the cost is a joy: what marriage is teaching me about sacrifice, love and Jesus

6 months of marriage.

They say that the first year of marriage is the most difficult. Six months in, and I can see what they mean. Two completely different backgrounds, childhoods, cultures and families all in a 50sqm apartment - yeah, that’ll cause a little bit of tension.

Along with that tension, this newlywed season has had its beautiful glimmers. Dancing in the kitchen as the sun begins to dip over our home. Slow morning coffees outside on our balcony, cooking our favourite dishes together and realising, over and over again, how long we waited to fall asleep next to each other. (Yoh, five years is a long time to date.)

But as beautiful as those moments are, there are also moments where sanctification truly takes place.

Unmet expectations. Roles and responsibilities. Unlearning habits. Dying to self, over and over again. Ah, what a beautiful picture marriage is of our relationship with Jesus.

There is a song I’ve been playing over and over again called The Cost Is a Joy by SEU Worship.

Oh, what a song. There’s a cost in anything valuable, right?

Marriage has cost us a lot. Not just financially - it’s cost us our selfishness. It costs us our own wants. It’s cost us our unrealistic expectations. But what a joy.

I remember when I first met Ben and we started dating. The thought of commitment truly scared me. What if I got bored by one person? What if he began to annoy me? What if there was no way out?

These were things I had to truly wrestle with.

I look back at my 18-year-old self and I just want to give her a hug. I want to reassure her that love is not something scary. It’s not something that ties you down or keeps you constrained.

To be loved is so freeing.

Suddenly, I don’t want my alone time. I don’t want to be selfish. I don’t want to live life only thinking about myself.

But as much as I would love to go back and tell her all of that, I know it wouldn’t have calmed her anxious, scared heart.

No, I had to go through the doubt. The fear. The choosing him over and over again.

I had to experience the refining for myself.

Earlier, I mentioned how marriage is a picture of our relationship with Jesus.

I think this is where The Cost Is a Joy has been speaking to me so deeply.

The song begins:

There is a treasure that's hidden

It waits to be found in the field.

It reminded me of the Parable of the Hidden Treasure in Matthew 13:44:

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.

What a picture of sacrifice.

But not just any sacrifice - joyful sacrifice.

This man doesn’t give up everything because he is bitterly obligated to. He gives up everything because he has found something worth more.

“In his joy.”

The treasure was so valuable that finding it completely redefined his priorities.

And I think marriage has been teaching me something of that.

When you love someone deeply, sacrifice starts to look different.

Giving something up doesn’t necessarily feel like losing anymore. Choosing someone else’s needs over your own doesn’t have to feel like a restriction. Dying to yourself doesn’t mean losing yourself.

That's the picture marriage has shown me, in such a significant and (imperfect) way, of what it looks like to continually choose someone else over yourself.

To surrender. To give. To die to myself.

And somehow (in true Jesus fashion), in all of that, to find more life.

When we know and choose Jesus, there is a cost that comes with it.

But the cost is a joy.

Six months in, I’m learning that the things worth having will cost you something.

And when you’ve found the treasure, you don’t resent the cost.

You rejoice that you were willing to pay it.