Seven

Seven years.

On Monday, Brad and I have been married seven years.

Big deal, you say. Lots of people have been married seven years.

That’s true. Brad and I have each been married seven years before too. So what makes this so special? I’ll tell you.

When Brad and I were engaged, I read all the books. Every time I enter a new stage of life, I buy four or five books on the subject so I can be prepared. And I don’t mind telling you, the situation looked pretty bleak.

Second marriages have a higher failure rate than first marriages. Seventy percent! And the blended family road was consistently written pretty rough. So in some ways, I knew what I was getting into. As much as you can from reading books on a subject. You know, like reading all the baby books during a pregnancy. You think you’ve got it all figured out.

And then you become a mom. And pardon me for saying so but, holy shit. (Actually, motherhood really is holy shit. Whew.)

Being a former journalism major, I still usually need multiple sources to consider something a fact. Many ideas overlapped and I think I’ve seen almost all of them come true. But there was one big one I was waiting for.

They all said it takes about seven years for a blended family to really gel into a unit.

Some said five to seven. Others just said seven.

Seven years. That’s a long time to wait when you’re trying to make a new family out of the pieces of two broken ones. Five broken people, five sets of issues, two broken marriages, two broken covenants, two bleeding halves trying to become one while bearing open wounds from the last attempt.

As I’ve said before, I think in blended family/second marriages, each year should count as three. Like dog years (or maybe seven, just to be consistent). I remember when Brad and I went on our five-year anniversary date. The hostess asked us how many years we had been married.

I rolled my eyes and growled, “Five.” She feigned being impressed. But it sounded lame. The first time I celebrated five years, I was still a wide-eyed newlywed. This time, a mom, a stepmom, a second wife and everything all of those entail. Brad and I were both weathered warriors who had fought for our lives for years.

Maybe that’s why so many second marriages fail. When you’ve been fighting that long and that hard, it’s hard to stop. Ask any veteran coming home from war. They’re still fighting on the inside. And many find peace to be unnerving, even terrifying. They’ll fight anyone who dares to get close.

(Not trying to take anything away from our heroes, the veterans we celebrate today and tomorrow. It’s just a metaphor. The only reason I can fight on the inside is because they handle the most of the outside fighting.)

We are far from finished on our journey. And we have by no means ‘arrived.’ We still have many challenges ahead.

But for a blended family, this is a significant milestone. According to experts, the foundation is finally set. So all the coming difficulties will be fought together. And that makes all the difference.

Seven is a significant number in the Bible. The perfect number. The number of completion. There are a ton of examples to the importance of the number seven. The Old Testament law of seven years is the most powerful to me.

On the seventh year, all slaves are to be set free.
On the seventh year, all debts are to be cancelled.
On the seventh year, the land is not to be worked, but allowed to rest.

We are no longer slaves to fear. We have been set free.

We have released each other from unrepayable debt. Forgiveness. Grace.

The ground of our relationship has been worked hard: plowed, sown, harvested. Sometimes huge crops with great value. Other times, our efforts seemed to be destroyed by locusts or things just never got off the ground. Now the land can rest, recover, repair, replenish.

The traditional materials for seventh anniversary gifts are copper and wool. Copper has long had a traditional meaning of prosperity and good fortune. The gift of wool represents comfort, durability, security, and warmth.

Sounds about right.

Thanks to God, our tight budget has turned into prosperity. And I can say we’ve finally become a safe place for each other to fall, comfortable and strong.

I was working on Caroline’s ponytail the other day, both of us facing the wall holding all three of their school pictures. My throat caught with emotion.

“Caroline, what if we had never found them? Brad, Beau and Sydney. What if they weren’t our family?”

Her eyes got big. “Well, things would sure be different. And not in a good way.”

One of my favorite memories and favorite pictures was from very early in our marriage. The five of us were at the beach and decided to wade all the way out into the ocean and swimming together, clothes and all. I hung back for a second and snapped the picture.

It’s so perfect.

Beau charging fearlessly ahead, I think trying to get away from the drama. Sydney lagging behind, making sure to make it’s pretty. Caroline holding on tight to Brad, shrinking back a little from the choppy water. It was cloudy that day. The water wasn’t particularly calm. But we all walked into it anyway. Together.

And we’re still walking. Through the choppiness of life. Together.

When Brad and I go on our anniversary date this weekend, if the server asks us how many years, I will proudly announce ‘seven’ with the same pride and enthusiasm of saying twenty. Because I know what it means. Other people don’t, but I do. And Brad does. And God does.

And on Monday when we have all the kids back, we will celebrate the seventh birthday of our tribe.

The harder the battle, the sweeter the victory.

In 2010, the year we were married, my favorite singer/songwriter in the world, Andrew Peterson, released an album containing a song called Dancing in the Minefields. And it quickly became one of our (many) songs. At his concerts, we’ve been known to slip into the back of the room and slow dance when he plays this one.

We went dancing in the minefields
We went sailing in the storm
It was harder than we dreamed
But I believe that’s what the promise is for

My favorite line is:

He promised not to leave us and His promises are true
So in the face of all this chaos, baby, I can dance with you

We have completed seven years. We have finished building our new family and now we can just get the heck on with living. And while we will never stop pursuing each other, we can rest.

We may never celebrate fifty years, like many couples will. But it’s not the amount of years in your life, it’s the amount of life in your years.

So if we get seven more years or seven more minutes, I will be thankful for and celebrate every single moment.

When Caroline’s dad got remarried, Brad and I gave him and his new wife a bottle of bourbon and two special glasses. He texted Brad a picture of the two glasses with a toast’s worth of bourbon in each one.

“To second chances,” he said. Well played.

Cheers.

To second chances. To second marriages. To second seventh anniversaries. To Act 2 of our lives. To moving forward holding onto God.

And each other.