Conviction To Your Marriage

Happy Labor Day to you all.

Rick and I just returned from a relaxing weekend at an RV park in Orlando. The opportunity to see our children highlighted this trip for the both of us. Why else would we go to Orlando on Labor Day weekend?? (I’m not a Disney fan and don't like crowds.)

Our daughter visited us Saturday, and our son and his fiancé on Saturday evening. All adults, but always my children, we conversed about relationships and communication.

What a joy for me to reap the benefits of years of praying and giving advise to my children, often times wondering if anyone was even listening.

Our son and his future bride soaked up every word we had to say about communication in marriage. Eager to start out their marriage on solid ground, they wanted to know how to improve areas that sometimes “stumped” them.

Rick and I were in our element discussing our favorite topic, marriage. How wonderful to pass down all the years of our marriage experiences with our son and his fiancé.

As I reflected back on my own youth and lack of knowledge about relationships at that time, I realized how far God had brought me. I also realized that God has quite a sense of humor, joining man and woman together as husband and wife. We ARE from different planets!

I mean, let’s face it, if we had known then what we know now, many of us may never have married! (Although, many people do remarry after divorce - numerous times!) Fortunately, God uses our ignorance to hide the parts about each other that would overwhelm an innocent beginning. Ignorance is certainly bliss to a person in that initial stage of love that leads to marriage.

Would I really want to spend the rest of my life with someone who doesn’t see clutter and dirt the same way I do? Or doesn’t hear half of what I’m saying unless I’m in his face and have voiced my desires two or three times? Or engrosses himself so completely in the computer or television that he wouldn’t notice me dancing naked around him? Or doesn’t notice how upset I feel about a careless comment he made?

Maybe that’s why couples who live together first are less likely to marry and more likely to divorce if they do marry. They experience that dirty little secret, the difficulties of living together as man and wife, before they marry. Without the promise and commitment of marriage, why would you want to continue?

Marriage is a sacred bond, a life-long conviction. Yow, that sounds like a prison sentence - conviction. Conviction also means, firmly held belief. It’s deeper than commitment. Promises and commitments can be broken. When you are convicted of something, it should go deep to your very soul, never to change or vary. We need to feel convicted of our commitment to our marriage, through better and through worse.


Stay tuned for more on conviction.

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