More Thoughts on Marriage

Thinking about what marriage is.

God knew from the start what a marriage would be. And He still guided people to get married when he knew there would be deep betrayal. The marriage does not retroactively become a 'mistake'. None of it was wasted. He has not forgotten, not overlooked, not neglected, not been sloppy.

God promised “I will also hold you by the hand and watch over you”

It is, was, and will be, true.

Maybe God's purpose for us marrying someone, wasn't as happy as we thought. Maybe it was to carry a cross of horrible illness with someone, watching dementia claim their mind, or to spend the next 40 years caring for a blind bomb-shredded limbless brain-damaged hero-husband who marched off young, strong, and intelligent, to war. Or carry the cross of shame of imprisonment with someone, visiting them in their prison. Or to fight for someone's soul—even if prayer is all we can do as we wait—and they run off in self-destruction.

God's thoughts are higher than our thoughts, his ways than our ways.

In the end, none of it will have been wasted. God holds our hand, bottles every tear, hears every prayer. What He knew our marriage would be on our wedding day, may not have been as happy and wonderful as we had thought—but He will make it beautiful, far more beautiful than we can imagine this side of the Jordan. Because He will be with us every step, every second, every moment, holding our hand, giving us strength.

And He never wastes anything.

Marriage---What Is It?

Marriage---what are we signing up for?

Is marriage about rights----love me/be faithful to me/have a godly home/provide for me, or is it more like a binding oath to a kind of “war buddy”, that lasts as long as you are alive, to help the other person be sanctified, become more like Christ, enter the new Jerusalem---no matter what happens?

We get married expecting it means children, buying a home, retiring together, studying Bible together, reading stories together, going on family camping trips, kissing etc, and being old people going on daily walks together with an umbrella.

I know that is what I expected.

But there are lots of wonderful people I know/know of, whose lives didn't turn out that way.

Because there are lots of other things we don't expect. We don't expect our smart, emotionally supportive, fun-to-talk-to husband to go through a brain trauma that renders him a needy child. Or a freak accident to a 27 yr old man at work that renders the marriage a chaste one for the next 40 years. Or to be young, and suddenly, widowed and alone, raising kids without their father.

God knew on our wedding day what we were signing up for. We did not. We can't know. But He knew all along. He knew from the first date. And He holds us. “I will also hold you by the hand and watch over you” (Isaiah 42:16)

We don't get married expecting to have to turn our husband/wife into the law, and visit him in jail the rest of our lives. Or visit him on death row. Or every day raising the kids alone, and each day, faithfully praying for someone who has abandoned you for another(s).

But is that what is being asked of us? To not stand on our rights, but to carry the cross?

Parenting, what are we signing up for? If your kid did the unspeakable things, would you still love them? Would you cut ties and find another kid? Or would you visit them on death row, praying for them every day?

What is being asked of us?

I think that is at the crux of what so much of this argument about marriage comes down to. What do we see it as? What is it?

Sex and the Single Woman

I've had some thoughts on emotional fulfillment and marriage (here and here) but this woman takes it from a single woman's perspective, and the suffering of singleness.

http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/sex-and-the-single-woman

"....It doesn’t feel good, but it is a gift that I can share with others. Sitting across from a wife as she explains why it’s time to leave her husband because he is not meeting her emotional needs—needs that are real and valid and designed to be met—I have experienced that gift. I have been able to look her in the eyes and say that it is normal and natural and good to be hungry for the things she needs. I get to minister to her by looking her in the eyes and sharing how that hunger can be a gift; how suffering the loss of valid dreams is an opportunity to gain Christ. " (italics mine)

Valid dreams....to be loved, to be understood, to have children, to be happy, so many expectations we have out of this life. But, we won't be satisfied in this life.

Because, we were made for more than this. We were made for God.

On Marriage, Love, and the Lord of the Rings: Thoughts after 4 years of Marriage

My husband always made me feel loved. Even when we had fights, even when I cried & ranted & knew he was putting up with me. Even when I felt like he didn’t like me. Even when I was so mad at him my vision was shaking. Even when he was sinking into depression and absolutely nothing I did seemed to make an atom’s worth of difference. Through all our hard times, through all our fights, I always never doubted, that he really truly loved me.

Even when first fell in love and were in la-la land, he never raved to me about my wonderful qualities that made him love me. Which, in the long run, was kind of comforting. Since my qualities can change. (I still remember trying to pry for compliments, when we were dating, asking him why he thought dating me was a good idea. "Well....you like camping and rice and beans. I’m never going to be rich…”)

In love, in la la land...

