Here's reality: The minute you say "I will" you can expect to receive every possible challenge, blow and affront to your own will to do those things which you are supposed to do; to "love, honor and cherish" one another, and to view marriage as a "sacred covenant" as the Pastor easily proclaimed it to be. The words missing in our memory of the vows, like "for better or for __ ," "for richer or ___, and "in __ and in health" grew flesh and blood and teeth and nails and stood in plain sight. Not what we'd hoped for.
It's been said that a covenant is different from a contract, in that a covenant is love, plus trust. A contract is love, without trust. In a covenant, what is the object of the trust? If it's the other person, then here's the kicker: They will let you down, they will do you wrong, because no one is perfect and without fault. If the trust is in the One who invented marriage, and is without fault, it's going to work out much better. What a relief to know that Someone knows what He's doing in this marriage, and in this family, and in this household! Our best attempts still miss the bull's eye of perfection most of the time, but that doesn't mean we put the bow down and quit practicing our aim to value and encourage the one we are yoked in marriage to.
I have recently learned that marriage, as an institution, is on the decline, but so is the divorce rate. If one sees marriage as the perpetrator of painful divorce, that reasoning makes sense. The truth as I see it, is that it's not the institution at fault, but the presence of so called "no fault" divorce. There still needs to be a blame for something that went wrong...if you want to stay semi-sane, so rather than take responsibility for actions and decisions that caused pain and lack of trust, just blame it on being married! No marriage - no problem! I know this is an oversimplification, but it doesn't take a genius to see that a husband or wife can destroy a family in one fell swoop and not be held responsible for doing anything wrong. That's just unacceptably sad, especially for the child/children involved.
For us, the "better or worse" part came in unlikely ways. Even though we were using multiple forms of birth control in order to plan our family, we still found ourselves celebrating our first year anniversary with a dear two month old! Deciding to finish a nursing program a few years down the road, baby number two came along instead! Three years later, the day after completing oral boards for his master's degree, baby number three was born! Although the timing of babies didn't happen as we necessarily would have planned, they were truly gifts. They were, in hindsight, the "better" part.
The "worse" part involved hard questions. Questions like: Where will you get a job? (Especially coming out of agricultural grad school during the farm crisis!) How do you sell a house when the same houses were on the market two years ago? Then there were frightening questions, like How long will dad live with cancer? What's wrong with mom, and why does she act this way? What does my biopsy show? How can I keep my heart/mind/will from straying, and be faithful to my spouse under great temptation? There were the life changing questions like how did we get to Maryland from Iowa, when we planned to raise our family there? And finally, questions without answers like, why did God allow this terrible thing to happen? In such times, trusting that things happen for reasons we don't understand, and seeking God in times of fear, doubt and worry, causes your faith to grow.
The "richer and poorer" times included losses of jobs, losses of all four of our parents, and losses of income through just plain hard times and also bad decisions! It's all part of living in the real world, if you are blessed to live long enough. It's through life's twists and turns, that you experience blessings in unlikely places, and silver linings inside storm clouds. You learn you shouldn't be too quick to judge by how things look, but rather give it time to see what it becomes. He makes everything beautiful in its time. Since you truly never know how your marriage or your spouse can turn out in the end, you owe it your yourself and to them, and children, to "trust in the Lord with all your heart, and not lean on your own understanding, and acknowledge God in all your ways, and He will direct your paths" (Proverbs 3:5-6)
How did we stick it out? What's changed in thirty years? Life gets easier to figure out with age and experience...the answer is that we've changed. Friction in a relationship, when Love is applied causes what? A roughing away of the sharp edges that hurt others. Try reading I Corinthians 13 to see where your rough edges are...I assure you they are listed there. We all fall short of the view. That's why we seek the Rock that is higher than we are. If you both lean on Him, stand together on the Rock that doesn't roll, you will remain standing together in the end. This kind of "Rocky" marriage is the only one that has lasting power to see beyond the temporary circumstances. They block the view. On Christ you see a new horizon, and beyond - eternity.
In the Bible, Samuel took a single rock and set it upright between the towns of Mizpah and Shen. He named it "Ebenezer" (Rock of Help), saying, "This marks the place where God helped us." I Samuel 7:21
We look back and see those hard questions as our path of "Ebenezers," and are thankful we didn't give up on each other.
