One Flesh

One of the most difficult parts of dating for 6 years was denying spiritual oneness as a couple. We had no paradigm, no teaching on dating in Jesus no matter how hard we sought out for it. We knew Luke was Luke and Mattie was Mattie and those spiritual lives were separate in Jesus, but how did they overlap? Were they supposed to? Throughout those dating years, we meditated often on what that line looked like, and in full disclosure, the pursuit of a dating life grounded in Jesus while balancing out the "we're kind of one, but not one yet" brought on more worry than He intends for dating couples. We had friends warn us from "playing married" and all the repercussions of it. We had so many examples and warnings of what not to do when it came to spiritual oneness, but we thought we never could quite grasp this idea of what spirituality looked like for couples. We were always cautious that we had overlapped too far, or our spiritual closeness was too close and it brought on a lot of anxiety. I couldn't really imagine how much closer we could get. I was very familiar with the meaning of "one flesh," but didn't think it would feel any different in covenant. 

Not until the day Luke proposed did I ever receive affirmation that maybe we hadn't abused spiritual oneness in our years of dating. All of a sudden something switched in me that very night and I felt something change in the way I viewed Luke and felt about him. Something so simple as responsibility. I remember my dad poking fun at Luke like he normally does and something in me went on the defense. Prior to that day, I would have normally not been phased by it. Almost a "Luke can defend himself" reaction, yet this time I wanted to defend him. I felt that offending Luke was offending me and I felt responsible to take care of him. He totally could have still defended himself and he did, but that's not the point of this. The point is that for the very first time in our 6 years together, I got a sense that what is done to Luke is done to me. What Luke feels, I feel. Never had I felt such a deep connection with someone even after 6 years of Mattie and Luke. That's when I understood that this whole "one flesh" was going to be an entirely new experience for us, and at the same time felt such a weight lifted as Jesus affirmed that we had actually done right by Him in our dating years when it came to spiritual oneness. It was a feeling I'll never forget.

I know the years ahead are going to be daily steps in learning this whole 1+1=1 process, and my prayers are that we remember every day what is done to each affects the other and all of the depths that come with being one flesh in Jesus. 

xo. Mattie