Marriage…Not For the Faint Hearted

To those who don’t know me, I’m Myra. I’m married to Steve and I’m a mum of two wonderful adult children, who are both married to fantastic spouses. Steve and I are also grandparents to the most gorgeous little boy.

I work as a Special Needs Teacher and together with Steve, moved from serving in City Church Cardiff for almost 33 years, to serve alongside the Leadership Team and wonderful congregation of Connect Life Caerphilly in January 2020.

Last week Steve and I got to go to a wedding, one which was postponed from May and scaled down considerably. But the sense of joy that at last this precious couple were able to tie the knot was immense as they promised that they would be committed to each other no matter what would come their way, the good and the difficult, in sickness and in health, in the joys and the sorrows which life inevitably brings.

At the heart of the godhead is relationship. The Father is in relationship with His Son and both in relationship with the Holy Spirit. We read throughout scripture of their love relationship with each other and I’m very grateful and our Father never designed for us to live our lives in solitary isolation. I’m thankful that both marriage and singleness are honoured and promoted particularly in the New Testament and in fact, at times, it seems like singleness is held up as being the preferable option! However, as a married person you’ll be glad to know that I’m grateful for the gift of marriage!

However, marriage is not for the faint hearted … perhaps not the start you might expect from someone writing on this subject for our group! So often we have the notion that a good marriage is when you feel flutters every time you think of your husband, when you can’t bear to be apart longer than the working day and you agree on absolutely everything all the time!

There will be some reading this who will be laughing out loud at the thought of their marriage being like that! But don’t mistake me … I love being married but… it is not for the faint hearted!

A bit more about me… after University in Dublin, having become a believer two and a half years previously aged 20, I headed off to Belgium to spend a year with the evangelistic organisation Operation Mobilisation, ending up in a Creative Team in Belgium. I was so ignorant of faith really and terribly insecure, and suffering from the fact that there was a whole lot of sinning and poor choices that a person can fit into their lives in 20 short years! There I was, determined to obey the Social Policy that no new relationships could be formed during your first year with OM, but on the same team was a lanky, loud and cheery young man, with brown eyes and a guitar, from Cardiff called Steve and within two months I was smitten. Did he like me though as more than a team mate? I was not to know this for about one and a half years, after we had both returned to our home cities for about six months. However, through the intensity of team life, the ups and downs, the longest of days, the hilarity of some moments we got to know each other well, warts and all as they say, in situations where there was no opportunity to hide behind ‘best behaviour’!

In the two years that we ‘went out’, we didn’t go anywhere much, as I still lived in Dublin and Steve lived in Cardiff so we did what people could do in the 80s, we wrote letters and I visited Cardiff for about a week every three months. Our year of engagement for me was spent terrified for the most part … and to be fair I was planning to leave my home city, family, church, friends, career, to live in a foreign country with someone I hadn’t lived in the same country as for two and a half years … not quite what I’d recommend to anyone! I was afraid mostly that it wasn’t God’s will because I wanted it so much … I had so much to learn about the love of God … and that if things got tough, I would run away!

But I also learned that I could be happy whether I married or whether I didn’t marry, that Steve was even more stubborn than me and I couldn’t manipulate him, and eventually, after lots of prayer and pros and cons lists, I knew I could take the risk with God and go for it! Now that’s not the normal ‘love story’ but as the James Dobson book said all those years ago, Love Must Be tough!

Our first year of marriage was so much fun – to make up for engagement being so hard I’m sure – and it’s just got better year by year! Well …. Er …. Maybe not … Love Must Be Tough!

We have had many challenges over the years … bouts of post natal and post viral depression, making choices to reduce our income as our expenses rose so that Steve can be more involved in ministry, trying to shoe horn our marriage into a mould not our own, as well as the challenges of being a Pastor’s wife, a unique privilege and calling. But 33 years later, I can say it has been so worth it and about 30 of those years have been happy, which I think is a bargain! And as I have learned to trust both God and Steve more, our relationship has strengthened and grown.

Here are some of things I have learned, and there will be many other things that others will suggest … this is not an exhaustive list!!!

Marriages often go in cycles … the opposite characteristics attract and then irritate and then attract etc

When we ask God to make us more like Jesus, he frequently uses our husbands in the process …

For example;

‘O please make me patient Lord ……’ but make him stop leaving the towel in the middle of the floor.’ (Though I have to make it plain that Steve is much tidier than I am!)

‘O Please make me more loving …but I think I’m going to have to kill him first.’

‘O Please help me to have more peace … but why is he so irritating at times?’

• The love languages really do matter … if my husband’s primary love language is ‘acts of service’, then me telling him how handsome he is because my love language is ‘words of affirmation’, just doesn’t make him feel that I love him. However, if I cook him something special and pack his suitcase for a trip, then he is more likely to feel loved.

• Men and women really are different … it is a generalisation to say that women have a broader emotional range than blokes, but we do seem to much of the time and that is certainly true for Steve and me. We approach things differently, we approach faith differently, we approach problems differently. We are really different … but as soon as I could accept that Steve was different and it was OK, that I didn’t need to try to change or control him, it was like a weight lifted. He had chosen to marry me and that is enough.

