Chelsea Boes: Marriage advice on rocks in a jar evokes memories, sparks new ideas

Ten years ago, I had my bridal shower. My childhood best friend organized and planned it. In a never-to-be repeated procession, my mother’s living room filled up with all kinds — my old babysitters, Sunday school teachers, neighbors and friends. To celebrate me, they all wore my favorite color (yellow). The price of entry: One shower gift and one piece of advice written in permanent marker on a stone then dropped in a glass jar by the door.

I keep this jar still — on a bathroom shelf — but I don’t open it often. As a seasoned married woman, some of the advice in it horrifies me. My kids do crack the lid occasionally, though. Kids love jars of rocks and there’s nothing you can do about that.

"Write a tidbit of wisdom or advice on a stone and drop it in the jar!" The rocks rest underneath these words on an instructional (and now crinkly) index card in the unmistakable handwriting of my best friend. At the beginning of this month, the month of dinner reservations and chocolate, cupids and ardor, candy hearts and bouquets, I pulled the rocks out. I’ve been married nearly a decade. With each year that passes, I grow more curious about the people who shaped my expectations of marriage and love.

I read the first stones rather without incident:

• "Respect."

• "Always say good morning."

• "Never go to bed angry."

The next unobjectionable few reflected the decidedly religious guestlist:

• "Love never fails."

• "Grace."

• "Proverbs 31."

• "Be humble."

• "Trust in the Lord with all your heart."

Some guests added their names along with their advice. My late Grandpa was on that winter afternoon very much alive. In all caps he wrote, "KISS HIM EVERY MORNING." Two practical little girls named Sarah and Diana wrote, "Cook" and "Wash dishes," respectively. Another small girl inscribed my favorite advice bit of all, riddled with misspellings and backwards characters: "Jonithin should change dipers."

Other laconic advisers anonymously offered up, "Communication," "Be joyful," and "Hold hands." More expansive incognito specimens read, "Never lose your sense of adventure," "Make healthy food yummy," and "Learn to overlook."

Some of these rocks assume a lot about what it means for a woman to be married. Back then, I assumed a lot too. I assumed the submissive housewife narrative like a fish assumes it can breathe water. A wife cooks, cleans, washes dishes, stays joyful and learns to overlook. She is also the default diaper changer, and the suggestion that the man should do it instead becomes a kind of joke. I don’t mean to cast doubt on the people at my bridal shower. Many of them had healthier marriages than their worldviews perhaps admitted for. Often their lives showed forth the elements of genuine Christianity: repentance, sacrifice, faithfulness, friendship, joy.

But I hadn’t gotten yet to the final rock, the one at the bottom of the pile that is the reason I don’t open my rocks often:

"Obey your husband even if you don’t know why."

I don’t remember who wrote this rock, which is probably for the best. What matters is that it didn’t phase me as I moved toward marriage.

This story has a happy ending. By some unsought and unbelievable grace, I married a man who valued women more than I did. We wash dishes, change diapers and cook. We grow, change, confer, joke, laugh until we want to cry, get new jobs, move, try things that don’t work, weep, start over ... all together. We’re buddies in the delivery room, parent teacher conference, grocery store, kitchen, wherever.

Marriage matters. But it only works when the love and service are mutual. This profoundly mutual partnership can be rare in conservative cultures, especially ones that skew fundamentalist. If the idea of “obeying your husband even if you don’t know why” sounds insane to you, believe me: There are a lot of people who do this. It damages women because they are not designed to be squelched, ignored or overburdened. It damages men because they are not designed to be absent, babied or bullies.

I said before that my own little girls paw through these rocks on occasion. Someday, if they marry, I’d like to write advice for them on stones of my own. Maybe, "Learn to forgive." "Repent quickly." "Be best friends." "Grow together." "Do what you love." "Share the load."

But on the biggest rock of all, I’d write what I’ve been telling them all their lives:

"Marry a man as kind as your daddy."

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Chelsea Boes lives in Old Fort and works as editor of WORLDkids Magazine in Biltmore Village. 

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Boes: Marriage advice on rocks in a jar sparks memories, new ideas