Wisdom Is Knowing Which Season You're In

I was recently having a conversation with someone around my own age about relationships.

She asked me whether I thought it would be appropriate for someone in her situation to move in with a man rather than marry him.

I don't think my answer was the one she expected.

When I suggested that, depending on the circumstances, I didn't necessarily see a problem with it at our stage of life, she seemed surprised. Part of her response was, "Well, I'm a Christian."

I understood why she said it. Her faith was influencing the way she viewed the question. But it also made me realize that the real conversation wasn't simply about Christianity or even about marriage.

It was about whether we evaluate life's opportunities according to the season we're actually living in or according to expectations that may no longer fit our circumstances.

At one point she asked what I would think if my twenty-one-year-old daughter made the same decision.

To me, that comparison doesn't really fit.

My daughter is in a completely different season of life. She's finishing college, preparing for law school, and building the foundation of her future. She's focused on becoming the person she wants to be before worrying about finding someone else.

The decisions that make sense for a young woman with decades of opportunity ahead of her are naturally different from the decisions facing someone who has already lived sixty years.

Those are simply two different conversations.

She also mentioned someone who had known a man only a short time before marrying him, and they've now been happily married for decades. I think those stories are wonderful. But I also think we have to be careful not to build our expectations around exceptions.

There will always be people who become millionaires overnight. There will always be couples who meet and marry quickly and enjoy fifty wonderful years together. There will always be someone who earns a college degree at seventy-five and begins a whole new career.

Those stories inspire us.

They simply don't establish the pattern most people should expect.

I understand this because I've lived it.

When I graduated from high school, my father wanted me to go directly to college. Instead, I chose the military. I don't regret serving my country, but I also recognize that decision placed me on a different path than many of my friends.

Between the ages of fifty and sixty, I earned my associate degree, bachelor's degree, and MBA. Those degrees have enriched my life tremendously. They've helped me become a better writer, a better thinker, and recognize opportunities I probably would have missed otherwise.

But I'm also realistic enough to know that earning an MBA at sixty doesn't create the same career opportunities it would have created had I earned it at twenty-five. That's not unfair. It's simply the natural result of choices I made decades earlier.

Instead of being disappointed by that reality, I learned to ask a different question:

"What opportunities are available to me now?"

That question changed everything.

I believe we all reach a point where wisdom means accepting the season we're in instead of wishing we were still living in another one. That doesn't mean giving up. It means making the wisest decision from where you stand today.

Another thought occurred to me during that conversation.

I think many of us—especially if we've never been married—can unintentionally romanticize marriage itself. From childhood we're surrounded by stories of the prince finding the princess, the beautiful wedding, the happily-ever-after ending. The wedding becomes the dream.

Ironically, for those of us who have actually been married for many years, the wedding isn't the destination at all. It lasted one day. The marriage is what mattered.

Kim and I have been married for nearly three decades. Looking back, I don't believe the greatest gift of marriage has been the romance of our younger years. Those memories are precious, but they've never been the foundation.

The foundation has been built through thousands of ordinary days.

Working through disagreements.

Learning to forgive.

Supporting one another during difficult seasons.

Laughing together.

Growing together.

Simply walking through life side by side.

But perhaps the greatest lesson marriage has taught me is this:

When we're young, we often think about marriage in terms of what it will do for us.

Will this person make me happy?

Will they meet my needs?

Will they love me the way I want to be loved?

Those aren't wrong questions, but they're incomplete.

The longer you're married, the more your perspective changes.

You begin asking a different question:

What kind of husband do I need to become for her?

The focus slowly shifts away from what you're receiving and toward what you're giving. You realize that marriage isn't simply about finding the right person. It's about becoming the right person.

Ironically, I think that's also where the deepest joy is found. As we've grown older, my understanding of marriage has changed. I no longer see it primarily as romance. I see it as companionship.

It's about having someone beside you through life's later chapters. Someone to encourage you, laugh with you, care for you, challenge you, and simply share life with.

That kind of love isn't shallow. It's deeper than the fairy tales. It isn't something that happens in a ceremony. It's something that develops over years.

That also caused me to think about something else. Sometimes we place so much emphasis on the marriage certificate that we begin believing it's the thing that guarantees a lasting relationship.

But human nature teaches us otherwise. Many marriages end in divorce. Many relationships outside of marriage eventually end as well.

The certificate itself isn't what determines whether two people stay together.

People do. Character. Commitment. Patience. Forgiveness. The willingness to grow. The willingness to stay when life becomes difficult.

Those are the things that make relationships last.

A marriage certificate is meaningful, but it cannot overcome human nature.

If two people are unwilling to grow together, no ceremony can guarantee they'll remain together.

Likewise, if two mature people are deeply committed to one another, their relationship will ultimately be sustained by the quality of their character, not merely by a document.

As we grow older, I think our questions ought to change.

Instead of asking, "Does this relationship look like the one I dreamed about when I was twenty?" perhaps we should ask, "Is this a kind, trustworthy person I could enjoy walking through the rest of my life with?"

Those are very different questions.

One is rooted in youthful fantasy. The other is rooted in mature wisdom.

The older we become, the narrower some opportunities naturally become. That isn't discouraging; it's simply reality. A twenty-one-year-old has an enormous number of potential relationships ahead of her.

A sixty-year-old simply doesn't have the same number of opportunities. That doesn't mean there are no opportunities. It means the opportunities should be viewed through a different lens.

Sometimes I wonder whether we unintentionally allow cultural expectations or religious traditions to become barriers rather than guides. The formal wedding ceremonies many of us picture today are largely traditions that developed over centuries. Biblical marriages often looked very different from modern Western weddings.

That doesn't diminish marriage. It simply reminds us that the relationship has always mattered more than the ceremony.

If someone genuinely desires companionship during the later years of life, I would hate to see that opportunity missed because they're holding on to an expectation that may not be the only faithful or wise path available to them.

Every person must ultimately make those decisions according to their own conscience before God. But I do believe wisdom calls us to honestly reevaluate our expectations as life unfolds.

Life isn't about recreating the opportunities we had at twenty. It's about recognizing the opportunities we still have today.

The happiest people I've known weren't necessarily the ones who got everything they dreamed about.

They were the ones who learned to appreciate the blessings that each new season of life offered them.

Perhaps that's the real lesson.

Wisdom isn't pretending every season offers the same opportunities.

Wisdom is recognizing the season you're in, embracing it honestly, and making the very best decisions possible from this point forward.