He never spoke of his love for me like this great fortress that would comfort me (like my favorite love song in High School “All I ask of You”). He didn’t really speak of his love for me at all.

He just loved me.

Just listened when I rambled about my fears and worries till 2 am, just listening. Told me when he thought I was wrong. When I asked him “Why do you love me?” He thought about it for a bit, and came back with “A combination of me wanting to, and feeling like God wanted me to.” God wanted him to love me (and he didn’t mind). That was reason enough. And as un-romantic as it was against “you are the most beautiful woman I ever met” “your soul is so beautiful” etc etc, it was rock solid.

Because no matter how many fights I pick and doors I slam and meltdowns I have, no matter how I nag him and worry about finances and act shabby in petty fights with other girls or get fat, that doesn’t change, that God wants him to love me. And that he would love me, with God’s help.

So why did he love me? Because God told him to. And it wasn’t a “my great love I have because I’m obeying God.” He loved me. It just was. In the thousand little things, his confident order of 2 beefy-5-layer burritos at Taco Bell, the 2 player games of 7 wonders, his grin when I solved the programming question, the berry-peanut butter sandwiches he fixed for our picnic, him talking to my tummy, explaining to our breech in utero baby the reasons why he should flip over….

It was a sort of un-self-conscious kind of love. It was just there---like the sun coming up. “Why does the sun come up?” the 3 yr old asks. “Because God wants it to” you say, thinking about something else. But it’s true. And it does come up.

 And when I came to him, distraught, wanting him to soak up all my fear/worry, be my rock, tell me that the world was going to be ok, etc---he told me, in a choked up voice, that he couldn’t do it. That he couldn’t really comfort me. And then he said “But the one who can perfectly comfort you is God, and He will take care of both of us.”

He was never my savior, my rescuer, my rock. He pointed me to the One who was. Early in marriage, at first I was a little deflated by this. 
I wanted him to be strong, to be there, to hold me and say “let me be your shelter…”--- not to get depressed by my emotional dump and tell me that he was weak as I was, and then point a finger at God and remind me “He’s gonna save us.” 
I was disappointed that my husband wasn’t going to be the knight on the white horse, wasn’t going to be my shelter, wasn’t going to be Jesus. I mean, in all the romantic stories, the guy kinda is. The shoulder to cry on. The strong one. The one that makes it all better. But early in our relationship, he told me flat out told me he couldn’t make it better. But he believed God would. “He will take care of both of us.”

And now, at the ripe age of 26, 4 yrs down this road, I see how right it was. I had been dissapointed that he would not fill that place in me, that craved for something, something I daydreamed would be filled in marriage. But he intentionally wouldn't, leaving me with an empty place for…Jesus. (Not for romance novels about Jesus-like guys, not for daydreaming and listening to ‘All I ask of You’.)  
He wouldn’t usurp Jesus’ place in my heart.

Because he was right. No human can comfort as we crave comfort. No human can really be your rock. No human can really be the Bridegroom of your Soul. It might work for a bit, for a few months, perhaps even a few years at most. But it will crumble, the idol will crash down, the asphalt will break under the load that was meant only for unbreakable Rock.

I had always found the “Let me be your shelter, let me be your light” motif from All I ask of You to be so romantic. The girl, full of fear, falling apart, the guy, strong and full of love, making it better. But then, viewing The Two Towers movie, I saw the same motif, but gender inverted. 

The war seems to be teetering on the edge of destruction, evil seems to be winning. Aragorn has been fighting this for 60 years, and now, he is struggling with giving into despair, doubt. In this dream sequence he sees his beloved Arwen, and tells her “My path is hidden from me.” To which she says “It is already laid before your feet. You cannot falter now.” He looks upset, is trying to say something, she silences him and says “If you trust nothing else, trust this (pointing to the necklace she gave him, the symbol of their love) Trust us” and then they kiss.

I was dumbstruck with the depression of it all. He’s struggling with doubt, struggling with despair, not even knowing if he’s doing the right thing. She tries to tell him that he is, and he still isn’t buying it. So her trump card is, if you believe in nothing else, believe in us.

And now I realize it reminded me of this poem.

…Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

                      ~ excerpt from Mathew Arnold’s “Dover Beach”

The funny thing was, when the girl’s love had to be the light, the shelter, it struck me as so insufficient, such a pathetic human attempt to hold our frail love against the darkness closing in. Admirable, but so incredibly sad, weak, and doomed to failure, like a toddler trying to move the piano on willpower.

Then, from the (extended) Return of the King movie, is this scene 

Eowyn is where Aragorn was. She’s despairing that the darkness will win. That the light will never come again “there is no warmth left in the sun, it grows so cold.” And Faramir’s response? “It’s the damp of the first spring rain. I do not believe this darkness will endure.” And he says it, so full of faith. And then, she puts her head on his shoulder, his arm around her, while he looks out toward the light.

