This morning as I sit here on a borrowed bed of some great friends I can’t help but think about this thing called Marriage. See in 33 days from now I too will join the ranks of men and women who have unified themselves into the Holiness and sanctitude and yet the war of marriage.
I’ve never been so excited about something in my entire life to be marrying my best friend and to embark in this love story then with Meredith. As my sister described the other days, “She makes you a better you.” And I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately. She makes me a better person. And I make her a better person.
Even in the midst of worry, fear, drivenness, finances and everything else that we will face in our lives together she makes me better at. When I’m struggling with things, she’s my rock. When I don’t understand how to balance a checkbook, she’s there to help me. When she doesn’t understand how to not kill flowers (lol) I’m there to help her with her green thumb. When she’s struggling with anything, I’m there to not fix things, but to encourage, love and to listen/hear what she has to say.
John and Stasi Eldredge in their new book on marriage, Love and War, call marriage “hard.” And that’s because it is. It will be the hardest thing that we will ever take on. Yet it will be the best thing that we will ever do.
This thing called marriage is one of great risk, great love and great reward. And if you think that it will all be hunky dory and it will be the perfect thing ever you are sadly mistaken. When God created man and woman and then instructed us to join together in holy matrimony and to leave our father and mother and become one flesh he set us in the midst of a war. Marriages are, in my opinion, one of the the enemy’s most hated, despised and attacked unions in the history of mankind.
From the early church marriages were attacked, Gomer and Hosea, David and Bathsheba, to all of the continuing centuries following til now, marriage has been under attack. Satan first of all has a special hatred for the beauty. Back in the garden Satan came to the woman first and deceived her. And ever since then he has attacked her with a special hatred. The man also was deceived by Satan and has robbed him of his manhood for centuries.
To live in your marriage as if there was no enemy if like trying to live without water for a week. You can’t do it! The body needs water and we have to live as if we are fiercely opposed. Men we need to offer strength not be cowards, we need to offer ourselves to our woman in every way imaginable. Women you need to offer your life, your beauty, your heart in the same way that your man does. The only difference is that men and women offer it in different ways.
If you can remember back to the first marriage, Adam and Eve, there communication came under attack and it got them kicked out of paradise. Communication is one of the, if not the, most attacked venues that the enemy tries to use against man and woman.
Twists, lies, perversions, condemnation, guilt, shame, all come from SATAN. Love, truth, grace, discipline all come from GOD. We have to be careful what we hear the Enemy whispering to us because it can very easily be communicated to our spouse and it can have very harsh repercussions on us.
I in no way know everything about marriage, for I’m not even married yet, 33 days away, but with these subtle truths and wisdom gained from others who have walked down this path in marriage we will be great!
This thing called marriage is wonderful and I can’t wait to embark. Let us set sail into the greatest mystery and love ever!
