Tomorrow, June 30, Corrie and I celebrate two years of marriage. On this night two years ago, I was kidnapped by my groomsmen and other friends and taken to Iron Hill Brewery for drinks and merriment. Then we went back to my apartment and smoked pipes and talked till 2am. Then I slept on my small pad in the living room for the last time.

When morning came, I symbolically gathered up all my old twin-size sheets and my crumbling egg-crate bed, and tossed them in the dumpster. Then I showered, grabbed my tux, and headed for the church with my buddies.

Eight furious and flurrious hours later, it was all over. Or, maybe it had just begun (cheesiest line ever!)…

Two years later, I am happy to report that we are still in love. But it’s a different sort of love; I knew marriage would change our relationship for the better, but it was one of those things that you just don’t understand until you take the plunge. I think that the scariest part of being married is that the stakes are so much higher; the risk of causing and receiving pain is so much higher. Yet this is also the best part of marriage, since the same closeness that inevitably brings pain also brings joy and intimacy.

It’s easy for me to say that marriage is great. I highly recommend it. But wait till we’ve been married for five years, and then ten, and then twenty-five, then fifty–that’s when my opinion might mean something. I suppose marriage is what Corrie and I make of it, by God’s grace.

– Benj