Have you ever deeply considered the fact that we make quite a number of promises publicly to one another during our marriage ceremony? And then, also publicly, we promise to keep those promises by speaking vows to one other. Something inherent in the ceremony and those words is that whether any of us realized it or not, promises made would be tried, sometimes severely. Perhaps there is even a societal element of mistrust implied. I mean, to whom or to what other areas of life do we speak vows of commitment?
Whatever the case, marriage is built on multiple promises of remaining committed, having eyes for only one, loving and caring for my bride or my groom…” Until death do us part.” Vows (our spoken words) are important and here’s why.
Our commitment will be challenged through trials. Whether or not those trials are made by us or an outside factor doesn’t really matter. How we handle those trials and how we handle our relationship is what matters. Paul the apostle said we would encounter “light and momentary troubles” in this life and we have to determine what we will achieve, actually what will be produced through those troubles. Will they weaken us or will they strengthen us?
Maybe you and/or your spouse are facing a trial right now in your marriage or personal lives. You have the option to pursue your own comfort first if you desire to. Or, you have the option of facing that trial together, praying, practicing forgiveness and grace, attempting to grow in your relationship and deepening your commitment of love.
We have a friend whose husband was killed by Al-Qaida. She told us she could face that trial because of a very difficult, earlier trial which helped to prepare her for the loss of her husband. Trials can and will be used by God to strengthen us for the road ahead. Choose to grow in grace through each one.
Often the phrase, “Well, I’ll just divorce him or her,” is glibly spoken. If you are truly considering this option, then also consider some of these very real consequences.
Drifting is natural, it happens sometimes without giving it much thought. Add to that our human propensity to get bored with the familiar rather quickly. Once the romance wanes in our relationships, we can be tempted to drift. We attempt to convince ourselves and our life mates that we’re not drifting, but we both know we are.
It’s time to reclaim dinner around our tables. This practice is becoming lost in the midst of family busyness, jobs, school schedules, friends and activates. We desperately need to recover this tradition within our families and here’s why.
I recently needed to make a ministry/training trip to southern Virginia. It was a lovely drive; one in which I have made many, many times before. You see, our marriage began in that area 44 years previously. That now seems like a long time ago.
September 11th, 2001, a day we will all remember here in America and around the world. I was sitting on a plane at the Baltimore/Washington airport waiting to fly to New England through New York air space when we were all asked to disembark the plane and to go home. That day, 2,996 people would lose their lives.
Journalist and author Mignon McLaughlin once said, “A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.”
So often marriage is like a mirror and we get to see our real self through the reflections of our life mate. After all, who knows you better than your spouse? Who better to reflect back to you the image you are projecting?
Someone once shared with me these words, “I’ll respect him when he starts respecting me.” Still another said, “When she starts acting respectable, I’ll show her respect.” Really? Since when is respect conditional upon another respecting you?
I love how author Gary Thomas weighs in on this very subject, “As our partners and their weaknesses become more familiar to us, respect often becomes harder to give. But this failure to show respect is more a sign of spiritual immaturity than it is an inevitable pathway of marriage.” He also notes, “When there is mutual respect in marriage, selflessness becomes contagious…. If you want to obsess about them [weaknesses], they’ll grow, but you won’t!”
Marriage minefields are fields where we have buried or hidden devices (memories) just below the surface. We actually move forward in life by frequently looking backward. Most day-to-day life is not filled with new revelation but memory. Memory helps us to find our way home after work. Memory is used daily in order to live life. Life without the ability to recall even the slightest, most mundane details or important ones would be disastrous.
Some of our memories contain lies or misbeliefs and still others are inaccurate. It was not uncommon for John and Elizabeth (not their real names) to experience knock-down, drag-out arguments. In sheer frustration late one evening, John looked at Elizabeth and said, “That’s it; I’m out of here!” Immediately, Elizabeth went silent and fell to the floor in a fetal position, where she sobbed uncontrollably. Even though John ran immediately to his wife, knelt beside her, and desperately tried to console her, it was as if he had left. Elizabeth didn’t or couldn’t hear his voice or acknowledge his presence. John later discovered that when his wife was six years old, she overheard her parents fighting. Her father’s words rang out as he screamed, “That’s it; I’m out of here!” Elizabeth never saw her father again
Elizabeth was no longer fighting with John; she was wrestling with pain-filled memories planted in a minefield just below the surface. Was it the argument they needed to resolve, or was it Elizabeth’s past hurts that needed to be healed? From many stories like this one, I have come to believe that most relationship issues in the present have a connection to the past; therefore, what seem like marital issues are often individual issues. I am convinced that when Jesus heals our individual issues, sins, hurts, and disappointments, marriage relationship issues can also be healed. *
Steve Prokopchak 