Keeping Our Marriage Together

Yesterday my mom was going through her Christmas card list, and she told me how sad she felt because on it she found two couples who have divorced in the last year. I asked her if I knew them, and so she told me. They were both my age. With young children at home. Just like me.

So I’ve been thinking all day about marriage. I was thinking about the sheer importance of keeping my marriage together. A family can weather the storm of kids fighting amongst themselves. It can even survive frequent discord between a parent and a child. But it cannot flourish if the husband and wife are constantly at odds. And if divorce ensues, the family obviously sees its final break.*

Our marriage is the foundation of our family. All other relationships flow out of our marriage (literally & as a matter of priority), and when our marriage is doing well, a tsunami among other relationships within the family becomes a storm that might rock – but will not demolish – our family’s foundation. Thought it would be easy to look at my kids and think, ‘At least I’m doing well with them,’ I must prioritize my husband and our relationship if I expect to make it (with God’s help) through the ups and downs of life.

I seriously feel like I’ve done more things wrong than right so far, but maybe that’s what the first 6 years are all about. And I must stop here and say, “Thanks be to God!” for His amazing grace that covers a whole host of wrongs. I don’t know much, but I know that Jason & I are both growing and that we’re getting closer and better at being close. Jason always says that the best thing about our marriage is that we’re open to change. I think that best thing about our marriage is that we force ourselves to communicate openly about pretty much everything (yes – even sex, housework, and money!).

I think I’m going to write more on this subject in the days to come…so stay tuned!

In the meantime, what is the best thing about your marriage? What does your spouse think is the best thing?

*If you are reading this and have been through a divorce yourself, please know that I am not judging you, nor am I insensitive to the pain that I know you must have felt and still feel.  It is only by God’s grace that I have had the model of married parents; it is only by God’s power through Christ living in me and in the heart of my husband that I write; it is only by the moment-by-moment strength of Christ as the days go by whereby I persist in being married. I know that I am still naive to much of the troubles that life can bring. It is with love and grace toward you, too, then that I write.