Original glory

Wedding Day…..31 years later as empty nesters

Those early moments of being in love with your person have to be some of the most wonderful of our lives.  As we all know, that intensity doesn’t last but over time either fades out or morphs into something different but also beautiful.  In our first decade of marriage whenever my husband would do something that annoyed me I would say only half-jokingly “You tricked me into marrying you!”  

          Then one day God flipped the script and I saw the deeper reality.  We do a lot of talking in the church about original sin but what about original glory?  Before Adam and Eve fell, they walked in perfect sync with God and each other.  “The man and the woman were both naked and not ashamed” (Gensis 2:25). I believe that all people were created with an original glory which is marred on earth but can be restored somewhat in this life and fully in heaven. What God showed me is that when we are in the early stages of love and our person can do no wrong, that is Him pulling back the curtain for a brief moment on their original glory.  It’s not that the person was lying or pretending; it’s that for a brief moment we saw them with God’s eyes as they were truly meant to be.  Then God closes that curtain lest we worship them.  But having that glimpse is meant to sustain us in our relationships for the long haul.  

My friend’s daughter is a  well-known, much sought after wedding photographer.  Her success lies in that the goal of all her pictures is to capture who that couple truly is.  Photos like that secure a beautiful moment in time which we can revisit to remember why we chose that person.  In a very real way her photos capture original glory.

So it turns out my husband wasn’t tricking me.  God was showing me my husband’s original glory. Thus I can accept that he is human and flawed just like I am human and flawed.  Just as there is an original glory of a person, so there is an original glory of a marriage.  I know what Erik and Kim are meant to be as a couple and even if nine times out of ten we are not there, I know what we are aiming for. The frustration I am feeling with him or with myself is just a blockage between what is meant to be and what currently is. 

Just as there is an original glory of a person and a marriage, there is also an original glory of a family and of an institution and a city and a state and a nation.  When something doesn’t feel right, I try to go back to that original glory.  I try to remember that person or place or organization for what it is meant to be and respond from that place.  We are all on a journey that none of us will fully complete this side of heaven.  But knowing that there is original glory helps soften the trials along the way and fixes our eyes on our ultimate goal.