Today is such a happy day. It is my anniversary. Six years I have been married. Six wonderful years (at least that is what I am supposed to say, right?). Well, I am sitting here today, pondering my marriage and what awesome thing I can do for my wife (that does not cost a lot of money) and in that I am asking myself a simple question. What one thing? What simple truth has kept your marriage together? Why, in this day of six minute marriages, has yours lasted for six years? How have the two of you kept it together?
The answer is simple, the word of God. Now this is not to say that my marriage is perfect, it is not (ask my wife about that one). What is true though is that, just as our walk with Christ on an individual basis is about growing and perfecting our faith, so our marriage is on the same quest. Now, we have our moments of, “adult conversations,” but we have so many more of great times, full of love and family.
I do have to admit that the big “D” word or thought has come up a time or two but we always seem to work it out. I think most of this boils down to an agreement we made before we got married. When we entered in to our covenant with each other and God, we understand that we were choosing to love each other.
Now, that is a huge difference between what society puts out there for all of us to see. When people on the street speak of love they talk of that feeling, you know, that wonderful feeling like you are on a cloud. They speak of how attracted they are to each other and how they hope they never fall out of love. You see, I strongly feel that this simple misunderstanding of love is one of the key reasons our divorce rate is so high. People get a high off the feeling of love and forget about the action of love, the choice of love.
God is the perfect example of this. All through scripture God has chosen to love us. He chooses to forgive, he chooses to bless and he chose to send his only son to die so that we may live. The act of marriage is so sacred that Jesus says “the two will become one flesh.” Think of this amazing fact. And Jesus goes on to say that no one should tear it apart. No one! Not even the two who entered in to it can tear it apart. Why? If we are one flesh, what does that mean?
While pondering this question, I got one of those parable moments. Now, this is not as good as Jesus would have come up with, but it makes a good point. Think of a piece of paper. What is it? Simply put, a piece of paper is a marriage of wood (in this case lets say wood from two trees). Through life processes, time and energy, these two trees are married and become something new. You could say that they have become one flesh in this piece of paper.
Now, I want you to take a piece of paper right now. Look at it. It is one, whole piece of paper made from a marriage of wood. Now, rip it in half. Go ahead, do it. Look at how it tore. Now what do you have? Think about it. You still have one piece of paper, it is just torn apart. Now take another piece of paper and try to attach one of the torn pieces of the first to it. You can use glue or paper.
I guarantee you this. No matter how hard you try, you will never get a perfect fit. Once the paper is torn it is torn. Even if you tear the other piece as carefully as possible and try to join a piece from each, it never fits together perfectly. You still have two torn pieces of paper with jagged edges trying to fit with each other.
Marriage is like this. If we fail to remember that we chose to make the covenant, we chose to love each other, we chose to walk this path and we must choose each and every day to dedicate this walk to God, to place each other first. We must choose to grow with each other and we must choose to continue, even when things get hard. If we remember the choice, the choice to love each other with the Agape love of God, the love that he loves us with. When we make and remember this choice, we will make it through the times when the “feeling” may not be so strong.
When I look over the past six years, I see a rollercoaster of ups and downs. Some not so great times, some terrible times, but many good times and a whole bunch of just living times. I see, and am so proud of the fact that we have chosen to persevere. We have chosen to take the road less traveled in this world. We have chosen to follow the word of God, we have chosen to love.
I love you babe and I look forward to a lifetime of choosing to love you. I thank God for you and thank you for the love that you choose to give me, freely. For if you loved me half as much as I love you, it would be twice as much as I deserve.
Love always and forever,
Your grateful Husband
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