Knowing enough to love for life

Tomorrow Erik and I will have been married for 9 years. When you think about it, even if you know someone for a long time before you get married, you know next to nothing about them when you consider everything that you will encounter about each other. People ask, "How did you know you were supposed to marry Erik?" and I could stammer out a bunch of different reasons, all valid, but in the end I think it amounted to faith that what I knew about him was enough. In fact, when I had known Erik all of about 6 months, a friend of mine, in teasing me about how much I liked him said, "If he asked you to marry him tomorrow, you'd say yes."
"No I wouldn't!" I retorted with feigned surprise, while thinking, "Yeah, I probably would." Because bottom line was, I knew enough.

What did I know? I knew that Erik was a man of God. I knew that his main ambition in life was to serve Him with everything he has. I knew he was someone who would challenge me to go beyond myself, but do it in such an encouraging way that I would really believe I could do it. I knew that I could trust him with my life. I knew that he was wise, intelligent, strong, patient, adventurous, and fun. I didn't know those things nearly to the degree I do know, but I saw enough of them to know I wanted to be with him.

Nine years later I know a lot more. I know that he has such amazing endurance that he can run circles around me, even though I exercise daily and he never did, up until he decided to do a triathlon. I know that he garners respect from his peers for his gentle and approachable demeanor. I know that he loves goofing around with the kids until it's way past their bedtime. I know that he'll fall asleep within two minutes of his head hitting the pillow while I lay awake for another 1/2 hour. I know that he can just get close to a computer and it will stop doing whatever thing has been frustrating you for the past 15 minutes (like he just did now). And a million other big and small, great and not so great things. And I know that in another 9 years, I will have learned even more. There's a comfort in knowing so much about a person, and being known just as well in return.

What hits me sometimes is knowing that God knew all these things about Erik, and He knew how much I would need them even more than I did.