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A whole year! What does it feel like?

It feels like it did when I first held a driver's license in my hand, like when I first walked onto my college campus. It's that blank feeling when my senior recital was over, or as I finished my last collegiate assignment. The fuzzy blankness and well of emotion when I saw him down on one knee, when I tried white dresses on. It feels like everything and nothing and it just feels normal, both like nothing and everything has changed since I couldn't wait to get my driver's license.

We sit here in our apartment for a night before we travel again and I'm reeling over the year. My striving heart wants to write practical marriage advice and lessons learned but the one slamming into my hard heart over and over again, kneading it like dough, is the concept of grace.

And I'm not talking about the tattoed, Scotch-drinking, hipster grace that attacks only the rules it doesn't like with the accusation of legalism but the heart of entitlement. I'm talking about the scandalous, anger-inducing grace that He bestows on all who believe in Him. I am reading through the Prophets for this Advent season and actually found myself enraged at the promise God was giving to the remnant of Israel. Promises of peace, of shameless joy, of provision and blessing and hope, immediately after declaring His promise of justice for their pagan idolatry, injustice, hypocrisy, pride. I so wanted Israel's punishment but not the grace, and I shocked myself with this enraged response, enraged with grace.

But my heart so resembles Israel's. I seek my idols, counting myself better than my brother because of the hours I've prayed, the alcohol I don't (or do!) drink, I take advantage of people, I gossip about others' sins.

And it's grace that knocks the air out of me in my marriage. I mean, marriage is wonderful (WITH A GOOD PERSON, PLEASE DON'T MISS THAT PART). It's all nice and fun, but my goal with this is to not make any single people jealous with over-boasting about my situation and relationship status, when really God is just using marriage to show me more about Himself. And enrage me with His grace. He uses Jon to respond kindly when I snap at him, to help me when I'm impatient, to listen when I'm irrational, to always be good to me no matter how I treat him. Seriously, his attitude and actions are completely independent of my own. It is sometimes infuriating for my legalistic heart.

And all throughout the day my Savior whispers, "Jon's love is but a shadow of mine. That was nothing."

After 24 years, my heart is starting to grasp bits of the grace I've been given.

So friends, marriage is about grace. And the dichotomy of being dependent upon someone while acting independently of their actions. Diffusing harsh words with sweet ones, answering stress with trust, responding to gossip with innocence and hope. This was a year full of grace.

And we celebrated that grace this weekend. Daydreams of our first anniversary celebration included much fewer disorganized suitcases, forgotten toothbrushes, stressful car navigations. Reality included a budget (nonexistent in daydreams!) and work, and the bitter Minnesota cold.

Goodness, we can never get away from that blasted cold.

But grace is always warm, it coats the undeserving and the lowly. It doesn't just give shelter, it brings a blanket and hot chocolate. And so we have learned to drink of the grace and goodness of our Father when days are cold. Because if there's anything we learned from our frigid wedding, it's that a single day can somehow simultaneously be bitter and cold, yet sweet and warm.