Taking Back Marriage

Last Valentine's Day, I realized that the holiday may be bound to disappoint. I didn't mean to put a damper on the day, but truthfully, we are just imperfect people. We try to love and be loved, but God loves us more than anyone ever could. And our understanding of love and our ability to love others needs to stem from THAT relationship above all else. With that being said, my husband booked us a couple's cooking class on Valentine's Day this year (after some serious hinting on my part)! So I'm looking forward to Heart Day more than usual. But I am so thankful for the gift God has given me in my husband. My second love, next to the Lord. Doug knows he's the #2 seed, and he's glad for it. He'd say the same about my standing as well. Because by understanding God and our love-relationship with Him first, we are able to better live out our marriage, attempting to mirror the Love God has shown to us. Marriage is the closest glimpse we'll receive on Earth, person-to-person, to the kind of relationship God has always desired between us and Himself. Marriage is just a taste of what's to come. And God knew what He was doing when He created it; it was a gift for us, His beloved children.

When I think about all of that, I get pumped up about marriage! It's something Doug and I have always taken very seriously, but also joyfully, purposefully, prayerfully. And we've been blessed with influences that have taught us even more how significant marriage is, and how our marriage, specifically, can be significant. We put time aside each week just to reflect, plan, and pray for our marriage. We've committed to putting at least one weekend aside each year to reconnect and refresh our marriage. Even still, our marriage isn't perfect because it's a combining of two imperfect people, but we can press towards the goal of reflecting God's love in our marriage, and we really try to. So in a world that feels like it's perfectly OK to take back marriage like you would take back an ugly sweater, I am taking back marriage to what it was originally intended to be: a blessing that is to be taken seriously. Ephesians 5 gives us a beautiful example of what marriage was created to look like, some may see it as old-fashioned or unbalanced, but that's only because they don't understand the love-respect relationship that we're aiming to emulate, that of Christ and ourselves! Pauls summarizes his whole explanation of marriage by saying "So again I say, each man must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband." (Ephesians 5:33)  When someones loves you like he loves himself, it pretty easy to respectfully love him back. And that's an awesome place to start!

I have to say, it's been pretty upsetting to me seeing people my age, reaching their mid-twenties, and their reactions to marriage. I've seen a lot of statuses saying things along the lines of  "If I see one more engagement update I'm going to throw up!" or "I don't care that you are getting married-shut up!" Or on the other hand, peers of mine who are already on their way to or finalizing a divorce publicly, and people "liking" and cheering them along, like they just achieved something? I don't understand and I won't accept this way of thinking. It's a misunderstanding, a big lie. Whether you're married or not, it's not OK, and you don't have to play along with it. Will you take back marriage with me? What it was intended to be, what it stands for, what it could be. Significant. Joyful. Committed. Celebrated.

Think on love this Valentine's Day: the One who loved you first, and maybe the one who loved you second. <3 "..a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one."
Genesis 2:24