, sipping (virgin) daiquiris.
I wonder if this is similar to the way we experience time now vs. the way we’ll experience it in heaven. Today Wade talked about waiting. He pointed out that patience is a major component in the Christian life: it was 25 years between God’s promise to Abram and Isaac’s birth; 400 years in Egypt; Moses spent 40 years in exile before God called him back to lead Israel out of captivity; 40 in the desert; 1000 between the Davidic Covenant and Jesus’ birth; and 2000 (so far) between his first and second coming. And during our lives we wait to be with Christ in paradise.
I think waiting in the Christian life can be very much like the way we wait in relationships. We have these milestones we want to achieve, and while everyone’s are different, we all have them. And eventually we’re waiting for the wedding. The event that will join us with our beloved forever. Now there’s no more waiting, no more counting. Once all hope is fulfilled, all that’s left is joy and contentment. Just another angle on the church as the bride of Christ.
