When Marriage Seems Impossible

I sit, Black Book of Hope, propped securely on my lap.  Hands wrapped tight around it.  As I look out, and ask.  The God of this creation I see.  To come and hide in me.

To create peace.  So I can get through this busy day.  To silence my mind.  So that I can focus on what He wants me to see….

And I see the red breasts of two of His feathered creatures.  Turning backs. Then pecking noses.  Fluttering up.  Then walking awkwardly back toward one another.   As if in a dance, they’re silently hearing.  Up.  Down.  About face.  Turning, running after one another.  

In a….Spring-is-coming, love chase.

And today, I can’t help but think of marriage.  It’s my husband’s birthday. Pausing, considering how to honor Him, serve Him, show Him that He is everything to me…

Yet, like birds, in a fickle game, of chase and back bending, selfish fluttering, dancing, to a culture’s ever dividing music…Marriage can be hard.

Husband and I.  Married, twenty years now.  Busy planning, renewing our vows, next month.  See, we have come through impossible odds.

Different culturally, intellectually, socially, economically, emotionally, personalities, countries of origin.  Different in every way.

Yet, in an, abrupt face…..we got married.  God planned it.  God ordained it. God chose us for each other, when inside we were both still babies.

And we didn’t know how to dance.  We didn’t know how to UNITE.  Because we lived so divided, in a culture that had taught us to “live for ourselves”, to not be “taken advantage of” and to take care of “you”, because in the end….it’s a culture based on internalized focus, and unlimited, selfish pride.

But, when we got married. We needed Jesus.  We needed Him in a BIG way.  So, we took the dial to our internal radio….and changed the channel.  We started hearing His song, instead.  And it changed everything!  

Slowly, over time, all that we were.  All that we thought.  Began to die.  And that was o.k.  

The other day.  I sit with women.  In our small group.  Curled up on the floor. Trying to explain to them.  What my husband and I have been through.

See God doesn’t give us hardships, just to punish us, or torture us, or to keep us thinking….that we are victims.  God gives us hardships, to redeem us.  That we might cling to Him. That we might stand up, in our suffering, point to Jesus, and say that He is the way to the joy, and peace, and tranquility we are seeking.

He gives us hardships, that we might eventually….use them to help others.

And how only with a possible God could I have found possibility to my impossibles.  I shared my testimony.  And how He changed me.  See, I didn’t want to apathetically, lay my weaknesses all down, for the devil to seem powerful, or for others to tread over them…

I simply wanted to lay low, so that He could be lifted high.  So that other women might know, it is not me….but the hope found in a God who loves us.  So that they could know that it is God who has redeemed my life.

And as I watch those birds.  As I smile at their silliness.  How they flutter.  And boast.  And lift their chests to one another, in an attempts to draw the other to themselves….

I keep smiling.  Until, I see something that makes me sad.  One literally seems to lift up its beak.  Twist his head toward his back.  Then, turn it’s tail to the other bird.  And fly away.

The other.  Just stands stunned.  Hiding in the bushes, for what seems like days.

Then, finally.  That one too….flies the opposite way.  Both returning to distant corners of the earth.  Where they came from.

And as I look at nature.  And ask God.  And mourn for those I love, who have also, either one or both, danced to, an entirely worldly song.  I ask God to bless my husband.  I give thanks that God alone could bring two people together, so opposite.  And praise Him for how, only He could sing, the most unlikely pair into a beautiful love song….

And if you turn to Him.  If you tune your radio to what He wants, and calls, asks, and desires of you…I guarantee you too can have that same hope. 

Still, these birds, and people I have seen struggling, bring tears to my eyes that I cannot stop.

So, I pause.  Open the Word of Truth, still propped upon my lap.  Clinging to it, as it were my very breath.  And read….

And oh, how His words of mighty power, has propelled us forward.  Onward.  Together.  How His song of truth, is guiding, this man I love, and me, to a place where we have learned that we have no power….without Him in and through us.

Oh, how I love those who have turned their backs and left the dance all together….because it’s hard.  Very hard.  Even with the God of Salvation as our music maker.

And I read on….

And I put my head down as a prayer that says….

Thank you Lord. Thank you that you can use this mess.  Use the testimony of my once weighty sin, to bless those who might think marriage, or God, or life in general….is hopeless.

Draw hearts close to the truth of your goodness.  And sing over them, your righteousness. The hope of your unending love for them. That they might see a God who can redeemed them. Right now. Guaranteed.  Not matter how hard life is, or where they are at in their circumstances.

So precious to you, that you would send your Son to die in place of their wickedness.