It is not the kind of time travel described in Hollywood movies and there is no time machine required to do it. We simply travel through time together.
It goes something like this…
Hey babe, want to time travel?”
“Sure!” I respond with a smile on my face. The anticipation of where he travels to, always stirs up curiosity in my heart.
We were sitting on the edge of the dock under the gazebo. It was hot. The water was crystal clear and there were so many fish swimming around…”
He looks my way to see if I remembered. I knew exactly where he had taken us: Cape Maclear, a small town in Malawi. It was our first year of marriage and we had been in Africa with a mission organization. This moment in time on the dock was one of our first intimate and deep conversations about our marriage, especially our struggle with sex. We were open and honest with one another, affirming that we would both work on what we could to make our marriage stronger.
The time travel: It was now 4 years later, our marriage is stronger than ever and having deep conversations with each other happens daily. We talked about our time in Africa and if we would ever go back.
Remembering and chatting about where we have been is an important aspect of our relationship. We like to evaluate our lives to see in what ways we have grown together. We also like to share eventful moments from our marriage that really impacted us, good and bad. Talking about them and time traveling is a great way for us to keep a positive perspective.
My husband has also used time traveling to remind me of how precious and fleeting time truly is. This usually happens amidst a struggle, a hard season in our marriage or a seemingly threatening situation.
It usually goes like this…
Don’t worry babe, soon you will be looking back at this moment and years will have passed by. Remember this moment and we will time travel back, ok?”
Those words are comforting. They help me to persevere, knowing that time will come and go, just as quickly as our circumstances. And sure enough a year goes by, sometimes three years, we will randomly be driving in the car and my husband will say,
Hey babe, remember when I told you we would time travel back to when….”
Reminiscing through the memories we have built together and looking forward to our future together with hopefulness is one of my favorite parts about our marriage. Time traveling has surely blessed us. I am grateful.
By the way, the story I mentioned about about the dock, gazebo and fish swimming around is also mentioned in my book The Unveiled Wife, along with a ton of other stories from the first few years of my marriage. If you want to know more go HERE.