My Fiancée Listens to Horrible Music

OK, I know I'm kind of a music snob...

But seriously, my fiancée - my wonderful, sweet, beautiful, loving fiancée - listens to some terrible music.

And here's the thing - she KNOWS it's bad!  She will freely admit to it!  Without defense or pretense!  She chooses to listen to awful music.

And it's not like everything she listens to is bad...

But really, one Justin Beiber song is bad enough, right?  Throw the Spice Girls, Katy Perry, and Britney Spears on top of it, and man...  Part of me wonders why I'm even dating this girl.

But then, a part of me also wonders why I didn't get super powers last week when I put a spider in the microwave and taunted it into biting me, so I guess it's perfectly OK for me to ignore some of these things that go through my head...

So the music snob in me is fighting with the good boyfriend in me.  The good boyfriend wants to just let her listen to her stuff, even when she turns to me and says, "You are probably going to hate this, but I like it, so, whatever..."  But the music snob is tempted to always carry my iPod and completely dominate the listening choices, making sure she is at least exposed to all the (objectively awesome, of course) music that I listen to, which she can't help but like, because, you know...  it's actually good.

I mean, really...  How could someone NOT enjoy a 20-minute-plus prog rock instrumental freakout?  Come on. 

Lest anyone reading this take me far too seriously here, let me spell this out: I realize that I am not the arbiter of good taste, but again...  even SHE says it's bad music.

So why listen to it?

Annie and I listen to music very differently.  There is a growing area of overlap.  She's introducing me to things I'm enjoying (Seryn, for instance, is definitely a winner), and I'm indoctrinating her with things I listen to (she really likes the select Yes songs I've played for her, which is only natural, because, you know...  it's Yes and they're awesome), and we're just enjoying each other's company.

But man...  The known-to-be-bad music...  That's...  wow.

I'll admit to having some awful music in my collection...  Starship's "We Built This City," for instance.  That song is the worst.  But I have it.  Sometimes I use it as a weapon, sometimes it just gets stuck in my head and the only way I can get it out is to listen to the whole awful, stupid, bad thing.  It's an earworm, and can only be extracted through a painful process.

And yet...  somehow...  I love her.  Not like it makes me some noble prince or anything for being able to look past Beiber, but it really is a challenge.  It's my own hangup.

Annie has flaws other than her musical taste.  Right now, I wouldn't be able to tell you what they are, but I'm confident that they do exist.  In my love for her, I find myself looking past the mistakes and seeing the beauty of who she is.

I need to get better at doing that for everybody else, too.

I fully realize that there's a difference between liking people and loving people.  I've even written about that before, to some extent.  But I've also got to say (to remind myself) that not liking someone is no excuse for not loving them.

It's easy for me to love Annie - she's my fiancée.  I want her to be around.  I want to be nice to her.  She makes me happy.  I want to make her happy.  It's a mutual joy for us to simply be around each other.  So in that, I find myself willing to overlook things like horrible, horrible, horrible music.

But what about the folks in my life who I don't find it as easy to love?  There are definitely people God put in my life who pretty well get on just about all the nerves I've got...  But they still deserve to be loved, right?

Is it the most loving thing to do, telling someone, "Hey, every time you open your mouth, I wish that you were doing the exact opposite of that"?  I don't think so...

But should I lie?

"Can't help about the shape I'm in,
I can't sing, I ain't pretty, and my legs are thin...
But don't ask me what I think of you,
I might not give the answer that you want me to..."

- Fleetwood Mac, "Oh Well"

I don't have an answer for that.  At all.

There are people in my life who I find it extraordinarily difficult to deal with, just on a personal basis. I have made LEAPS and BOUNDS in the past three years towards not being the genuine thoroughbred asshole I once was, but occasionally it comes out.

And I don't have any idea why.

I have been called to the Love of Christ in all that I do.  I am a slave to the Gospel, and the Gospel is Love.  Love is my one single task.

And I have found in Annie Newhouse a person who has done nothing but encourage me to Love others around me better.

I have found a girl who Loves God way more than she loves me, but still loves me way more than I was ready for.  I have been reading through Ephesians 5 a whole lot lately, really thinking about the parallels Paul makes between Christ's Love for the church and a husband's love for his wife.  I have learned a lot about what it means to Love a church in the past six months...  and I want to Love Annie like that.  I want to know what it is to Love someone else by dying to myself, by seeking only her best, laying my life down entirely for her.

I want to be Christ in this world to those who meet me, and I want to learn how to Love them as Christ loves them by learning what the love for my wife should be, and I want to learn that with Annie.

I love you, Annie.

I can't wait to spend the rest of my life with you.

Thank you for saying yes.