In the Aragorn/Arwen scene, LOVE what was gonna get them through it. “Believe in us.” The scene ended with them, face to face, desperately trying to get their strength from each other. 

In the Faramir/Eowyn scene, “I do not believe this darkness will endure”. Believe that the sun will come again. The scene ended with him looking out toward the light. Faith. Faith in something bigger than yourselves.

Both scenes are about people comforting each other. In the first, Arwen’s love is the final answer. In the second, believing that the light will come, is.

If a human tries to be another's light, shelter, savior…its going to fail. He might really really mean it. He might really really try. But he’s going to fail. 

Because humans aren’t God. There’s a God-craving in us, an intense missing something we’ve never really known, desiring the Perfect Father, desiring the Bridegroom of our Souls. 

And we try to fill it, fill it with fellow humans, or daydreams. And it doesn’t work. Because that vacuum was designed for only one Man. For the Real Bridegroom of our souls. 

And He’s the rescuer for both of you, you and your husband, as you journey together, selected for each other because God wanted you 2 on a team, together traveling on that road to the New Jerusalem, where the Bridegroom of your souls waits, where the deepest desires of our hearts are filled. Because they weren’t meant to be filled here. 
They were meant to be filled in the New Jerusalem.

And they will be. As sure as the sun rising in the morning. 

Letters to my Daughter: Love and Marriage and all that

picture credit here

Dearest Snooglepops,
You are little enough that I can call you that. I'm writing you these letters, as I think about things. I don't know what the future holds. This is for you one day, when you are thinking about things.

There's so much angst in life, people trying to find love. My age bracket. So much loneliness and pain and longing to be loved and to love. And crazy messed up relationships. And people breaking eachother's hearts. And people using eachothers' hopes and hearts for their own gain. And people just suffering, suffering, just wanting to be happy.

It hurts. I watch from the place of someone, who for no reason of deserving or being x y z, was given Daddy. And you guys. Your little faces that are enough to die on a hill for.
But that does not mean it doesn't touch me. It has, from so many sources. It hurts to watch people you love hurt.

It seems the field is littered with dead principles, shards of hearts, broken promises, even aborted marriages, and so so much loneliness. Even some that get married, still lonely, still hurting. And so many, just longing for a shoulder to cry on, just longing for little people and the purpose and joy that they bring.

Marriage isn't about being happy. Marriage isn't about being fulfilled. Marriage isn't about giving you purpose (or kids).
Marriage is about dying, every day, a little more, to yourself. Your husband's greatest job is not to be your comfort, your rock, your provider, your protector, your emotional support, etc (although those are all good things).

Your husband's greatest job is to get you ready for heaven. And your greatest job is to get him ready for heaven. Whatever it takes. Sandpaper or oil. However it turns out. For better or for worse as far as your happiness or emotional fulfillment is concerned. But those are both tools in God's hands, the oil and the sandpaper, all for refining.

There are many many lonely people in marriage. There are many childless people in marriage. There many are disillusioned suffering people in marriage.
But this does not mean that the marriage has failed, that they should go and look to make new marriages, or even new emotional relationships to fill the empty place. It is the sandpaper. It is the fire. It is unhappiness in the bonds of an oath made to God, whose guiding beacon remains the same. Whose purpose remains the same.

But the purpose is the same, in singleness and marriage.

Life is the crucible, the Refiners fire, the preparation for heaven. Its a steep high road, with lots of rocks and pitfalls. Your husband is there, alongside of you, to help you in that climb. You are there, to help him.
Singleness (and note that most of the saints we still talk about were) is climbing that mountain alone, though in both marriage and singleness there are often others that help along the way.

The purpose is to climb that mountain. To suffer, to be tried, refined, and purified. To be made more and more into the image of Jesus, until the day we breath our last, and are able to see Him face to face.

Life is about God. All the other stuff, is just secondary, are just tools, preparing us for Him. Marriage is God's tool. Singleness is God's tool. Joy is God's tool. Suffering is God's tool. Loneliness is one of God's tools.
The loneliness in the single life is very painful. I speak as one who has not suffered this, being a twin and then a wife. But I have witnessed it in many others. It is one of the greatest sufferings.
And I see people who suffer that in marriage. And silently, for to complain or seek emotional closeness somewhere else would be wrong.
But loneliness is God's tool. The old desert fathers recognized this. They embraced it.
"It is not good for the man to be alone"
Its not good. But God can make good come out of it.

