sacred sabbaths: marriage

Apr 17, 2011

I read this post today and it touched me deeply. Healthy marriages are the glue that hold society together and for the past year or so I have been confronted with many of my friends getting separated, divorced, or putting up with a love-less marriage only because they aren’t willing to leave. The fragility of marriage has hit me square in the face and broken my heart again and again and again. On the day I found out about one friend’s husband leaving her and her four children, I sat in my bed and sobbed for over an hour. I called Richard and told him, “I love you, I love you, I love you. Don’t ever doubt that, don’t ever leave me, don’t ever give up on us.” I’ve always known people who have gotten divorced and I haven’t been all that surprised, but the people I am talking about are people who have had good marriages. People who have made and lived by their marriage covenants. People who are dear to my heart and who I would never have IMAGINED leaving those covenants.

People like me.

And it scared me to my bones.

I had felt for a long time that our marriage was untouchable. Our marriage was safe. Our marriage would not be one of those marriages that end.

And now I had to face the fact that marriages like ours were ending. Marriages that I believed were safe were no longer even on life support, much less thriving.

I have been reeling with this heartbreak and fear and sorrow and heaviness for months. The dissolution of these families is so incredibly painful to me. My heart breaks for the children. I remember what I felt like when my dad left us. The feeling of emptiness, of wrongness haunts me to this day. My heart breaks for the wives and husbands. The feelings of loss and guilt and regret and hurt must be overwhelming. My heart breaks for their parents and aunts and uncles and cousins and friends. Each of us loses when a family dissolves. Each of us is hurt in some way.

I know part of my mission in life is to strengthen the family. I know it through and through and yet, I often don’t know what to do to accomplish my mission. This post touched my heart because this woman is sending a clarion call to Christians everywhere to strengthen the family by serving and loving in marriage even when you don’t feel like it. Staying when you want to leave. Her words are full of wisdom and I hope millions will read them and determine to strengthen their own marriages.