I love my husband.
I really do.
But with each year and each turn and each milestone of marriage God is teaching me brand new things about love.
What it is. And what it isn't.
And I have so many more lessons to learn.
A number of books and wise counsel have taught me along this path, leading me to where I am now. Books like Love & Respect and Sacred Marriage.
But no book teaches me more than God's word. It strips away popular theory and is more relevant than any book claiming itself as the most relevant marriage help book on the market.
Today our pastor was referencing marriage in his sermon. And, among many other things, he said that marriage really means death.
No, not a death to good times or dude nights or speed dating.
Death to us. Death to ourselves. Our personal, and mostly selfish, desires.
It's really an opportunity to be like Christ. To love another human being before ourselves.
Like one of the books I listed above proposes, what if marriage is designed to make us holy instead of happy?
That's so unAmerican - isn't it?
It's not what Hollywood says. Not what romance novels espouse. It's not what poets ponder and songwriters wail about. Not what fills our dreams at night or drives the plots of the films that wait in our red NetFlix envelopes.
No. We are bombarded with the images of romance and feelings. Always catering to our feelings.
Two souls as one.
Our better half.
Love of my life.
Knight in shining armor.
Please don't read me wrong here. I like romance. Probably too much. I want my days to be full of it.
I spent far too many hours reading Janette Oake's perfect-ending-every-time Christianized romance novels in high school. I watched Pretty in Pink and Two Weeks Notice and dozens of sub-par films in between and I wanted to be swept off my feet, wooed, carried off on a white horse.
But we always take it all too far. Even the good things. Or wait, I always take it all too far. Especially the good things.
Two souls as one?
Romantic drivel at best.
Damning theology at worst.
Kevin and I made a covenant with God. We did. To act in a certain manner to one another. (Not really to feel a certain way forever. Who can promise to feel a certain way forever?)
But two souls?
I'm afraid not.
We're not a package deal.
I am not ultimately responsible for the status of Kevin's soul.
Nor he for mine.
It just doesn't work that way.
Regardless of the sweet sentiment.
When will I ever accept the truth as it is instead of the truth as I wish it to be?
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Marriage is definitely "on the job training", I think even more than parenting. We learn so much as we experience life together. And we learn from others, like you, who take the time to write about all that they are learning!
ReplyDeleteThanks!
Leanne
God's covenant "agape" love is an act of will. Emotions that follow will (maturity) are much more dependable than will that follows emotions (immaturity). But covenant love is also redemptive. Being a doormat or always giving in or enabling bad behavior is not covenant love. "Wounds from a friend can be trusted."
ReplyDeleteIt is all about SACRIFICE. In parenting too.
ReplyDeleteOk, I am thinking that it should be a law now that before you can divorce you have to read Lacey's marriage blog. You are so right!!!!! It took me a long time to figure it all out but after the Love and Respect class that we took, it all made sense and to me, my marriage and my love for my sweet one, just renews itself daily. The divorce rate would be so much lower if people would just stop and think about the real commitment that was made before God and to quit thinking of marriage as just some piece of paper that keeps them joined. Always love reading your perspective on things Lacey......
ReplyDeleteI am walking this road with you. I'm finding that God's thoughts are "higher than" / different than my thoughts. Who knew? : ) I'm finding His way is not what I would have picked but amazingly, somehow better. Thank you for you openness!!
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