I was thinking this
morning as I was cutting cantaloupe. (I
love cantaloupe.) I was thinking about
marriage. When's the last time you heard
a little kid playing on the playground holler that he wants to be a super duper
awesome…. Husband? Yeah, I've never
heard that, and you know how much time I spend with kids. Now, I haven't read Piper on marriage or Real
Marriage by Driscoll or any of that.
Sheesh, I'm not even married, but it seems to me as an innocent
bystander to the institution of marriage, IT'S PRETTY FLIPPING IMPORTANT.
Let's not even pull
out the big guns yet. Let's just talk
about romance. Choosing to stick with
someone til death do you part, forsaking all others and toughing it out through
sickness and health, feast and famine, laundry and dishes - now that's
romantic. Shakespeare didn't write
Sonnet 116 because we're supposed to just date people forever.
it is an ever-fixed
mark
That looks on
tempests and is never shaken...
Love alters not with
his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out
even to the edge of doom.
Pasted
from <http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/116.html>
Do we love
fairytales because the prince rescues the princess from the dragon/villain/evil
step-whoever/magic spell and takes her out to dinner? NO! We
love it because they ride off into the sunset (however she manages that in her
poofy princess dress), and they live happily ever after. They don't live happily ever after because
that was the last of the dragons or because the princess never burns the toast
or because the prince never ever tracks mud into the palace. They live happily ever after because they're
together, they're committed, they're in for the long haul.
What about
kids? Think it's better if they have two
married parents living at home? Think
it's better if they can enter adulthood without 12 suitcases of relational
baggage from a divorce or a dysfunctional unmarried parents scenario? Now, I get it. Stuff happens. People make the best out of the situations
they have, but we're talking ideal situations here. Practically speaking, it's just easier. Coordinating who goes to whose house and who
picks up whom when and for what holiday and who pays for gymnastics and
baseball... I had a student last year
who switched houses EVERY DAY. Let's
just say she had a hard time keeping track of her homework.
OK, big gun
time. Marriage is a picture of Christ
and His Church. God set it up as a sort
of earthly analogy of the closeness we experience with Christ and the kind of
sacrificial love that exists between Christ and His Church. What do you think it says about the Church
when our divorce rate is the same as everyone else's? What are you saying about Christ with your
marriage? It's not just this thing that
started out romantically, ended up with a few kids and a mortgage and is now
this habit you'll probably maintain for a while.
*brief hiatus for
frustrated explosion*
MARRIAGE IS
HARD. I get it. Life is easier if you just date people or
cheat on people for other people or remain the eternal bachelor because you
love drinking out of the milk jug.
Sometimes you lose sight of Ephesians 5 - "walk in love, as Christ
loved us and gave himself up for us… a man shall leave his father and mother
and hold fast to his wife… let each one of you love his wife as himself, and
let the wife see that she respects her husband." That's HARD.
It's natural to love yourself the most and hand out your leftovers to
whoever's standing closest. Loving
someone as yourself is a supernatural crazy kind of love. It's easy to lose the vision of marriage
somewhere between making dinner and golf with the guy. You get busy choosing paint colors for the
living room or buying socks for the kids or doing dishes or figuring out where
you're going to spend Christmas.
But what if, aside
from you walking with Jesus, your marriage is the most important thing you ever
do? Oh sure, your career is
important. Making that quota is of real
long term value. *Here's a tissue for my
sarcasm splatter.* Being on that
non-profit committee is so great. You
racking up hours at the gym is super duper self-discipline. I get it, we need to do stuff with our
lives. Big stuff. Little stuff.
Middle stuff. But shouldn't
looking like Jesus and loving like Jesus be our first and main thing? I'm not saying you can't love Jesus and be
Committee Chairperson Extraordinaire, but if you think that takes precedent
over your marriage because it's obviously more charitable and philanthropic,
you've lost the vision of marriage.
Sure, I'm not
married, so for me, looking like and loving like Jesus is not going to look
like nurturing a marriage. (Sometimes I
get frustrated because I'm not sure how to properly affirm and uphold the
institution of marriage while simultaneously affirming the role of single
people in the Church.) But good heavens,
married people, your marriages are important - not just because it's cheaper to
be married or because it means you have someone to go to the movies with. They're important because you're the picture
people see of Christ and the Church! I
almost feel like buying some pompoms and being your personal cheer squad. In no other relationship will you have the
opportunity to show off God's grace and patience quite like the way you do in
marriage.
What would have to change for us to start hearing the veneration of marriage on the playground? Married people, I think it starts with you. You have to start believing your marriages matter, that the promise you made that day you walked down an aisle is STILL the most important promise you've ever made. It's not just important to you. It's important to culture, social norms, the Church, kids, single people, the economy. We have to start talking about marriage like it's a good thing - not a rut, not a habit, not something to try when you hit 30 - but a good thing that's good for people.
Do you get it
yet? Geez louise, I sure hope so. Know that I'm on my knees for you and in your
corner, but not even a fraction of the way Jesus is interceding for you.
Go be awesome and
married,
Little Miss Sunshine
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