Being Married

     Here's Darren, my husband, with our very fluffy Standard Poodle, Ezri.  Ezri is a girl who wishes that she was the Alpha female dog.  Every opportunity she gets she drapes herself across his lap and hopes that she is not disturbed.  She used to get very jealous when I would hug or kiss Darren, but alas, she has finally accepted the inevitable position of Beta female (for whatever that's worth!).
     Darren is a devoted dad and a doting husband.  He is one of the kindest people I know and has always been an example of Christ-likeness to me.  We met at at the Aspen Evangelism Project (Colorado) in 1987.  He and I were very like minded in our Christian beliefs that summer and became fast friends and eventual life long partners.  Our marriage hasn't been perfect and we have been through some trying times.  I think that one small determination that we both made right after marriage was to never allow the word, "divorce" enter into our language or to entertain thoughts of divorce. When we married we married for life.  Because of this I have never once been in fear that Darren will leave me or divorce me. 
     In the last 23 years of marriage I have learned that being married isn't about having that picture perfect relationship but rather about representing Christ in our marriage.   Well, when you join two people together at a young age who have two sets of expectations, two sets of values, two sets of beliefs, two sets of whatever, you will have conflict and not necessarily a picture of Christ!  The path towards a Christ centered marriage doesn't come from never having conflict but rather how that conflict is worked through.  Christ is found in the process of being broken and contrite.  Two acts which are not well approved of in the worlds eyes but two acts which will make a marriage not only work but look like Christ.  Are we there yet?  I can safely say that we are closer now then we were.  I can also say that we have farther to go. 

 

All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

Heb 12:11