It's the dress I wore the night Rebecca asked me to go with her to medical school, and the night we admitted we were in love, and the night we first kissed. There was no ring, no grand gesture (though coming out is grand enough, as those of you who have done it know), no flight of doves or scatter or rose petals or champagne. I wrote about this last year in http://committinginthemitten.blogspot.com/2014/09/the-last-five-years-minute-and-eternity.html .
This year . . . six years . . . feels different. Maybe because this year, our relationship is fully legally recognized nationwide (except, sort of, in Rowan County, Kentucky - looking at you, Kim Davis). I both can and can't believe it has taken six years for the country to realize what Rebecca and I knew that night: that she is my helpmate.
We struggled to figure out what to call each other. Girlfriend never really worked. Intended? Betrothed? Partner? Partner was closest, and we used it for a long time. After our legal wedding, we started saying wife - I should tell you about people's reactions to that some other time.
But wife still felt like we were appropriating a straight institution that we didn't really believe in as it stands in U.S. culture right now. And people's reactions made it clear that it didn't share our mission.
And I couldn't tell you when, but at some point, I started thinking about the term "helpmate." This word stems from the Adam/Eve story in the Bible, when God creates a suitable helper for Adam. Rebecca and I realized years ago, and I think are realizing more every day, that we are each other's suitable helper. Our relationship is missional. Even before we were a romantic couple, we had goals set (some of you remember the now very defunct Detroit Goat Farm project - I'm ever grateful for the people we met through that).
And maybe, readers, that's why it hurts when I hear people trying to make our relationship all about sex. Or when I hear marriage defined as one man and one woman (typically with a biological restriction based on procreation, as though that is the only way to have a family or be missional). Or even when people say that it doesn't matter who we love or what gender they are, we should be able to get married - because Rebecca and I aren't just lovers.
For the last six years, we've had the joy and struggle of being helpmates. And I continue to believe that a certain segment of society wants to cheapen or invalidate that because they don't support our mission or because they don't know us, rather than because of Scripture. Or put another way, maybe because they're afraid to think about what marriage means if it's not wedding+paperwork+man+woman=matrimony.
Admitting that what we have might be closer to Biblical marriage in many ways than the above equation or a house in the suburbs with a picket fence, 2.5 kids, dog, and middle class income is uncomfortable.
So let me share two recent quotes from Rebecca that have been a reminder of why I love her and of why our marriage is so very important to me (and worth the fight to protect):
After I asked her if we should do something as a favor for a friend, when said thing might be hugely inconvenient:
"Is it what [our friend] really needs right now to be supported?" (It was, and we did it.)
After I told her about a public hearing 45 minutes away (well, more in rush hour) to improve air quality that I thought we should attend to show support for friends and children living in the affected area:
"Yeah, I'm free that night. We should go. I'll get the word out."
Yep. Helpmate.
No comments:
Post a Comment