Yesterday was Valentine's Day. And oh how we cried.There's nothing harder than marriage. I hear sighs and even chuckles from those of us on the latter side of the first five years since saying I do. It's especially hard when you know Jesus.
Maybe that last part doesn't make sense. But, to be honest, I do blame Jesus. And, to be equally honest, I think He knows why.
Do you know Him? If you know Jesus than you know peace. Real real real peace. Beautiful, genuine peace. Then, according to His wisdom, all wives should know the same peace via their husbands. (Did I hear sarcastic laughter from us same jaded bunch?) No really. It's true. The whole husbands should love their wives as Christ loves the church bit isn't just meant for theory. But, let's theorize here: if the Christian church today was chock-full to the brim with men dying to themselves to serve and glorify their wives...well, think we'd have to work on our Christian testimony much? Or do you think that this dying world full of emotional pain and relational turmoil would turn in desperate need to this Jesus that we emulate first in our homes and then let radiate out to all in need? My mom often says the only shock-value left in this world is a successful marriage.
I don't blame non-Christians for not seeking us Christians out. Too many times all we have to offer is cute music and a lot of shame. Rarely do I see a relationship in church that I want to emulate. And let's be honest--people are looking for role models. People are dying for role models. But wasn't it Jesus who died for us?
This is where all our trouble started. See my husband took on a vow to love me, even understand me, as Christ does. Oh how the thought of it warmed my heart when first we began. Sure I envisioned a struggle and a disagreement or two between us. I did not envision my own weariness at this battle. I did not envision pillows soaked with tears over a very real sense of abandonment from this man who too often let love come with words, too rarely with action. I never thought I'd feel unloved. Not unloved to such a real and deep degree. But I did. I have. I, ugh, will probably again.
These words, these ones of marital pain, are the ones too often left out of sermons and Bible studies. People, Christians, don't seem to know what to do with them. I used to work at my church (I love my church--love most churches I attend, actually!) and remember overhearing two pastors chuckle at their own counseling abilities. Apparently, just about every couple that either of them had counseled were now divorced. And knowing these two God-servers, I knew they had tried everything to save the marriages that came to them in distress. Yet...How many couples do we all know who could not endure the pain I described? It is hard. Hard. Life-threatening. We all know the marriage stats--over 50% don't make it, whether in the church or not.
This doesn't make sense to those of us who know Jesus. I know, I know about the submission deal (how husband and wife are called to submit to each other as unto Jesus). And if husbands are also called to love (to live? Yes, to live!) as Christ, well, how many women do you know who would really abandon Christ? Not the church-version of Jesus, but the actual Jesus in the Bible.
Let's observe: being married to Jesus would look (yea, feel) like...being never condemned (ok, I'm even laughing at that one! How many of us weak women would die, cry to be relieved of the guilt we carry daily! This freedom alone would bind us to our sweethearts forever I daresay!), being served (would He wash even our feet?), being relieved of merely serving others so that we, too, could partake in the joy around us (oh Martha, how we know thee! Yet how often as wife and mother do I find myself the only one of us two who are married leaving the party to change the diaper? Clean the dishes?), always being thought of, no matter the work/problem/stress that lay ahead (as He literally hung dying who did He remember? His mama...Oh, Lord, You are truly too great for us.), being empathized with to the point that He would work miracles (how many times have I seen him nod as I talk, knowing he hears but doesn't feel what I say...and yet, Jesus wept with his friends...emotions so strong that He then brought a man back from the dead). Do I even need to go on? A marriage that truly carried even one of those characteristics (and we know there are so many more qualities to Jesus' love!) would be so different, so genuine it would be nearly magnetic to those of us in search for authenticity.
Which brings me back to Jesus and how my husband's quest to love and live like Him has actually brought us pain. So much pain. It has also brought us so nearly to the breaking point so many times.
It's also what brought the tears last night as we re-visited our wedding-sight and laughed and cried and danced. We are approaching seven years since we not only said "I do," but also vowed to love each other honestly, to allow him to see when he does not love as He does (yes, this requires a great sacrifice from a wife: all access honesty to my true heart, that place of pain and joy I trust to no one else). We promised to stay the course. We laughed and cried so much thinking about how we never could have known just what that meant.
I cried a lot because I never could have known how much it hurts to be married. To continually offer up my heart to a man who wants to love me but just doesn't know how. Not naturally, at least. And I cried because for nearly seven years not only have I wanted him to love me, but I have needed it. Oh so desperately! When the Bible talks about us women as weaker this is what I believe it means. Sometimes I am smarter than my husband. Rarely can I open or lift something he can't. But always, oh, how always, I need him to love me to a depth that he doesn't even know exists. I can't submit my way to get him nearer to the Lord anymore than the church can pray Jesus closer to the Father. How backwards that would be! He is to be to me as Christ to the church...in submission to each other, under submission to Him. And let me tell you from personal experience oh how freely and richly the respect flows from that perfect relationship. There is no quieting my powerful voice...he has already heard and understood it from our conversations at home. There is no shushing of my many thoughts and ideas...again, he already knows them. There is now a symbiosis, a harmony whose glory? Well, it's all His.
Oh the example He has set before us! Anyone can get married (most will get divorced). Anyone can appear happily married: hand-holding, date nights, lots of big smiles. But how Pharisee-ish of us to only appear it while dishonoring the truth, to allow what should be the testimony of our marriages to wane as white-washed tombs. I say this because I know we all are not happily married...or if we are, we have missed out on His best for us: complete imitation of Himself and His ways. This is a commitment greater than love and respect, greater than smiles and date nights. This is a commitment to a literal living out of His literal word.
And it's hard.
It has made us laugh and cry. And mostly, in between, made us more like Him.
Happy Valentine's Day. A day late, but never too early to really start living. And loving.
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