And you will never actually be alone. For God is always with you. Closer than your breath.
We were made for God. Not for happiness on this earth, not for a beautiful home and a loving husband, or even a jerky husband and adorable kids, or whatever else we set as the "bare minimum" for what we want in life.

But its not about this life.

We were made for God. To see his face. To get over that mountain, and be remade, for we will see Him as He truly is.

Everything on this earth is tools or interesting rock-formations along the way.

You were made for God. For his face rising over the edge of the mountain and sky. Keep your word. Hold fast to what you know is right.Never take your eyes off him.

                 Love, (your very imperfect and selfish, and needs to read this 10x) Mom

Till Death Do Us Part...or Not. The Affair Clause, True Love, and Christian Marriage

What is marriage? Is it a contract, a mutual agreement to mutual benefit? A finding of one's other half, one's soulmate, the love of one's life?


I was scarred for life, watching "Spanglish" as a 14 yr old. Its a story about an immigrant from Mexico, who comes to nanny for a wealthy American family (2 kids and a grandma, Dad is a chef, Mom is obsessed with health and exercise).

Never show this at some self-proclaimed "Youth Retreat."
Trust me, it will just scar the kids....

The Dad is frustrated with the Mom's constant nagging of the kids to lose weight, her obsessions, her insensitivity to her kids, and her general selfishness.
In the course of the movie, the Dad starts having feelings for the nanny who lovingly takes care of his kids.
 He even complains to the nanny about his wife. But what am I saying? Ofcourse it was all so sweet and nice and wistful, because goshdarnit, he just didn't have grounds to divorce his selfish wife.

(Sidenote, so everything in me was screaming here, a somewhat clueless foreign single-mom poor working woman struggling with English and her employer...yeah definitely a power differential there...But even sweeping that under the rug, it stinks. And here's why.)

Then his wife had an affair, and amid sadness....oh the glee. I felt it, the subtle glee. The 'get out of jail free' card. The freedom to now pursue that true love of your life....

It was the glee that disturbed me. Even if it were subtle and small amid crushing grief (I really can't remember what the ratios were, as I was in and out at that point, it was so bad). Even the smallest amount of relief, relief that now you have reason to love someone else (someone a lot kinder and sweeter and nicer)---mixed in whatever sorrow or betrayal he felt, totally smelled 'off'. Something was horribly, horribly wrong.

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable and does not count up wrongdoing, it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.   


I never really got the second part. The first part made sense "does not count up wrongdoing", we all keep lists in our minds, of what someone's done to hurt us. Holding on to it in pain or wrath. But why would we rejoice at being hurt? Here is an example, because it finally gives us the right to say "Alright, this really was it, you crossed the big red line, I'm out"

So that glee was disturbing. Really disturbing. But even taking that glee out, there still is more wrong with this.

It didn't hit home to me until watching an episode of Downtown Abbey.

Anna and Mr. Bates, the happy couple

Mr. Bates has an estranged marriage to Vera, a woman who the show assures us, has not been faithful to him. And then there's pretty little sensible Anna.
And they fall in love!
And his first wife stank anyway, plus she's estranged anyhow.
And then Mr. Bates and Anna get engaged!
And his first wife who stank anyhow kills herself. Oh no! Now everyone thinks Mr. Bates did it? And Anna, in a heroic act of love, marries him just before he's jailed, so that she can be his next of kin at the trial. And they have a quick little wedding, in which she vows to love him forever till death do them part. And they wake up happily after their wedding night, in love. And then he gets hauled off to jail.
I think we are all supposed to be thinking how sweet it is, and about how unconditionally she loves him and all.


I was roaring mad. Ok, here, no glee. But still.

Vera may have cheated on him, and been a total flake, and killed herself. But she was still his wife. And he's happily got engaged to the cuter, nicer, moral-er, kinder girl. And when she killed herself, now a great barrier has thrown itself against True Love, but True Love shall prevail.
Right.

Till death do us part.

Unless you screw up and cheat on me, then I'm out.

Right.

I've always hated how unpoetically the world explained marriage.
A contract of mutual benefit, of mutual emotional feedback (I'm in love with you, you're in love with me), of financial, sexual, friendship benefit. The anti-marriage types mocked it for that.

You say its so holy and special, but really, its all a deal. He gives her social status/income/backrubs, she gives him sex/babies/clean house/cute armcandy.

No no! (Some) Feminists cry, they are equals now, the patrimony has passed. They balance things, with their 2 careers and their mutual respect and mutual sexual benefit. It's so mutual and rational and chosen!

But that's still a contract. A better organized one, but still, its a contract.  My end of the deal, your end of the deal. You hold up your end, I'll hold up mine. We both benefit.