• A strong marriage is one where each individual becomes the individual God has created them to be, and then chooses to journey alongside another, sharing life and love, and choosing to become one. We are still responsible to God for our personal relationship with Him, for allowing the beautiful work of the Holy Spirit to transform us from the inside out, to heal us where we hurt.

• It’s not just about finding the ‘Right One’ but personally becoming the Right One. This necessitates us becoming less self centred which, let’s face it, doesn’t come naturally to any of us.

• There is not one way which marriage works … there are lots of really happy marriages formed around patterns which might not be to our personal taste. God is creative and so we can be creative too. The important part is that it is MUTUALLY beneficial, it’s what you AND your husband want. For example, In the past, it was expected that the husband would always be the main wage earner, but thankfully that does not HAVE to be the case nowadays.

• Love is more about giving then about getting. The definition of love in 1 Corinthians is so wonderful but also immensely challenging. I love The Passion Translation’s version … “Love is large and incredibly patient. Love is gentle and consistently kind to all. It refuses to be jealous when blessing comes to someone else. Love does not brag about one’s achievements nor inflate its own importance. Love does not traffic in shame and disrespect, nor selfishly seek its own honour. Love is not easily irritated or quick to take offence. Love joyfully celebrates honesty and finds no delight in what is wrong. Love is a safe place of shelter, for it never stops believing the best for others. Love never takes failure as defeat, for it never gives up. Love never stops loving.” 1 Corinthians‬ ‭13:4-8‬ ‭TPT‬‬. ‬‬‬‬‬‬

• Marriage is one of the ways that God draws love out of people, but it must be said that sometimes it draws out a whole lot of less attractive qualities first!

• Good Communication is an art to be learned, relearned, learned again and constantly refined.

• Core values are important … if a personal faith in Jesus is one of your core values, it doesn’t make sense to marry and join your life path with someone who is at best apathetic to matters of faith.

• Physical intimacy and love making do not always come ‘naturally’ or easily, and there may be times such as after children, when it is pretty much out of the question. Keep talking to each other and get medical or counselling help if needed. You are not alone!

• Children change everything … whether that’s the tragedy of baby loss or the challenge of toddlers or teenagers. A blessing but another change to navigate.

• Keep your married love alive, stay friends with your husband and don’t let your children replace him in your affections. I remember being determined that when our children left home eventually, I didn’t want to suddenly be living with a stranger.

• Determine to be your husband’s best cheerleader and not his best critic – and do this in public as well as in private, when he is listening and when he is not.

• Learn to be a generous forgiver– love keeps no record of wrongs. We have all received mercy from God so we can give mercy to others and particularly those close to us. That’s not the same as enduring abuse in any form.

• Pray for your husband and marriage. The enemy doesn’t want your marriage to flourish and we need to protect it and pray and listen to the voice of God, as we heard last week.

• The grass in the next field may be greener but it still needs to be mown! Don’t compare your marriage with someone else’s, and particularly not with their Insta or FB highlights!

• Find things that make you laugh and enjoy fun times together … and keep laughing at his jokes, even when they become the worst sorts of Dad jokes!

• Serving God together whether that is in church, in outreach, in your home, in your family in an amazing way of strengthening the bond of unity with each other. Shared values and vision for you as a couple will strengthen your relationship and will keep you strong together.

• Practice and enjoy giving hospitality to others, from sharing a cup of coffee to opening your home to groups

• And a key … a successful marriage is built around falling in love with the same person over and over again. There will be dry patches, boring patches, mundane times, but that’s OK. Those are the times we dig in and act out of love even if the feelings are not to the forefront. We cannot just do whatever we feel like all the time!

• Keep learning … take the HTB Marriage Course online (we did it during Lockdown and learned more about each other), read the Care for the Family resources, chat to another couple like we did in a very difficult time, learn to listen to each other.

• Celebrate the little things … find joy in the mundane, because so much of life is mundane after all. These don’t have to be expensive ways but the fruit of a joyful spirit.

• Find shared activities but also give each other the space to develop interests. Stay friends!

• Build margin into your life … in your time, your finances, your friendships. It is not healthy to live on the edge all the time. When you build margin in, you have the capacity for the emergency when it comes.

• Get counselling if you need it – this is a strength and not a weakness, and there are some great practitioners in South Wales.

• And if you have suffered the tragedy of divorce or bereavement, please allow yourself to grieve, take all the support you can, and allow God to pour His love into your heart again.

• As Heidi Baker so beautifully penned: When we are fully connected to God and fully known by Him, there is no fear in trusting Him with our dearest hopes and desires and dreams. And as we make God our love, our life, our all in all, the Holy Spirit floods our hearts. His presence dissolves the hard edges, the hurts, the frozen ground and makes our hearts more like His. (Joyful Surrender, 2019)

There will be so much more which could be added. Marriage may not be for the faint hearted…. But it’s worth it!

Myra x