What are your thoughts on marriage?
I have had a very emotional day regarding this very topic! I had a great FaceTime with my lovely parents, who will be celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary this coming January. My dad proceeded to tell me about one of my childhood friends, he said that his wife just straight up left him. It broke my heart, I filmed their wedding!
Well, I then had a trip to Walmart with my friend Ryan, he and I began talking about people and friends whose spouses had left them. We talked from a guy just moving out and not talking to his wife, to a wife cheating on her husband with their pastor, and to a friend of mine leaving his wife because he wanted to play more video games. The conversation turned to Ryan’s own marriage, and how the first year and a half was complete misery for him. He talked about deep emotional fights that had ripped his soul apart, about how he had failed her expectations of what a husband should be.
But you know what? This conversation turned into a discussions of how even though marriage is hard, you don’t give up. Even when all expectations fall short, your commitment stays strong. Getting married is risking someone walking out on you, or cheating on you. To be vulnerable is to love, to love is to show someone else your exposed chest, allowing them to take your beating heart and do what they will.
The number one thing I see marriage as is Grace, it is a holy and beautiful thing, but it must be encased in grace. How are we to love someone so wholly? How are we to lay down our pride? It is Grace, and Grace some more!
This conversation about marriage has brought a new reality to what it means to love, it means getting messy and showing another soul your weakness. It means laying down your pride, and offering your service. It is the ripping of the old, and a birth of the new.
If I cannot find someone who loves Christ above her own expectations, than I must be single. But if I can find that beautiful soul, than I must also love Christ above my own expectations of her.
Love is terrifying, to be left, or cheated, or even parted by death, I must be willing to be brave in my choice to love someone. That is the cost of marriage, it is not rainbows and puppies, it is two broken people making a commitment to love each as Christ loves the Church, to help grow and maintain a spirit of Grace.
I think marriage is wonderful, whether it lasts 50 years, like my parents, or it lasts only a little bit, like a couple of my friends. I pray to God that I can say “I do” to a woman who has the love and grace of Christ within her soul; for my charge will be to love her until death do us part.