Living with Lewis: Two to One

I must confess I never saw myself as the “marrying type.” Of course, I always wanted to be married someday. But that someday was somewhere in the distant future so I didn’t really have to worry about it. My plan, as described to a friend about a year ago, was to “run around war zones and other places and maybe when I’m 26 or so and I’ve figured my life out I’ll think about getting married.” I was definitely never one to think about getting married right after college. Never even crossed my mind, in all honesty. And my hesitancy about marriage went a bit deeper than just that. I have major trust issues with men: my past history isn’t quite what I’d like it to be. Up until about a year ago, I was pretty bitter and angry towards men. I honestly didn’t want a whole lot to do with them, much less let any one in any closer than a casual friendship. (I have a few friends who can testify to my frequent “I hate men/Men are stupid/Men are evil” rants.)

But, slowly, God’s been chipping away at that anger and bitterness. He’s used a few people in particular to knock down my defenses. And now, I find that my future is looking quite different than I expected it to. It’s beginning to look like quite an adventure.
I found this description of marriage in Lewis’ book, A Grief Observed, and I really like it:

“There is, hidden or flaunted, a sword between the sexes till an entire marriage reconciles them. It is arrogance in us to call frankness, fairness, and chivalry ‘masculine’ when we see them in a woman; it is arrogance in them to describe a man’s sensitiveness or tact or tenderness as ‘feminine.’ But also what poor, warped fragments of humanity most mere men and mere women must be to make the implications of that arrogance plausible. Marriage heals this. Jointly the two become fully human. ‘In the image of God created He them.’ Thus, by a paradox, this carnival of sexuality leads us out beyond our sexes” (67).

Maybe I’m learning something