Staying Committed to Marriage

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 1 Corinthians 13:7

I will never forget college, I had the best time. It was a time of fun, friends, late nights and oh, school of course! But the most memorable time was meeting my husband. We lived next door to each other in some apartments my freshman year. Now let me tell you that he was not like any other guy that I had ever dated. He was totally God sent because I would have never picked him for myself!  There was something different about him, something that I just couldn’t stay away from. And of course I wasn’t looking for anything serious either, or so I thought.

I still remember the time when we first started dating, we couldn’t stand to be apart and we made every attempt to be together. And when we kissed for the first time, my heart was beating so fast that it literally took my breath away. Three years later…we were married.

Now fast forward…it’s the two of us and kids and jobs and the house and the stresses of all of that combined. Where did all of those feelings from before go, where are those crazy college kids? I mean it used to be so easy!  I get it, things change and circumstances change, and for us it was time and kids.  And I think it’s like that for most of us when we have been married for awhile or when we start a family.  The stresses and responsibilities are increased and we begin to not only change as a couple but also individually.

Over the years, marriage has been the hardest, most demanding, most growing experience in my life.  Don’t get me wrong, marriage and family are great and I don’t take them for granted one bit, it’s just  all more work than I could have ever imagined. But on July 24, 2004, we both made a promise to God and each other to love one another NO MATTER WHAT until the day that we died.  It’s so easy to say those words, especially when things are,”so easy.” But to actually carry out what you say is a whole other story.

In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul is writing to believers at the church in Corinth about the ways of love. In verse seven, he says that, “[…] love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”   When we enter that commitment of marriage, that binding love, God says that we are to bear the broken promises, the hurtful words, the anxieties, the addictions, the loneliness. We are to believe that God has a purpose, that He will mend brokenness, He will change hearts, and restore marriages. We are to put our hope in Jesus and not the words of outsiders or the enemy. We are to endure the seasons of wanting to give up, the physical and mental breakdowns, the pain and suffering.

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8: 37-39

Not death nor life, nor powers, no thing in creation can separate God’s love for us and that is how we should look at our marriages.

God must bear when we fail Him, He must believe that we will come running back to him when we stray, He must hope that we speak love in truth to one another and He must endure our sin, our unbelief.  God’s greatest sacrifice was sending His son Jesus to die on a cross for us, His greatest love.

A marriage will never be the same as when it first starts, but I believe that it can be even better.  God has grown and restored so much in my marriage, but I had to be obedient to Him and in the commitment of my marriage. Love can be hard, but it’s worth it. It isn’t easy, but one thing is for sure and that is that marriage is a sacred commitment and it deserves our time and effort. If God’s love for us can bear, believe, hope and endure then why can’t our marriages?

Lord, I praise you that even though I may change, your love for me never will.  I pray that I would see my husband the way that you see him and I know that if we keep you 1st in our marriage that nothing can separate us.  Thank you for sending your greatest love, your son to die for us.  I pray that you will never give up on us the way we give up on you.  I pray for all marriages that they will not give up on their commitment that they made to you and each other.  I rebuke the enemy that tries to destroy the covenant that you have created between a man and a woman.  Lord, you are mighty and you are worthy, and your Word tells us that your love endures forever, AMEN!