Remember “The Newlywed Game?” Well, we just started a series at our church this week called “The Trulywed Game.” All in the spirit of fun, they actually produced a mock video of the show, complete with hippie clothes and wigs. It was hilarious to watch, but the subject matter is not one to laugh about.
Did you know that 50% of all marriages end in divorce?
Perry, our pastor, challenged everyone in the church to spend just five weeks…the length of this series…working on our marriage. I wish you could all hear his sermons, but I’ve decided to recap them here for you for the next five weeks in hopes that you will come away with a stronger marriage when this series is over.
Marriages and families are being attacked harder than ever. Satan uses jealousy, busy schedules, finances, kids, parents, sex, abuse…and the list goes on and on. David and I have had difficult times in our marriage for sure, and we have learned so much from our 22 years, but it’s a never-ending journey.
When God created man, he realized that man needed a helper, so he created woman from Adam’s rib. From his side. Not his foot or his head, but his side. God provided a woman for a man to complete him. Where a man is weak, a woman can fill that weakness. If we just look at the anatomy of a man and a woman, it’s obvious they were meant to complete each other!
Here are the three points Perry laid out in explaining God’s plan for marriage:
1) Departing from home.
…a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife. Matthew 19:5
God intends for us to leave our families and create a new family with our spouse. This doesn’t mean move away never to return, but it does mean to put our spouse above everyone else from now on. For the husband, it means making decisions for his new family, not letting his old family control him. Listening to advice, yes…control, no. I have a friend who’s been married for a while, and she often feels “second fiddle” to her mother-in-law. Her husband has had a difficult time leaving his father and mother and putting his wife on the pedestal now instead of his mother.
2) Developing oneness.
“…and the two are united into one.” Since they are no longer two but one, let no one split what God has joined together. Matthew 19:5-6
Oneness is physical, yes, but it’s so much more than that. I have an old post “1+1=1” that you might wish to read if you haven’t. It’s about the sexual oneness that Christ intends (and how to explain that to a child). Here’s the link if you want to read it:
But again, oneness is so much more than sex. There is really nothing that compares to the intimacy between an husband and wife when they keep talking, keep growing, and stay connected…together…as a team. Perry used the following formula:
Intimacy = an ever-increasing closeness resulting from unending discovery
That is how husbands should treat their wives, loving them as parts of themselves. For since a man and his wife are now as one, a man is really doing himself a favor and loving himself when he loves his wife! Ephesians 5:28 (TLB)
As married couples living together, we cannot stop communicating with one another. Believe me, David and I have tried it and it does not work! Satan loves to keep us too busy, too frustrated, and too tired to put the effort into communicating, but before you know it, your marriage will slip into a coma, and you will be nothing but room mates trying to tolerate each other. You know when you find out about someone you know getting a divorce and they say, “we just grew apart,” or “we got married too young, and when we grew up we were too different?” Anyone who does not communicate and make a concentrated effort at a relationship will grow apart. The relationship will die. We are all changing throughout our entire life. It is impossible not to! We can make the choice…CHOICE…to grow together, or to grow separately. God’s intention is for us to grow together.
When I look back on my marriage, there are so many things I wish I’d known. I believe that David and I got married too young, and if we’d waited five years later, I don’t know if we would have. When troubles came, I could have gotten all wrapped up in the thoughts that maybe we weren’t right for each other. Maybe he wasn’t that one perfect person I was destined to marry. But I don’t believe that there is necessarily one specific person for everyone. We made a choice. We made a commitment. Yes, we’ve had difficult times and fought through feelings that we made the wrong choice. But as we’ve grown, we’ve grown together. We’ve fought the fights together; we’ve celebrated the victories together. We do our very best to remember that we are on the same team. We have the same goals. When you live with someone day in and day out, that’s hard to remember sometimes. I have to remind myself every day that we are rooting for each other and working together to make our family and our lives the best they can be.
A quote from Perry here…“The fatal fall is not that you choose the wrong person, the fault is within.”
3) Demonstrating acceptance.
Now the man and his wife were both naked, but they felt no shame. Genesis 2:25 (NLT)
I’ve posted blogs about this before, including the one I referenced above. But the attitude of premarital sex among teens and adults, both Christian and non-Christian is scary. I believe it is one of the main reasons the divorce rate is so high. It’s not so much about what we may be doing outside of marriage, but what we are NOT doing inside of marriage. Let me explain that statement. If we are communicating with our spouses, giving unconditional love to them, and keeping them happy in the bedroom 😉 they won’t even be interested in anything outside the marriage!
Men and women obviously think very differently, which is why God created us to complete each other. We just have to try and put ourselves in each other’s shoes. Women, you know how badly you’d like for the house to be clean and dinner to be cooked? Well, your hubby wants sex about four times that much! Try, try, and try to put yourself in his shoes. Talk to him and get him to explain to you what he is dealing with, whatever it is, and try to imagine how you would begin to handle it. I promise if you do this, you will begin to feel differently, and realize that you really are both on the same team!
“The result of intimacy is that you can stop pretending to be somebody you’re not.” That is the best feeling in the world. When you can be completely comfortable with your spouse, physically and emotionally, it’s a bond that cannot be broken. That’s the marriage that God intended. If we have a past that includes other partners, it’s much harder to get to that point of intimacy in a marriage because it is difficult to get past the thought that we are being compared to someone else. That’s where God is so amazing. No matter where we are in life or what our past is, God can take us forward. Don’t put limitations on God by thinking that the past is too much to overcome.I have overcome the world, he says.
I’ll leave you with one last quote from Perry,“If your spouse if really damaged [if they have a lot to overcome], it means that God knew you were really capable of endurance.”
During my seven years of hell as I call it, David had to put up with a lot. Now I’ve had to put up with a lot too, but he got it all concentrated into seven straight years with no break. But he endured, and he will tell you that the miracle I received on September 25th of last year was really his miracle. Maybe it was. I just know that our endurance, our persistence, our struggling together, and our celebrating together have landed us in a wonderful marriage, which would not have been possible without God.
From my heart,
Celeste
I’m so thankful you guys “made it”. There’s plenty more to come, but you’re a perfect example of how to work through hard times. You have a beautiful family, and your children will appreciate your marital success!
Thanks Tracy! I wish you all the best as well!
Celeste,
I really love that last point about your spouse’s damage and your endurance. God knew when he put Vic and I together that I would need the endurance to get through the difficulties that come with raising someone else’s child. Our first five years were our “hell” years, as we struggled to adjust to step-family life. It took awhile for my hubby to stop putting his child before his wife. But I endured the struggle and the pain and we fought together to make it work. And it was work. For sure. But God knew, and we are more in love with each passing day. Thanks for sharing!