“…and they become one flesh.” (Genesis 2:24 NIV)
I’ve been thinking about marriage and the bit about ‘for better or worse.’ I’m coming to the conclusion that good marriage is a soul-tying commitment to live in all the best parts of a person but, also, a willingness, to trudge through the darkest stretches of their story. So often we commit to coupling in the mountaintops of our youth, where all we anticipated is fairy tales and happy endings. Then the marriage begins and it turns out to be more work than we expected. Happily ever after is far more evasive. The real business of life has much lower altitudes than what Disney led us to believe. Marriage is a commitment to walk through one another’s desolation.
“Don’t just marry for the mountaintops. Marry someone you want to suffer with.” (Jenni and Levi Lusko)
This isn’t just a soundbite from another shiny Christian couple. This is a nutrient-rich truth offered from a marriage that has endured more than their share of pain. Their five year old daughter died in their arms. An asthma attack stole their little girl, and still, they have never stepped back from the gospel message, even in the midst of their deepest anguish.
It seems to me that the marriages that make it forty or fifty or more years are limited to couples that have learned to suffer together. They’ve sought to lay more than their bodies bare, but their souls, too. They’ve been confronted with the reality that life is burdensome, but they’ve decided the burden is more bearable together.
I think about Jesus and His commitment to participate in our desolation. He laid down heaven to take up with human life. He lived in our sorrow far more frequently than our celebration, so He could save us. Sometimes I think marriage might be the most real way we learn to live out and fully appreciate Christ-like commitment. Married believers keep pulling each other along the path of sanctification. This sacrificial, suffer-together, love each other, til-death-do we-part commitment is the one relationship where we learn what love is truly capable of over the long haul.
“He made Himself nothing, by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. and being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to death – even death on a cross.”
(Philippians 2:7-8 NIV)
Lord, when suffering surges, give us the courage to suffer toward our spouse. Let us lean in, choosing to share the load with the one You’ve seen fit to give us. May we continue to become more like You amidst our marriage. Amen.