What a powerful message: At the core of it all is the fact that it’s not how happy we can be during the good times that makes a successful marriage. It’s how we treat each other during the bad times that characterizes true love.
My marriage started off kind of strange. Actually, it started off really strange. Let me take you back…
Kristyn and I were engaged before I left on a mission for my church. I’d finally met the girl of my dreams while playing college baseball down at the coast… but I really felt like I needed to go on a mission. So off I went. But before I went, I took her up to the Salt Lake Temple and proposed to her at night in front of the reflection pool. In disbelief, she accepted my proposal, and probably without thinking, committed to wait for me for the next two years.
Go figure… she waited. It’s rare to be engaged on your mission. It’s even rarer to have someone wait for you. But there she was, hundreds of letters later, at the airport… ready to roll.
Fast forward to our wedding day. We waited a long time for this day. Family and friends had traveled a long way to be there and we all congregated in front of the temple before the wedding. But someone was missing.
Kristyn.
“Where is she?” That question was asked about a hundred times. “Where. Is. She?”
There I was, sitting on a curb, by myself with my face buried in my hands, while my family and friends stared at me in disbelief.