“You fail at
the limits of your experience.” As a coach, this is a motto I use to train both
myself and athletes in any sport. Simply said, if you've never experienced the
worst in your training, how will you respond in competition when you’re tested?
The same motto goes for testing our resilience during struggles in life. The
more you've been through, the more you can handle. But how can you handle
something like a double lung transplant less than a year into your marriage? Or
multiple hospitalizations for complications during the first year of recovery?
How do you face hell? In this case, you have to rely on something outside of
yourself.
Rachel and I
will celebrate 5 years of marriage this July 10th. I know that doesn't
seem like a long time to be married and be giving marriage advice, but when you
consider the divorce rate among young couples in the first 5 years (20%) and
maybe .001% of those had to deal with transplant due to a terminal illness, I’d
say we’re off to a good start. I hide notes around the house for her every
morning before I leave for work, I’m excited to come home to her every evening,
and I would rather spend a night in with her watching Netflix than being out
with anyone else. Rachel cooks amazing dinners for us every night that we eat
together, she texts me little updates throughout the day, and she’s the first
person to take my side when I come home frustrated about something. There are a
million of those little things that make me realize how amazing it is to be
best friends with my wife. Blech, too corny, right? I know, because when I say
things like this, people occasionally roll their eyes and say, “Yeah, but you
all are different.” As if the only reason we’re so close is because we went
through the transplant 4 years ago after suffering together through CF for 3
years before that, and Rachel going through hell for the first 24 years of her
life. But what people fail to see is that although we've had our relationship
tested with this illness, we’re also tested everyday with the fact that WE’RE A
MARRIED COUPLE. We have the same disagreements, financial issues (transplants aren't
cheap, people), worries about the future, job struggles, family emergencies, and
differences in personalities that every other couple has. When you have
something like a transplant in the first year of your marriage, you kind of skip
the honeymoon phase and go straight into the “life” part of marriage. Many of
the challenges of marriage only showed up after the transplant and subsequent
complications. And yes, having faced death made them seem less important and
easier to deal with, but at the same time, they’re still challenges that break
many marriages that didn't start the way ours did. So on one hand, the limits
of our relationship experience were pushed because of the transplant, but we
still had not experienced the specificity of everyday marriage issues until
afterwards.
As we edge
towards the limits of our experience, the inevitability of failure arises. But
as I always tell my athletes as they reach those limits, “Failure may be an
option, but quitting is not.” When faced with the news that Rachel needed a
transplant, it broke us down. But we didn't quit. The transplant pushed that
boundary forward, and it broke us too. But we didn't quit. New boundaries were
tested as we began a more “normal” married life, and we face each challenge
together as a couple, but many times it breaks us too. But we do not quit. It’s
our faith in God and the foundation of our marriage based in an unbreakable vow
between husband, wife, and Christ that allows us get back up after failing at
the limits of our experience. We would fail at these limits or quit when we do
fail if our strength was our own. It’s our firm grasp to a strength outside of us
that is our strength inside our marriage. I have all of my athletes build a
strong foundation of physical strength in order to be able to face the unknown
and unknowable in their sport. In our marriage, our bond in Christ is that
foundation of strength that allows us to face the unknown and unknowable in our
life together.
So yes, we
are different because of what we've been through, but we’re also just like you.
And none of this is to say it’s product of any of our own power - in fact it’s
the opposite. Christ alone is the reason we’ve thrived over these past 4 years
after the transplant. I thank God for every second he’s given me with Rachel
and for every struggle He’s brought us though along with way.
Happy 4th
Lungaversary, Sweetheart.
