I just returned from a date with this hunk of scrumptious man tonight.
It was most glorious.
We talked about life. expectations. disappointments.
Work. kids. sex. marriage.
How much we loved the balsamic glaze.
Friends. The power of prayer. Our future.
Laundry. And how domestically inept I am.
How thankful we are for each other.
And then we brainstormed how we could go about making our own balsamic glaze.
It was deep.
And glorious indeed.
And then we went to Walmart.
Because we’re über chic like that.
And I had an epiphany.
Marriage is like an escalator.
If you are not intentionally making strides to move forward – together – you are moving backwards.
And apart.
And unless something changes in the direction that you’re moving…you will fall off.
No exceptions.
No gray area.
The escalator of married life takes no prisoners.
Whether falling off materializes in separation or divorce, or manifests in daily misery, living alongside someone you barely know (and in most cases, no longer like), be sure of this, it does manifests. Painfully, devastatingly, destructively.
Floundering marriages are no longer the grievous exception. They are fast becoming the norm.
Because a good, solid marriage cannot be attained on cruise control.
You either move forward – with determination and purpose – or you move backwards.
Plain and simple.
It takes hundreds of little choices, made intentionally, every single day, for a marriage to move from barely surviving to beautifully thriving.
Love, after all, is a choice.
Please don’t misunderstand me as declaring that we have it all together. We most definitely don’t. We screw up daily; our selfishness rears it’s ugly head, our impatience rages, short fuses blow, hidden agendas arise, and then there’s that baggage thing {aka: junk in the trunk}, they are all very much a part of our amazing, messy journey together.
But you see…there is hope. There is always hope.
We are committed to this journey. One step at a time. Together.
We’re ploughing ahead in the same direction, even if it occasionally includes the clumsy two-steps-forward-one-step-back maneuver.
But that’s what we have found makes the difference: we are being intentional {on most days} about working through the “stuff”. And we never go to bed angry.
We work hard at this fabulously intense, incredibly intricate dance of marriage.
Because this covenant matters.
That much.
We don’t want to just survive the ride. Grit our teeth and bear it.
We want to thrive on this adventure…dig our heels in and capitalize on this unprecedented opportunity to, alongside our favorite person in the entire world, slowly be transformed more into the image of our Creator.
There’s an old story of a man who asked a famous sculptor, “how do you turn this big block of marble into a beautiful horse?”. The sculptor replied, “it’s easy…I look at the the block from every angle, see the horse…and then simply take my hammer and my chisel and chip away everything that doesn’t look like horse”.
That is what God is doing to me, to all of us, through our marriages. It’s just one of the many magnificent purposes for this powerful union. He is using our spouse {and our children} as tools in His ever-capable hands, and He’s chipping away everything that doesn’t look like Jesus in our lives.
It’s a slow process. But it’s an exquisite one.
But I have to be willing to surrender my life – and my marriage – to the sculptor.
We would be remiss to wait until something is broken in our relationship to try and fix it {as the argument goes…men. ahem}.
We need to intentionally gather tools to put in our marital tool belts, now – to be prepared – so when {yes when…not if} hard times come, we’re armed and ready, back-to-back with tools drawn. Ready to work on – and fight for – our marriages.
Marriage is a moving staircase, sweet friends.
Which way are you moving?
For more on marriage, check out the ‘two become one’ tab above.
