Is He “the One?”

I remember a discussion from many years ago. A pastor was answering questions for a group of soon-to-be college graduates. Someone asked how to know if a person was “the one.” The pastor proceeded to tell a story. He married a young couple and then had a conversation with the new husband a year into the marriage. The pastor asked the young man how he was enjoying married life. The young man said that on his wedding day, he watched his wife walk the aisle. As she walked, he thought to himself that he was so lucky. She was so beautiful and would make him look good.  She would cook for him and serve him and love him and make his life easier and more pleasurable. He said what he didn’t expect was to suddenly find her sick with cancer, to have to help her to the bathroom and clean puke off of her face. The young man said he thought the purpose of marriage was to make his life easier but marriage was more about giving one’s life away for their beloved.

This story has helped to formulate in my mind what marriage is and what it is not. I think asking the question, “Is he the one?” is the wrong question. The more accurate question should be, “Am I willing to be the one?”          

As Ann Voskamp said in a post: “Because the truth is, real love will always make you suffer. Simply commit: Who am I willing to suffer for?” Read more of her challenging words here.  

It is faulty to try to find someone who will make your life better. Find someone you are willing to die for every day in the mundane, washing dishes, doing laundry, making meals, picking up socks, etc.  

The subject continues to come up again and again. At the age of 32, I am often asked when I’m going to get married. The truth is I haven’t yet found a guy that I’m willing to suffer for, willing to submit to, willing to lay my down life daily for. I haven’t found a guy that I’m willing to be “the one” I’m ready to die for. When I find that guy, I will gladly unite my life to his in the covenant of marriage. For now, I have an eternal groom for whom I will gladly lay my life down, a groom who millennia ago decided he would be “the one” for me. He is enough.