Marriage Musings

Sitting on a loveseat in the sun, by our large windows, in the future home of the future Mr. and Mrs. Greg Magdsick, reading Sacred Marriage on a quiet afternoon of rest. The Olympic mountains are peeking out past the houses, power lines, and taller pine trees. I am struggling with a cold, marked by the empty tissue box next to the loveseat (and the used tissues crumpled up on the floor).

I just had a thought and a conviction I want to write about. As you probably know, Greg and I have been engaged since October 12, 2010. It’s been almost 4 months. God willing, we are getting married in 47 days. When we got engaged, we began to plot when to post our new “relationship status” on Facebook, as we anticipated a large flood of congratulation emails / comments / likes, etc and didn’t know how to respond to them. I can’t remember how soon we posted the fact that we were engaged, and the floods did come. I do remember being next to Greg as we updated it, and laughingly competing (as we both had our computers) over who was getting more comments.

Almost 4 months in, there’s a bit of a change. We are now receiving wedding RSVPs through our website, which gives the invitee an opportunity to post something to the bride and groom. Multiple times a day, we receive messages that say something like, “So excited for you and your marriage!” “We know God is at the center, and we’re so happy for you!” “We are so excited to celebrate with you!” Each one has made me smile. I particularly like the ones from people who have no idea who I am, but obviously know Greg fairly well.

So the congrats are still coming in. The excited comments and anticipations of celebrating with us. But as we’ve gone through a particularly difficult, rough, and scary at times patch of our relationship in the last four days, something has changed. It’s a long story, but this I can tell you: I saw our sin exposed in a way it hadn’t been before. I found out I am a greater sinner than I thought, marrying a greater sinner than I thought. By society’s standards, Hollywood’s, or any other somewhat idealistic standard, with what Greg and I have been walking through, we should not be engaged or getting married. Neither one of us is being loved well. Neither one is consistently “feeling good”. Our needs are not being met well in each other. The last few months have completely exposed and now shattered my previous, idealized views of what a marriage was going to be like. Most of my idealized desires were completely wrapped up in how I THOUGHT I could feel loved and served. Now, on Day 2 of the new life God has revealed to us, I’m seeing something new. I wish there were more congratulations coming through that said something like, “I am so excited that God has chosen for you and Greg to walk through the difficulties of dying to yourselves in every imaginable way in marriage. I am thrilled that God loves you so much to keep challenging you, refining you, revealing your sin, which is worse than you thought, so you can see and know God’s love more clearly. I LOVE that God is going to teach you about forgiveness through the incredibly painful sins that your spouse will and has committed against you, and that you have the beautiful opportunity to forgive when it is not deserved, and love when you are not being loved well, and show respect and honor when you are not respected and honored by your spouse. Believe me, I am so excited that He has chosen this path for you, to continue sanctifying you and making you more like Jesus. What a painful, difficult, challenging road you are embarking on. May dying to self every day be a wonderful place where you meet Jesus, as your spouse continues to fail you. May you know Jesus. Congratulations.”

I wish people would see past the romanticism of weddings that our country has bought into. I wish they could see past the rings being exchanged, the first dance full of sweet looks to each other, past the excitement of consummating the marriage physically, past the preparation and the dresses and the hair and the songs and the honeymoon, and instead see two sinners who desperately need Jesus, choosing the incredible challenge of walking through life together. I wish they could see that it’s not about us getting what we want, or feeling loved by our spouse-to-be. I wish they could see that it is about each of us knowing Jesus by becoming more like him, in the face of each other’s sin, bound by a promise to God and to each other that we will not leave, in the many moments that we will feel like leaving. I wish they could see that, because for most of my life, I have not seen it. I was the one dreaming of my wedding day, dreaming of a man who would finally love me well, and creating an ideal relationship in my mind, and asking Greg to be that ideal man to love me well and serve my needs. I failed to see God’s view of marriage through Christ’s relationship to His church. I confessed this sin to God and to my future husband, and we now get to walk the road of repentance together.

Father God, may You show Yourself through this marriage. I am done with it being about myself. Not our will, but Yours be done.

Your daughter,
Melissa