Married Life

Is there anything so sentimental, sweet or moving as a wedding? I always get choked up when the doors open and the bride, with a beaming face, eyes on her groom, enters the sanctuary. Last night I had the privilege of attending a wedding at our church. As I sat and listened to the ceremony I did what probably most married women do – I thought back to my own wedding all those years ago. How can a couple so young and in love have any idea of what they are to face in the years to come? I surely didn’t! Though this couple has had good counsel about the reality of married life, they still really don’t have a clue about the twists in the road that lie ahead. That doesn’t make marriage frightening; it brings us to the greater understanding of how much we need the Lord at work in our individual lives every day. It’s also a blessing to think that God gave us someone with whom we can share those difficulties.

As I observe couples that have been married longer than our 28 years, I see that married life doesn’t ever just get easy. I guess I had the thought that after living with and loving someone for years and years, it would almost come naturally. But loving others really cuts cross-grain to our selfish natures. The longer you’re with someone the more relaxed you become, and because of that, sometimes it’s easy to also let our own flesh rule in the marriage instead of loving our spouse as Christ does. Just as this newly married couple are guarding their manners, the way the listen to each other, the attention they pay to the other…so each of us that are married must continue to make our spouse our priority. Kindness, thoughtfulness, loving gestures, gracious speech, unselfishness, and having a magnanimous heart should be worked on, through the power of the Holy Spirit for all of our married lives.

Twists and turns in our lives are going to happen, but how much sweeter those things are when we can face them hand in hand with the mate God has given. Are you still working on your marriage? What have you done today to make your mate’s life sweeter? Remember the day you vowed before God to love that man all your life, then do something to demonstrate that today.