In last week’s blog, I mentioned the grand parenting factor of marrying younger. Our culture has shifted and now tends to look down on younger married persons, but does chronological age (youthfulness) automatically mean immaturity? Maturity does not come with age, but rather life experiences that are successfully worked and walked through. Young married persons can face those life experiences together.
My wife and I were married in our very early 20’s. Here are ten reasons that we have come to celebrate that decision.
- We carried less baggage into the marriage from multiple partners, breakups and disastrous relationships.
- We grew up faster, taking on the many responsibilities of married life early.
- We were young and had tons of fun before children entered the picture.
- We didn’t have deeply established routines and independent lives so it was easier to develop our culture in becoming one.
- It was easier to make personal change and become what would honor and serve our spouse. In other words, compromise and sacrifice were an early part of becoming adults.
- We had few extra resources so we learned to budget early and make do.
- We went from a small apartment to missionary service (an even smaller apartment) to our first home. The progression and sacrifice were shared and the accomplishments were milestones along the way.
- We love our memories of “young love.” But since then, romance has grown and we know each other, having grown older together with over four shared decades…”old love.”
- We weren’t partying and being careless, but we were helping one another reach our life goals. We navigated graduate school together.
- We are with the one person who has stuck by our side through the most difficult and the most enjoyable years of life. We raised our children together and now fully enjoy our grandchildren.
No disappointment here when the scripture says, “May you rejoice in the wife of your youth…” (Proverbs 5:18)
It’s pretty rare to attend a wedding today where the bride and groom are under age 25. More often, it’s a couple who are approaching their mid 30’s. The reasons? There’s college and then there’s college debt. Then a career to help pay that debt and perhaps even graduate school – more debt. The pervasive attitude becomes waiting until all the stars align, i.e., school, jobs, housing, money, etc.
Grandparents can pass on or become too old to relate in healthy and fun ways with their grandchildren. And when that happens, something very, very important and essential is lost in our culture.
My assignment was clear: completely renovate our outdated bathroom during my Christmas vacation. Its décor was left over from the 1990’s. The flooring had yellowed. The walls needed fresh paint. Nails had popped through the drywall and in general it was looking old and tired. It was time to, “Forget the former….” (Isaiah 43:18) The materials were purchased and the work began. The floor would be covered with a new material, the walls would receive a wainscoting and the paint would be an updated color. “See, I am doing a new thing!” (Isaiah 43:19) The change was incredible and when finished my wife exclaimed, “It’s a complete transformation!”
Weariness. This morning Mary and I prayed together about “a spirit of weariness.” We felt it at different times throughout the year of 2016. There were multiple illnesses we were battling. There were major concerns in our family with aging parents. There were emotional and spiritual attacks that seemed to come out of nowhere. Of course the elections were within themselves a whole new level of campaign weariness and continually planting seeds that did not appear to take root. It’s a bit hard to describe or put our finger on any one thing, but all together they spelled: W E A R I N E S S.
Press on. 2017 is a whole new opportunity. No matter what is at the root of your weariness, do not give up!
Listening to a recent National Public Radio (NPR) broadcast about the Golden Rule was intriguing to me. The “expert” went on and on about this “rule” as it crossed cultures and religions and apparently she even gives speeches on the subject. But, the truly interesting part was that during the time I was listening to the segment, I never heard the Author mentioned, credited or cited: Jesus. Matthew 7:12 records it, “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.”
I had spent the last two summers living at the beach in Delaware and found a girlfriend from New Jersey. Somewhere in our second summer together I discovered that she was not just another girl, but in my mind, THE girl. There was this one big, glaring issue however: she kept trying to “witness” to me and according to her I needed to “be saved.” I had no idea how to answer her questions about the second coming of Christ or exactly what salvation even meant. “Being saved” was something most of us teenage guys just weren’t looking for. My tactic became asking her her thoughts of those impossible questions and then simply agreeing. It worked in part.
Jesus was the Perfect Christmas gift that December of 1971. I did bow my knee. I prayed that prayer at the end of the little tract and Christmas with Christ took on a whole new meaning. Has Christmas come into your heart?
Those of us who fly tens of thousands of miles a year barely endure the whole experience. We’ve lost our youthful vigor when it comes to flying. It has become something we tolerate rather than embrace with excitement.
can see everything…it’s getting smaller down there…I love flying!”
Breakthrough . . . after twenty-five years of praying.
We started writing about, training counselors and actually mentoring couples in pre- and postmarital counseling in 1989. Our primary goal as stated in our book, Called Together, Asks the Difficult Questions that all Couples Must Answer Before and After They say “I Do,” was to better prepare couples before marriage and follow-up with them after marriage using this book as a resource in the hands of trained counselors. The ultimate goal of accomplishing this was to have an effect upon the divorce rate of our day. We longed for, worked toward and prayed to see it lowered.
A CEO was once asked what made him so successful. He replied, “Good decisions.” “How, then, do you make good decisions?” was the follow-up question. His reply was given in one word, “Experience.” “And how do you get experience?” was the final question. The CEO provided a two-word response, “Bad decisions.”
I read once that bad decisions are often the result of insufficient knowledge. How about you, what are you learning from your bad decisions?
Steve Prokopchak 