My dear friend Loren sent me an adorable homemade card in the mail that I received yesterday. She's so great at sending people cards. It feels so good to receive a nice note, and knowing that, I always intend on sending people notes, but then I get sidetracked... I say that I'll do it tomorrow... then I'll do it then next day... and then it never gets done. Or maybe a year too late :) Better late than never I suppose.
Loren is going to be moving out here to Los Angeles in just a couple of weeks and getting married to our other amazing friend, Harrie Trotman! I have the honor of being in their wedding on August 19th.
Two other newer but just as amazing friends of mine just got engaged this past Sunday. And what a celebration it was! They are two of the most joyful people I've ever met who love the Lord with all their hearts, and just being in the same room with them makes you feel happy.
Then there are my parents, who have been divorced for over twelve years now, have reconciled and are seeing one another again. They went through the dating/engagement/marriage thing, and then it caved. They never intended in divorcing when they started out, and I'm sure if they knew what they would have to experience in the future they probably wouldn't have ever gotten married. But then my sister and I wouldn't be here. And they also wouldn't be now seeing each other again and re-experiencing the love they had for each other in the beginning. Since I don't live at home I haven't been able to observe much of their relationship, but my two short trips home since moving to California have proven that they have come a long way. The simple fact that they are together proves that God does miracles. It is a miracle that my parents are back together. It's an answer to prayers we all prayed for healing in our family, not even understanding that God could heal in a way that would bring two people so incredibly hurt by one another that they would separate for twelve years.
Why would anyone want to enter into a marriage knowing that they were going to fail? It's a pretty well-known statistic that half of marriages today end in divorce. Half. That means that every other couple who gets married will end up separated. (I know it sounds so far like I'm being a total pessimist, but bear with my thoughts. I'm hoping my train of thought will end more positively.) If people knew how hard it would be they would never get married. Many don't anymore. Why should they? Why experience such pain and brokenness when you can have all the perks of love without the extreme emotional turmoil?
Divorce and broken relationships wouldn't happen in a perfect world with perfect human beings. But the devil toyed with Creation and sin entered the world through human disobedience.
We know that God's love is the most pure kind of love. What if God hadn't loved those human beings perfectly and never committed Himself to loving them forever? What if God didn't "so love the world that he gave his only Son" so that all who come to him could have life forever?
We likely would have destroyed the human race by now.
Yet because there's a God, because there's a Jesus, because there's a Church - His bride - we are still here, waiting for Him to come and take us to the wedding. Because Jesus loved us to death, we have something to live for. We are loved.
Jesus modeled a life of perfect love as a human being, and he enabled us to overcome our tendency to not love by giving us the Holy Spirit to help us become better at loving others (whether that's romantic love or love for people in need, or love for God Himself).
When it comes to marriage, statistics make it look very discouraging. But when two people who love each other live in God's love, marriage is very possible. And inspiring. And beautiful. A taste of the heavenly bliss we will experience for eternity in heaven.
I'm still not sure what the end of my parents' story looks like. My mom told me recently that the one thing she has learned about marriage is that it is entirely about the other person - not yourself. If you get married for yourself, you might as well take the divorce papers with you to the altar (that would be pretty silly, but then again don't many people do that with pre-nuptial agreements?) I think of them very much like the Church: broken, betrayed, sinful, selfish, but they recognize their imperfections and have gained some wisdom and a whole lot more humility.
I have to be honest and admit that I struggle myself to be optimistic about marriage sometimes. It looks like a whole lot of work, a whole lot of feeling uncomfortable and insecure, a whole lot of killing your own wants and desires for someone else. But committing to live for Christ means getting all that anyway...
Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it. - Matthew 10:39
To follow Christ is to commit to a life of struggle against sin, pain, and difficult circumstances. But on the other side of those things is the most amazing freedom, joy, peace, and abundant life! With the promise that giving yourself up will mean finding your life, that means only the best is yet to come. Every time you lay down your life, you will gain something tons better on the other side.
My engaged friends have committed themselves to Christ in this way, so they know what it means to lay down their lives and to walk through difficult circumstances. They have also all experienced struggle in their relationships with their significant others, so I'm hopeful for a bright future for all of them. And my parents... well, that's a relationship that I know is hopeful because it has been through the darkest, deepest difficulties possible.
Much like Jesus when the people He loved betrayed him and killed him. We know how that story ends.
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