Trading Faces excerpt
Marriage
Written by Angel Beeson as part of Trading Faces with pastor John Beeson
Jack’s aching was palpable. “I don’t know who I am now that she’s gone. I’m lost.” He had aged a decade in the year and a half his wife had cancer. He lovingly poured everything he had into trying to heal her: his time, his prayers, his finances, his heart. And now she was gone.
Avery looked so put together on the outside—a fresh manicure, perfectly done makeup and hair. But you could hear her voice catch and her eyes moisten when she began to share with me. “My life is wasting away. Why won’t God send me a husband? I feel like everything is on pause until I become a wife.”
The wedding reception room was inviting. Candles flickered, swelling piano chords filled the room, faces stretched wide with grins. As I sat at the reception table, my ten-year-old eyes never left the bride. She was beautiful—the embodiment of everything I hoped for. She was marrying a young pastor at our church. I prayed, “Jesus, please let me be a pastor’s wife one day.”
That night, as our young pastor wed his beautiful bride, my identity was wed with the idea of one day being a bride. The wedding ushered in my obsession with the newly released Father of the Bride movie—and any other rom-com that culminated in a wedding. I hammered out every detail of my future wedding, including the be- jeweled sneakers worn by Annie (the bride in Father of the Bride). My heart, my mind, and my soul were shaped by that day to come. In fact, in sixth grade I made a list of every characteristic I wanted in my future husband and started praying fervently for him.
Who wouldn’t want to be in a healthy marriage? We all dream of being in a relationship with someone who knows us, values us, and speaks hope into us. In Hebrew, the first word that refers to sex in the Bible (Gen. 4:1) is yada, which also means “to know intimately.” We all want to be intimately known.
In one of the most memorable romantic scenes in the history of cinema, sports agent Jerry Maguire (played by Tom Cruise) confesses to his wife (played by Renée Zellweger) that while he was celebrating one of his greatest nights professionally, it felt empty without her. “I love you,” Maguire declares. “You complete me.”1
The flaw in my praying so fervently for all the characteristics I wanted in my future husband was that I was shaping my heart to rely on him to complete me, not the Lord. I was waiting for the day when my knight in shining armor would sweep me off my feet and bring me safety, security, value, worth, and happiness.
We’ve all been raised with a “you complete me” view of love. We’re told, “Your other half is out there waiting for you: the yin to your yang, the peanut butter to your jelly, the wine to your cheese, the bacon to your eggs.” Even those who would balk at Calvinism rely heavily on predestination language when talking about love. “I found the one!” “We were destined to be together.”
I remember the first time I laid eyes on John. I had just entered high school, and he was the president of the school’s Fellowship of Christian Athletes. I went to the lunch meeting on that sunny day in a classroom at Canyon Del Oro High School, and I thought to myself, “That is the man I’ve been praying for!” I prayed for a friendship, and from that friendship, I prayed for a relationship. At that young age, I began making my relationship with John the source of my identity.
This is dangerous territory in a relationship. When we allow our spouse or ideas of a future spouse to be the anchor to which we stake our happiness, value, worth, safety, and security, we set ourselves up for failure in marriage. Our identity is tied to expectations of our other half, which that person was never designed to fulfill.
While the value of matrimony has been chiseled down in our culture, in Christian circles we still hold fast to its importance. And rightly so. Marriage was created to be the most intimate relationship on this earth. In no other relationship do two become one. Christ calls us to love our neighbor as ourselves, and the closest neighbor we ought to have, if we are married, is our spouse.
And yet marriage wasn’t meant to be our identity. Rather, it was intended to point to our identity as Christ’s bride.
My husband, John, and I have written our book Trading Faces: Removing the Masks that Hide Your God-Given Identity to help us identify these false identities and put on the true identities we have in Christ.
We have developed a quiz to help you begin your journey of self-discovery. We would encourage you to take the quiz and pass it along to friends if you find it helpful. Check it out here.