Seven Years In: What Marriage Has Taught Me About Love, Faith, and Becoming More Like Jesus

Seven years ago, I thought marriage would mostly test my patience. I didn’t know it would also stretch my imagination—about God, about love, and about myself. Stephanie has been God’s embodiment in my life, the daily grace that keeps nudging me toward the kind of husband I prayed to be but didn’t yet know how to become.

Scripture gave me a headline before I ever had a plan: “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church” (Ephesians 5:25). That’s not a slogan; it’s an assignment. In year one, I tried to love Stephanie with good intentions and bursts of energy. By year seven, I’m learning love looks like steady, ordinary faithfulness—praying before speaking, listening longer than feels comfortable, choosing gentleness when pride wants its way. James says, “let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath” (James 1:19). That one sits taped to the inside of my heart.

Stephanie has been my mirror and my mentor. She reflects where I’m impatient, and then she models patience back to me. She tells the truth, but with warmth. In her I see 1 Corinthians 13 in motion—love that “beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.” When I’m tempted to keep score, she chooses grace. When I drift into self-reliance, she reaches for my hand to pray. “Two are better than one,” Ecclesiastes reminds us, “for if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow” (Ecclesiastes 4:9–10). God has used her to lift me—out of fear, out of hurry, and into a quieter confidence in Him.

I’ve learned that honoring Stephanie is a form of worship. Colossians calls us to be “forbearing one another, and forgiving one another… even as Christ forgave you” (Colossians 3:13). That forgiveness isn’t weakness; it’s the muscle of covenant. Every time we forgive, we remember we didn’t marry perfection—we married a person. And God knit us as “one flesh” (Genesis 2:24), not to erase our differences, but to sanctify us through them.

If I could talk to the man I was seven years ago, I’d tell him three things:

1. Out-serve her. Not as a strategy, but as worship. “In lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves” (Philippians 2:3). The small chores, the late-night errands, the awkward apologies—these are altars.
   
   
2. Guard your words. Your tone will shape the weather in your home. Be a thermostat for peace, not a thermometer for stress.
   
   
3. Pray together when it feels least convenient. Five minutes will protect what five hours of debate can’t.

And I’d add this: delight in her. “Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the LORD” (Proverbs 18:22). Stephanie is God’s favor to me—steady, bright, sometimes fierce, always kind. Her trust has made me braver. Her encouragement has made me humbler. Her faith has made me more Christian, not just more “religious.”

Seven years in, I’m still learning to give 100% without watching the scoreboard. But I’m also learning this: God fills what we pour out. As I love Stephanie, I become more like Jesus – the Servant-King who loved first, loved fully, and loved to the end. By grace, may I keep loving like that.