Two Marriage Reminders
Reminder #1⠀
In 2010 I attended a marriage seminar. The speaker was someone I looked up to and tagged their marriage as #goals. The room was packed with mostly single people eager to one day get married, and a few married couples who were there to "learn" something new. During the questions segment of the seminar, a lady stood up. She asked why it was necessary to pray and seek counseling before getting married. In her thinking, as long as they loved each other, nothing else mattered.
The married couples in the room laughed, some to the point of tears. Confused, she sat down and awaited a response or insight into why the entire sanctuary was filled the room with laughter. The speaker picked up the mic, sighed deeply, and said, "because your marriage could either send you to heaven or hell." He explained both the good and bad things that could happen in a marriage. He made us understand that it takes grace, prayer, repentance, and forgiveness to make a marriage work. The counseling was to help give a foresight of what is to come, and the prayer was to provide strength for the journey.
The decision to get married will impact your life more deeply than almost any decision in life.
Honestly, I did not fully understand nor appreciate what he said until I got married years later. If you are not careful, what happens could lead you to make decisions that are not reflective of a believer. Indeed the decision to get married is not to be taken lightly or without prayer and counseling. Traditional marriage vows remind us of marriage's seriousness and why we must not enter it unadvisedly or lightly, but reverently and deliberately. As you navigate the decision to marry, we pray God grants you wisdom because your life depends on it.
Reminder #2⠀
As natural analyzers, it is easy to compare marriage to a project or look at it as a problem we ought to solve. Many couples go into marriage with this perspective and struggle because naturally, the expectation when working on a project or a problem is an end date. If marriage has taught us anything, it has taught us that change is constant and required if we want to grow. Additionally, some problems will never be fixed, no matter how hard we work on them.
When we think of marriage as a project or problem we have to solve, feelings of frustration may arise, especially when expectations are not met, and our projected end date is pushed back. Additionally, considering marriage as a project or problem makes your interactions with your spouse transactional. You'll often hear couples say things like "he is a good provider," "she's a great mother," but not a great partner.
When we look at marriage as a project or a problem to solve, we become focused on the tasks that naturally come with marriage, forgetting to focus on the relational part that builds and grows a marriage. We can become more fixated on the end date and the resolution rather than enjoying the moments and cherishing the lessons we are learning along the way.
It's a relationship that requires grooming, nurturing, and lots of patience. It requires grace, prayer, repentance, and forgiveness to make it work
Marriage is not a project, nor is it a problem to solve. It's a relationship that requires grooming, nurturing, and lots of patience. It requires grace, prayer, repentance, and forgiveness to make it work—grace that comes from God and grace that we must give each other daily. It requires repentance from our thoughts and actions, extending and asking for forgiveness; because there will be hurt, both intentionally and unintentionally.
So, unlike projects with project end dates and problems that we expect will have a resolve at the end, marriage is neither. There is no end date with marriage, except when one spouse is called home to the Lord, and not all problems will have a resolve. Yet to that end, we must choose to walk the marriage journey, building a relationship with each other and with Christ at the center. Choosing to be intentional in our interactions with each other and remembering that the beauty of marriage is the journey itself.