*Sigh* I'm Too Young For This

Salutations fellow people,

I heard a saying once (Yes! Once and only once!), and it went like this...

"You don't marry the girl, you marry the whole family".

I was stopped dead in my tracks. Not because I had never thought of having to take into account my future wife's family (let's call her..."R"), but because now that it was actually pushed to the front of my mind, it was putting a big spin on it. Think about it long and hard; when you marry a girl or a guy, you're not just joining with that one person, but you are becoming part of the family. Her/his parents are now yours as well, their siblings are now gonna be yours too, and you are now "one of the crowd". This isn't always the case (but I doubt anybody would argue when I say that it would be ideal), but having a great friendship with not just your spouse but his/her family is a true blessing. Who would want to marry into a family where they only get along well with one member? Sure, it's not always going to happen, but in the best-case scenario it will, 'cause God will bless the union if it's right.

Anyway, after I pondered this, I did something fun. I looked at all the girls I know pretty well and their familes, and thought to myself, "Could I marry into that family?". I didn't think about the girl as a seperate identity, but looked at the family as a whole. It was a fun excercise, and I found a few definite "No's", a couple of "I'm not sure as I don't know them all that well's" and only one "Yes".

It was a refreshing exercise I did in my head, looking around at my friends here and there and trying to picture myself in the future. A few things I thought up were pretty comical (well, I thought so) and I recommend you all go try and look at this as well. It's a pretty personal matter, so that's why I didn't retell my humorous anecdotes and who the various families were, but I'm sure you'll understand if you give it a shot too. Go for it, it's fun! And it's a really relaxing thought to know that whatever we can picture in our heads, God has got something far, far better planned for us. He may throw us some curveballs we ain't expecting, but it's gonna be good!

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