How Marriage has Changed my Heart
/STEPHANIE FRIES
A trusting relationship has the power to transform a person from the inside-out.
PHOTOGRAPHY: MADI MYERS-COOK PHOTOGRAPHY
Throughout childhood, I had learned to utilize different strategies to protect my heart. “Don’t let the other team see you cry after a hard game,” and “Be a listener and not a sharer while on retreat” were specific lessons I learned.
This kind of self-preservation was well-intentioned because we don’t always know who we can trust with our hearts. Unfortunately, this self-preservation inhibits authentic, intimate relationships with those whom we can trust with our hearts.
If we could draw the spectrum of vulnerability, one side would represent the extreme of self-preservation. Meanwhile, the other side would represent the extreme of complete transparency and exposure without boundaries. Somewhere in-between is a holy middle ground where we encounter authentic relationship with a balance of boundaries and vulnerability.
Through the vocation to married life, two become one. Like Adam and Eve in the Garden, spouses stand emotionally exposed, “naked,” in a completely reciprocal offering of self and reception of the other.
I was not ready to infuse my life to another on the day I met my future husband. Though I would have felt safer learning how to love and be loved in isolation, God began to bring my heart closer to that middle ground through relationship.
Learning to love and be loved in a trusting relationship has completely transformed my heart--both in hidden and visible ways. The most obvious outward sign of love’s tenderness on my heart is through tears.
I cry more than ever before! And I can’t blame hormones or the time of the month. Experiencing a purity of trust, desire, love, and empathy has exposed me to a greater breadth and depth of emotion. Rather than fearing and hiding the movements of the heart, I have begun to feel them with freedom. Tears are a sign of a new sensitivity because my heart is more fully alive.
Many of the Gospel stories involve a physical journey on a path from one place to another; this is a visual and physical metaphor for the internal journey we are called into as we become like Christ. Growing in holiness is an active process of movement, growth, and change. Holiness is in no way static.
For the man and woman united in marriage, the experience of sharing their lives is the pathway toward the narrow gate. Regardless of where you are on the journey-single, dating, engaged, or married--God calls you to holiness. Every season of life presents an opportunity for growth and transformation from the inside-out.
The fruits of the Holy Spirit--love, joy, peace, faithfulness, generosity, patience, kindness, self-control, and gentleness--have transformative power. When received in one’s heart, the seeds of this fruit implant new growth. In turn, the one who received the seed becomes fruitful in their own life and love.
In what ways has your heart transformed through love? Have you experienced an outward expression of this transformation? Share your experience with our community on Facebook or Instagram.
