Getting Ready to Die

Now it might seem pessimistic to begin a post about marriage with such a title, but I've been reminded much lately of the way in which any new beginning also requires dying. Perhaps this post will shed some light on Hunter's previous inquiry, perhaps not.

I'm sitting at our kitchen table in our apartment, an apartment I share with three other guys who are all involved in Cru. Interestingly enough, this will also be Christy and I's kitchen table as well. It is one of the holdovers from my present life that will make its way into our new, combined life. There are, however, many things that won't survive that transition--and thus the title.

Any new beginning requires dying. The bachelor Kyle, who would balance ministry, friends, and hours playing Final Fantasy XIII on XBox will be no more. The Kyle who would go off to Panera for six hours a day to read and write will have to die--or at least suffer a lot of injury. And the Kyle who, with deeper and darker thoughts, dreamed of other lives, will put them to rest as he chooses one specific path.

How did I get here? How did I arrive at this decision? Surely it was providence and grace. And just as surely I made a decision nine months ago based on endorphins and physiological cues that propelled me to think that this might be the best decision for me. But ultimately I am walking this path because as it says in Jeremiah 6:16, I stand at the crossroads and look, and seeing two paths, must choose between that which God has for me and that which he does not. I must walk in the way everlasting, for it is only there that true joy is found. And it is the way of joy. Pain too. But joy everlasting.

And so I put to death the old Kyle, in all his independence and selfishness. Surely it will rise again and need to be killed again. But for now it is being laid in the coffin.

I'll end with some lyrics from a forthcoming Andrew Peterson song:

Well "I do" are the two most famous last words
The beginning of the end.
But to lose your life for another I've heard
Is a good place to begin.

Cause the only way to find your life
Is to lay your own life down.
And I believe its an easy price
For the life that we have found.

And we went dancing in the minefields,
We went sailing in the storms,
And it was harder than we dreamed
But I believe that what the promise is for.