No Happy Accidents: Marriage

"A man would have to stand around with his mouth open for a long time before a roast pheasant would fly into it."--Old Irish Proverb

Nothing good in life happens by accident. Well, nothing really good. There are happy accidents that brighten moments, days, maybe even weeks. But the good things of life, the REALLY good things, happen because you make them happen.

Take marriage. There is no fairy-tale, happily-ever-after marriage. It just doesn't happen that way. Sadly, 'way too many people aren't adult enough to realize that. They have bought the satanic lie of the romantic ideal: they think the only reason to get married is an emotional storm, a temporary insanity called "falling in love".

(A wise man once told me, if you can fall into it, it's a hole.)

And, like ALL emotional states, it goes away. One day you wake up and all the Fourth-of-July fireworks that got you there have fizzled out. And at that moment, the ignorant infants among us go for the divorce lawyer.

(NOTE: sometimes divorce is necessary. Sometimes a doctor has to decide to amputate, or the patient is going to die. Divorce is the amputation of the relationship, to be done in cases of physical abuse, or when it is the only way to save the soul. And like amputation, should be extremely rare, and absolutely, positively the last resort.

By the way, this is also how I view abortion.)

When it stops being easy and fun, the adults, the wise, get up and go to work. Because it takes work. It takes listening and talking, arguing and making up, hurt feelings and apologies, to make it work. It takes giving and taking, it takes asking and hearing no; and it takes saying yes, and saying no, learning when to insist and when to give in.

It's an elaborate dance, more intricate than any grand ballet, much harder, and much, much more beautiful.

Your marriage must be more important than either of you as individuals. Because your spouse is a person, a living, growing person. Each of you is getting older, learning, changing; and things you loved when you were in your 20's lose their charm when you're in your 50's. In your 40's you find yourself relishing things for which you cared nothing when you were 18. Sooner or later, you wake up with your spouse of decades, and realize, though the face is the same, the person behind the face is no longer the person you married. And you must adapt, if you want to stay married.

It's called "love", and, blasphemous as it sounds, love is not a feeling. It is a decision, a commitment. You stick by your commitments, if you can, whether you feel like it or not.

Our seminary counseling professor said, "Marriage gets to be a drag after a while. But if you keep dragging with it, it becomes wonderful!"

Another psychologist I met said that, except for cases of physical abuse (in which case, the rule is GET OUT!) it is virtually always easier to make a bad marriage work than it is to survive a divorce. And it is better, psychologically, for each of you.

What I'm saying is, it takes your whole life to learn how to love someone. And the only way to do it is in the context of a pretty iron-clad commitment to each other, a commitment within which you can try things, make mistakes, learn from your mistakes, and do better next time; where your partner can offend you trying to please you, and you can express your offense, and you two can step back, try again, and eventually make magic.

You can become remarkably selfish without this often-uncomfortable corrective. And you can grow to be a great person with this kind of help. A wonderful Christian psychologist I knew liked to say, "A good marriage is the best therapy."

A great Baptist pastor, Dr. E. Paul Billheimer, wrote a book decades ago entitled Don't Waste Your Sorrows, a follow-up to his magnificent Destined for the Throne, a beautiful exposition on how God uses prayer to prepare us for glorious things to come. In Sorrows, he proposed that the pains and failures and disappointments of life are the very tools God uses to make you strong and great. The last chapter in the book is dedicated to marriage, which is calls the greatest laboratory for developing Christian character.

He compares marriage to a rock polisher, which is like a tumble clothes dryer. You put rough rocks in it and turn it on. The barrel rolls over with an awful cacophony as the rocks slam against each other until they have knocked all the rough edges off each other and they all are smooth.

Sometimes it feels that bad. Sometimes it's all you can do not to give up.

But if you can find a way not to give up, you will know miracles.

Seriously, what wonder in life doesn't require some serious work?

And doesn't the work you have to put into it make it that much more valuable to you?