No no! The romantics cry, they are IN LOVE. They love each other. Its love that is so important, and beautiful, and makes the world work. Love will climb the highest mountain. Walk 10,000  miles to be the man who falls down at your door....

But its still a contract (albeit an implicit one). They're in love. Its easy to sacrifice for someone you are in love with. In love-ness passes. I have heard women say "I had to leave x, we weren't in love anymore".  To still maintain the now-dead union would be 'living a lie'. So it still is about give and take, profit and loss. He's in love with her, she's in love with him. If one side dries up, we either get romantic comedies about rekindling the fire (and thus justify the union) or we get a divorce, and find a new person the real 'love of your life' that kindles the right emotions, the true soul-mate whom you were really meant to be with forever....


If marriage is a contract, a contract where each person supplies their bit, and if the other party doesn't cut it as promised, well its over. And we are free to look for the real love of our lives...

It boils down to profit and loss. You give your bit, I'll give mine. Marriage may talk about love, but it's really love for self. If self isn't loved right by the other, than the other is toast. Love is selfish, is Darwinian, is about propagation of the genes and ego-stroking. Its all about feeling fulfilled, getting your half of the pie. Its no better than cohabiting or anything else that people want. Its a social construct.

No no! The Christians cry, GOD HAS JOINED THEM TOGETHER, ITS HOLY, ITS SPECIAL!

We say, its not just about getting your half of the pie. It's about dying to yourself. It's about God making two one flesh. It's about God using this other person to refine and purify you and make you holy. It's sacramental. It's till death do us part. It's about being companions on the road to the New Jerusalem. Its holy, its beautiful, its something big and irrevocable and ordained by God. We have our wedding services, with Scripture readings and prayers and eternal vows before God, swearing before witnesses to love "Till death do us part."


But then there's divorce.

I have heard some Christians say that a husband's refusal to get a job qualifies as "financial abandonment" and the wife is free to get a divorce and remarry. I have heard some Christians argue that if a husband looks at porn, his wife is free to divorce and remarry. I have heard some Christians argue, that if we look back and realize that one of the parties didn't REALLY mean it, then we are free to say the marriage never happened, and divorce and remarry....

But I'm going to put those all aside for now, as the empty justifications that they are.

What about the 'affair clause', the one exception in the New Testament? I have yet to meet a church that denied the validity of that escape hatch, that loophole.

Adultery is a betrayal of the deepest kind. I am not at all surprised it often ends in vengeful spouses and murder. I totally get that.

 And I can see a case made for separation.

But for remarriage? The nevermind-it-doesn't-count-anymore, he's had sex with someone else, feel free to find a better man to marry, to love, and to have sex with....


And Christian marriage can be tainted. It still has such higher standards than the world's definition of marriage. She still has to love him if he's insane or poor or immature, and she no longer has feelings for him. But then, it's still a contract. If one party commits sexual sin, then it dissolves. Feel free to move on. It doesn't count anymore.
The affair clause boils down to "don't worry, he had grounds for a divorce", he had every right to move on. We can be happy that Mr Bates and Anna found true love.

If we're being honest with ourselves, we should then swear "Till death (or adultery) do us part"....

Because swearing "till death do us part", swearing the irrevocable promise of self sacrificial love is saying marriage is more than a contract. It's saying marriage is something holy and irrevocable and permanent. But with the affair clause, its only irrevocable and permanent if you hold up your end of the deal (not committing adultery). If the other breaks it, then it dissolves, you 'have a right' to move on with someone else, its over.

Yes, Matthew 5 is in the Bible.
“It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.


But so is Ephesians 5.
 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.


The Bible tells a tale, of how a Holy God loved an unholy people. He saved them, he purified them, put them in a land flowing with milk and honey. And he made a covenant with them. A contract. They were to have no other gods, and He was to be their God. They would be His people, and He would be their God.
And they betrayed him. And they went after other gods. And they forgot Him, wanted nothing to do with Him. And they sacrificed their sons and daughters to demons.
They had broken the covenant. They had dissolved the contract. And now, all that was left was the punishment they were due.
And He came. He came to the land He had given them. And found his lost Bride, who had betrayed Him. And He took her place, he took the punishment. And died for her.
And He bound himself to her in a new covenant, a covenant sealed with His blood. And he carries her and purifies her, till the day that he brings her home, clean, pure, spotless of all her betrayals, holy and beautiful at the great wedding feast of the Lamb.

That is how Christ loved the church. That is how we are to love one another. That is what marriage is was designed to mirror, this great and holy mystery of Christ's love for His bride.