Marriage Made in Heaven

Civil unions. Utopia. Ideas that don’t really work. Well, maybe for a short while under the best of conditions, and the most extreme luck. Generally, they are doomed to failure. Marriage won’t last without faith. Like salvation, that faith is not of yourself: it is a gift of God. The book of Ephesians is where Paul says: all things “consist” because they are held together by Christ. Things without Christ, natural law of entropy tells us, will eventually break down and fall apart. Before I get a bunch of hate-mail or angry debate, let me validate my point.

The Path Least Taken

The easy path doesn’t exist. Marriage is messy business. I mean we make wedding vows that seem easy to keep. Everyone loves to “have and to hold” and we like to be “obeyed”. Harder still are vows to “love and honor and cherish, forsaking all others”. Sheer will power might keep that alive for years, even if in appearance only. But the love of Christ makes even those so much easier to accomplish, when real love and charity is involved. But the two things hardest on that list of vows are (1) “in sickness and in health”, and (2) “till death do us part”. These two things I contend cannot be accomplished without the power of commitment through Christ. And, sadly, some totally committed Christians don’t keep these, even though Christ repeatedly assures us, we can through him.

I Can Do Forever

We all like to think we can do forever in our own power. Meatloaf’s song, Paradise By The Dashboard Light, a song about eternal promises made in the heat of lust ends with this line: “Now I’m waiting for the end of time: so I can end my time with you.” I submit if you had to live in a loveless marriage for a lifetime, that lifetime would be short: without Christ in suicide or in homicide for one of you. That is why divorce exists: so you can part without dying or killing. Marriage by definition is till death. Divorce, which was never part of God’s definition of Marriage, validates my point that marriage cannot be accomplished as a civil union without faith. Christ gives you the power through His love, to bear all things, including the apparent lack of passion on anyone’s part. When you keep your eye on Him, it’s easier to focus on the needs of others and not the lack of your own. Colossians 3:19 says: “Husbands love your wives, and be not bitter against them.” It’s an interesting command (not a suggestion) from God. No matter where your marriage is at, good or bad, if you love and stay your own tongue and thoughts from bitterness, your marriage will improve. Your relationship also improves with Him. God says obedience is always better than sacrifice.

What About My Rights?

It’s always right to do right. If you insist you are right, or that your spouse is infringing on your “rights”, here is another commandment from Ephesians 5:25: “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the church, and gave himself for it.” Think about how that went. Did your wife spit on you? Beat you? Betray you? Lie to you or about you? Put nails through your hands? Well, even if she did, you are commanded to love her through it as Christ did, sacrificially, giving up everything, even his very life. How do your “rights” or being right stack up now?

Healthy, Wealthy and Wise

We generally marry in our youth. We are young, healthy, if not wealthy, we are full of potential. We have a full wonderful life ahead: homes, cars, careers, children, grandchildren. After all isn’t that a promise of God? Well, wisdom isn’t our strong suit in our youth. No such promise exists. That is why that one dreaded line in the marriage vow is easy to overlook. “In sickness.” (Man, I saw it there but I was thinking ‘flu’ or something). Time does not heal all wounds; neither does chicken soup, anti-oxidants, plastic surgery or Prozac. We don’t enter into marriage thinking about long-term illness or injuries; certainly not those that are till death. Many of us are ill-prepared for this, and again, never without faith. And sickness covers a lot of ground.

A Lot of Job

Remember Job? God let him lose everything: his property, his substance, his kids, his health, his future (some say his mind). He didn’t lose his life. Sometimes we can lose a spouse to grief, mental illness, cancer, loss of limbs, motor skills, hepatitis, aids and more. We watch helplessly as they suffer, even pushing us away. Like Job’s wife we want to say, “Curse God and die.” But death is not part of the plan. Sometimes, since life has changed for us, we selfishly ask, “why me.” But we know full well it is not us who is suffering the greater loss. We’re human, even if we never say it to her, if a wife loses her breasts to cancer we take it personally – those were mine. If she was raped and the trauma leaves her fearful, untrusting and unable to be intimate, we ignorantly say to ourselves, “get over it. Buck up. I have sexual needs.” If she has a mental illness like schizophrenia or manic depression and we watch behavior erratic and unpredictable take her places nobody should go, we get angry. Against whom? The person who can’t control it? Or perhaps the God we think who should? Or maybe the medicine that sometimes works, sometimes might not, and sometimes leaves her a zombie, or worse, intimately and sexually numb. We might be angry at the drunk driver who took her legs, but we might be angry at her too because she is no longer “complete.” God forbid a spouse should actually be the intentional cause of their own ailment: an accident caused while they were texting; an addiction caused by their drug or alcohol use. We will never let them forget our loss is THEIR fault.

Not all ailments are forever. A lengthy hospital stay and a long convalescence at home and things go back to normal. But schizophrenia is forever. PTSD is manageable most of the time but when it rears an ugly head is near unbearable and dangerous to both parties. A life-long illness does indeed change life. And it can change a relationship. But when God is the glue, there is still grace, gratitude and goodness in your marriage.

Life as a Zombie

Sadly, I think the greatest cause of divorce in this nation starts with the inability to cope with sickness in a marriage. Rights, needs, abilities, all become insurmountable issues. Whether because of inability or feelings of guilt, one spouse or the other ‘releases’ the other from the promised commitment to God. (As if either had that right or power). Like the undead, the injured often then, live in a perpetual state of limbo: too sick for life and love; too healthy for eternal rest and peace. The healthy party often remarries as if they were widowed. Christians too, are counted among these heart-breakers. This too, was never God’s plan. What if you had been the one injured? Would you still be happy with the outcome? Could you live life like a leper while your spouse goes out to find someone new to meet her needs?

To Everything There Is a Season

“Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.” 1 Peter 1:6-7. I used to ask, what does he mean, “if need be”? Why do I need to go through heaviness and temptations? Why do I need trial by fire? Sometimes we don’t know those reasons. Remember Job? God never told Job that he was teaching a great lesson to all his angels (especially Lucifer) by the testing of Job. And Job proved himself faithful and thus he ended up at the end of his life with more than he ever lost: property, stock, children, wealth, health, respect, reputation and a reserved spot in Heaven. Perhaps his greatest honor was that his story would fill a whole book in God’s greatest work: the bible, where it is promised to stand forever, long after Earth is gone. I no longer ask why. I just weather the seasons. Though “now for a season.” How long is a season? Well for some, seasons are short, and perhaps mild. For others, seasons are many months, even many years. For a few they seem a lifetime. But like the Apostle Paul, all true followers of Christ can echo that “I am content in what ever state I find myself.”

Making the Bed and Laying in It

Life, they say, is no bed of roses. But then it is not a bed of thorns either. Those who have Christ and the experience of weathering many seasons of trials and tests can smile with genuine joy and gratitude that marriage even in long-time sickness is well-worth the effort for all parties and reaps benefits few others could know. Ask Job.

So now I am back to my original statement. Marriage is for the godly faithful. Marriage is not for the faint-of-heart, the fair-weathered soul and certainly not for “same sex” couples (God certainly cannot bless that which He calls an “abomination” by the disobedient). The godly faithful are the only ones capable of fulfilling the life-long commitment no matter what the state of circumstances. And why not? Marriage is God’s picture of His relationship to us: a relationship he is capable of keeping regardless of our failures to him. Remember Colossians 3:19? He is the perfect husband who is never bitter to his bride.