REAL Marriage Relationships 👰‍♀️🤵‍♂️💒💍

I really struggled with this week's post… Not because I don’t want to write something truly meaningful but because I wanted to write something truly meaningful. Marriage isn’t always easy. It’s broken people living in a broken world trying to follow Jesus the best that they can. I was so excited to talk about the real ins and outs of what marriage looks like… And then I got hit in the face…with a huge fight. One that’s been accumulating for a while (you know the type, when something hits but it’s not the time or place, and then life happens but it’s still there festering and seemingly waiting until you least expect it) and honestly - I didn’t even realize it was coming, until I looked back on some stuff that’s been happening. 
So how do you write a post about what a real marriage is when your heart is breaking and you feel like you’ve lost yours? I guess it goes back to the whole purpose thing… What is my purpose? What is the purpose of marriage? What is the purpose of my marriage? And then answering - Have I done everything that I can do to be able to stand before the Lord and say I did my best? (What this looks like for me and what this looks like for you will be completely and totally different) But with a achy breaking heart, I thought I would at least try to talk about the reality of our real marriage…

I should start by saying - I love my husband. Even with all the craziness happening, I do truly love him. We met originally as freshmen in high school - we thought the other was cute but that’s as far as it went. I originally thought that God kept us apart during that time because we were SO very different. I’m a first born rule follower. He’s a very weird middle child (birth order studies are SO cool - I recommend 

The Birth Order Book: Why You Are the Way You Are By Kevin Leman and Keith Leman

And

The Firstborn Advantage: Making Your Birth Order Work for You By Kevin Leman)

But part of the separation - I’ve come to truly believe was so that each of us could grow up - respectively. I needed to learn more about myself and who I really am in Christ. I needed to quit blindly following all the rules. I needed to recognize my people pleasing ways were really hurting myself. (He’s gonna have to break down his own process….) By the time we met again (and were both single), I was smitten. It seems like so long ago - but y’all, I changed my phone plan for him because he was texting me so much (That was a HUGE deal when we had to pay per text that was sent!!). 😜🤣 We were married in November of 2008. We’ve had ups and downs - like everyone does, but truly thought we were working to make our marriage better and to serve together. 

ENTER - complacency.

This is a dangerous place for anyone to be really - but when you are broken people, living in a broken world…thinking you don’t have anything to do with that? That’s dangerous. It becomes easy to pass the blame onto the other person. It becomes easy to look at our own intent and judge others by their actions. It becomes easy to point out their speck and ignore the log (See Matthew 7:3-5). 

So when this is all brought to light… what do you do? Come back to the truth - 

What is my purpose? 

37 “Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
Matthew 22: 37-40 

Did you catch that? The greatest and the second greatest commandment / law revolves around NOT loving yourself more than others. Simplistic? Yes but - K.I.S.S. One of the things that I’ve been OVERWHELMED by is:

This gave me such a renewed sense of peace. Of COURSE the creator of the universe factored in my stupidness and brokenness. Of COURSE He knew that part of drawing us to Him was allowing us to see our brokenness. Of COURSE. 

What is the purpose of marriage? 
Really - this is so deep that we really can’t get into the ins and outs. Pasters and people WAY smarter than me have been teaching on this for thousands of years. My take has two points…

Genesis 2:18 
“The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”
And the imagery of the bridegroom waiting for his bride is a beautiful picture of Jesus waiting for us, His church. 

Again - people waaaaay smarter than me have much more to say, and many many books have been written about this subject, so I’m not going to dive into this any deeper. 

But I will ask…

What is the purpose of my marriage? 
This question comes back to the last two, and when you combine them together… we see a picture of broken people working together to showcase a beautiful picture of the Church coming home to Jesus - having a helpmate - and loving the Lord God with all that we are…and each other…as ourselves. 

So the real question is…

Have I done everything that I can do to be able to stand before the Lord and say I did my best? 
Can I say that I’m blameless for how things have turned out? Really, I doubt that anyone of us in any sort of relationship can truly be completely blameless (See Romans 3:23), but that doesn’t mean that I should stop pursuing this. That I shouldn’t TRY to be blameless. Even in our current conflict… I know I’m partly to blame. We both are. I’m not responsible for his actions or his feelings, but why wouldn’t I work FOR those the same I would anyone else’s? There’s something to be said about wives and women wanting that added security and how we tend to do whatever we need to, to get it. But, for me, that sometimes means I’m putting down my husband. I’m shoving my will into his face and not allowing him the same GRACE that’s been shown to me.

Now, this is very simplistic. There are specific ins and outs that each and every married couple needs to face…head on…together, but I really think it boils down to this…

I know, this didn’t answer questions. This didn’t dive into the specifics of our struggles. I’d thought about trying to lay it all out there but I don’t think that aligns with my purpose, our purpose, and your purpose. We have friends (SWARM Family - don’t worry a post is coming on this soon!!), that know and they know so that they can pray and support us. We would cherish your prayers for us, for our marriage, and for the ministry that we know God is doing through us.