Until Death Do Us Part

 

“Do you, Seth, promise to love Kelly, in sickness and in health, till death do you part?”

“I do,” said my husband with a gleam in his eye.

When the minister declared us husband and wife, he swept me into his arms and kissed me.

When I look at our wedding photos, I see the innocence in our faces. We knew marriage would be full of trials, but we had no idea what kind of storms would ensue.

While the words were easy to say, the circumstances have tested our faith and our marriage.

Will you love this person so much that you are willing to stand by them in deep depression, when their body breaks down, or in the middle of a crisis? How about when money is scarce, secrets are unexpectedly revealed, or loyalty is tested?

I am not throwing stones here, because we have had our struggles.

Our apartment burned down in the middle of the night a few months after we got married. This set off debilitating panic attacks for me, which developed into full-blown agoraphobia. We lost our infant daughter, suffered through two miscarriages, and then we lost our infant son.

PTSD took hold of my shattered life, and I spun into a deep depression. I remember sitting on the couch and offering my husband a divorce. I couldn’t give him healthy children, I believed, so I was a broken woman who felt she had nothing to offer. I loved him enough to let him go and have the life he deserved.

My husband is known for his kind and easygoing nature. The only time I have ever seen him furious in almost sixteen years of marriage was at that moment. He stood up and punched a hole in the wall, then bent down and got in my face. He said, “Don’t ever mention divorce again! I meant those words!”  He stormed out of the room. I thought, He means it.

When you lose a child, not only does it mess with your heart, it affects every relationship. People want you to get back to normal, but everything has forever shifted. The hardest thing is when you feel pressure from your own community to be okay. There were days when my husband and I didn’t know if we could continue on. The pressure to make everyone else feel better that it was tearing us apart.

It was in the midst of all this devastation that we experienced the mercy of God, and chose to hang on to each other. I figured the worst of life had passed.

I was wrong.

I developed a chronic illness that almost took my life.

At my lowest point, I was down to eighty-something pounds and finding it hard to breathe. My face was covered in acne and my hair was falling out. I needed help walking.

One night, I winced as my husband lifted me into the tub. I looked like someone who had just escaped a concentration camp. I felt so humiliated. I began to sob as he helped me bathe.

“What’s wrong?” he said.

“I am so sorry I look this way! I am so ugly,” I cried.

He gently placed his hands on either side of my face and said, “Babe, you are the most beautiful woman on the planet. There is no other place I would rather be.”

It was in my darkest moments that God used my husband to demonstrate to me his glory and compassion. My husband supported me every step of the way, even when he didn’t know what to do next. He and I are complete opposites, and while we may not always understand each other, we know that God placed us together for greater reasons than we know.

There have been many more trials. Finances, selfishness, addictions, conflicts brought on by our different upbringings, poor communication–yet we know we are in it for the long haul.

As I write this, we have had one of our “trying” weeks, so the timing of this post has been quite humbling (and irritating).

We know God made marriage to last a lifetime. Marriage is a test.  It is one way we learn to carry out our promises. It is how we learn loyalty.

It’s easy to make your marriage vows when your relationship is fresh and you are madly in love. However, as life hits you, keeping those vows can be hard.

I am thankful my husband has stood by my side through it all. He has shown me what it looks like to honor our promises, even when I was ready to quit. He never gave up on me.

I am forever his, faithfully.

Kelly Nickerson is a homeschooling mama with two beautiful kids under her wing and four dancing in heaven. She also lives with her amazing husband, who supports her like no other. Kelly is a firecracker prayer warrior who shares honestly about her brokenness, while praising and clinging to the God who sustains her. When she isn’t hunting down germs with disinfectant, you can find her writing of her adventures at kellynickerson.com.