Marriage
Divorce. For some, that word brings discomfort and perhaps some uneasiness, shame, guilt, hurt, pain, and anger. For my husband and me, this word brings about a lot of emotions, but it also makes us desire a strong and healthy marriage.
Both of us come from generational divorce; neither of us received the teaching—or the model—of what a healthy marriage could be. However, God has taken the brokenness of our childhood experiences and is using them to write a very different narrative for our family. We intend for our kids to see every part of our marriage—the good, the bad, and the ugly—so they understand what a Christ-centered marriage among two broken sinful human beings can look like. We hope that our children will witness the same commitment in our marriage as our heavenly Father has toward us. Just as God promised, "I will never leave you nor forsake you" (Hebrews 13:5, Deuteronomy 31:8), so my husband and I seek to be promise keepers.
Imagine what marriage looks like through this promise-keeping lens. Marriage is full of opportunities to reveal the sacrificial love of a Heavenly Father who has loved us so much that He gave His Son for our redemption. In marriage, we can sacrificially love our spouse by always seeking the best for them. We have daily opportunities to display faithfulness and a lifetime of commitment. And we can even expand the joy of marriage by forgiving rather than holding grudges and by choosing to reconcile rather than retaliate.
Through marriage, we start to see our own brokenness as we recognize our failure to truly love our spouse the way we initially intended to. Marriage exposes the depths of our sins because we no longer live as isolated individuals. Now that we are tied to another person, our spouse becomes a mirror that reflects what's inside of us. Through our oneness, we see how we hurt, disappoint, or fail each other. We may even be tempted to give up on the promise we made.
These feelings and actions reveal our continuous need for our Savior's grace. So, when walking intimately with Jesus, we see just how capable we are of loving our spouse the same way Jesus loves us. We really do have the freedom to choose this kind of love. Not because we must, but because we understand the depths of our Heavenly Father's love for us. Through the power of the Holy Spirit that lives inside the heart of the believer, this love flows out of us toward the person we have committed to share the rest of our lives with.
May you continue to live out the promises of God in your marriage, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, whether rich or poor. After all, doesn't God keep His promise to love you regardless of your condition or circumstances? "For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:38-39).
No matter what your past entails, no matter what you have done or what has been done to you, no matter your personal experiences or your family history, you have a choice. You can decide if your marriage will demonstrate the love of our heavenly Father. It is not too late to redeem God's goodness for your marriage, just as it is never too late for others to witness the love of Christ through your life and your marriage.