Category Archives: Marriage

Marriage

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I was categorizing posts today on this blog and I realized that I have a category for marriage. It doesn’t have any posts in it. I guess I don’t write about marriage much. It’s not that I don’t have things to write about concerning marriage, but I don’t really think about marriage that much. My husband and I have been married 10 years now and I can say it has been a good 10 years. Marriage seems to get easier as you go along, or maybe children just take the focus away from it so you don’t think about it as much. I don’t know, but at any rate, lately I have been thinking about placing more focus on our marriage. So, I will try to focus more on marriage here also.

I was just watching a video that my wonderful husband made for me and I realized just how young we were when we got married. It’s a compilation of pictures from the last 10 years. I was 21 and he was 20 when we got married. Yes, I am older. But I look back at those pictures and man I look young. We were babies. I think about some of the things that I thought back then and I sure have matured a lot since that time. The other thing that struck me about watching pictures of myself back then was how different I was and how different my husband was. It seems amazing to me that God knew who we were as people then and who we would become as people now and brought us together to be perfect for each other then and now. God knew things that I needed in a husband that I had no idea at the time would be important to me. And I am sure he would say the same things about me. We really have grown up together, and that has been a good thing for us. I can imagine that our parents must have thought we were a little crazy getting married so young, but we both knew that this was in God’s plan.

Glenn and I are opposites in so many ways. He is a morning person and I am a night owl, at least I was before we had kids and I was getting up a lot in night. Now I am in bed by 9, like an old person. My mom stays up later than me, a lot later. Anyway, Glenn is detail oriented and I am well…not. Glenn is outgoing and I am quieter. We are such opposites that when we first met it would have seemed that we might not get along, but we always did. And yet we have changed so much in the last 10 years but we still get along so well. When I first met Glenn he wasn’t detail oriented at all really. I know, hard to believe, for those of you who know him well. When we were younger I would have said I was more detailed than him, but I guess age has brought out the true Glenn. And the amazing thing is that I need that detail oriented person that he is to balance me out. I cut corners and don’t do things as well as I could, but he comes along behind me and fixes all that. I would not be as good of a person without him and my house would not be nearly as clean either. I love you honey. But at 21, I didn’t know I would need that in my life. But God knew. God knew the experiences we would have in our life together and He gave me a husband who would be perfectly suited to walk with me through the good times and the bad.

God knows what is best, if we will just listen to him. There were many people who were not sure we should get married so young, but we knew it was what God wanted for us. Sometimes you have to go against the crowd to do what you know God wants, but He will always bless you for it as He has our marriage.

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Temporary Marriage

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I heard something alarming today, Mexico is about to vote on whether or not they should make marriages temporary. The rate of divorce in Mexico is 50% (45-50% for the US) and they are spending a lot of money on legal fees for divorces, so a Mexican legislator has proposed that they make 2 year marriages. If they couple decides they no long want to be married after the two-year term they can walk away, but if they want to stay married they must renew their contract. You will find the article here: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/03/world/americas/mexico-2-year-marriages/

I, of course, think this is absurd! Why even bother getting married if you can just walk away after two years. At least with divorce you have to put forth effort to get divorced which would hopefully make you think twice about it. But with this, where is the committment? Who would even bother trying to make a marriage work if you can just walk away. And don’t even get me started on what if you have kids! This seems to me to be one of those things that the Bible talks about when it says that in the end times the world will put out ideas that they call right, but are sinful. To me this idea seems straight from Satan. He would love nothing more than to see every marriage end. If he can dissolve the family unit then he can dissolve the whole society. As Christians we have to protect our marriages from Satan and make every effort to work things out and not get divorced.

In my own marriage, my husband and I have agreed to never bring up divorce as an option. Having come from a divorced family myself I know how destructive divorce can be. It is a painful hurt that you carry around the rest of your life, if you are a child of divorced parents. It is not in God’s plan. This whole idea in Mexico cheapens marriage to nothing more than a contract, when it is so much more. It’s a committment to another person and to children, if you have any. And I would predict that if they do pass this to law, it will only make the divorce statistics multiply, all to save a few bucks in legal fees. I also predict that if this passes in Mexico that someone will bring it up to be considered here in the US. If that happens we as Christians better be ready to fight against it. We all need to pray for Mexico that these legislators will make the right choice and not pass this law.

It does bring to light our own marriages. We need to think about this and make commitments to do everything in our power to strengthen our marriages. Even if you don’t think your marriage is in trouble, that is the time to do some maintainance work on it. Spend time with your spouse and put their needs before all others. Make them a priority and do something to show them how much you love them. Marriage is not just a legal document between two people, it’s a lifelong commitment.

A lesser known holiday

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Another post from Glenn:

Although you may be unaware of it, today is a day of celebration for a very small percentage of the world’s population. To be precise, approximately .00000000003% of the citizens of this globe eagerly anticipate the coming of October 1 every year. I acknowledge that this event will likely never be given a designated section at the Hallmark store, as is the case with “International Frugal Fun Day” and “World Vegetarian Day”(both sister holidays of the aforementioned October 1 occasion). But it is special to me.

Twelve years ago today, I departed on a beach retreat with the Intervarsity Christian Fellowship group that met at UNCC. I was a college freshman at the time, just beginning to make new friends and establish my identity as a young adult. Looking for those with similar focus and direction, I decided to invest my time and energy into the Freshman Small Group that met on a weekly basis. As we had approached the beach retreat, there had been discussion regarding how we could carpool to the beach. To make a long story short, I ended up riding to the beach with a cute sophomore who I had wanted to get to know better. Fortunately, she drove a new, dependable Toyota Corolla, a vehicle of which my mother approved. Little did I know that my mother would someday give her approval of that cute sophomore too.

In the ensuing days after October 1, 1999, that cute sophomore and I became inseparable. Through courtship, marriage, and children, we grew together through life, loss and love. God has blessed our union, and I am eternally grateful for his providential hand in my life on that day twelve years ago.