Commitment

Matthew 19:3-6, “Some Pharisees came and tried to trap him [Jesus] with this question: ‘Should a man be allowed to divorce his wife for just any reason?’ ‘Haven’t you read the Scriptures?’ Jesus replied. ‘They record that from the beginning ‘God made them male and female.’ And he said, ‘This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.’ Since they are no longer two but one, let no one split apart what God has joined together.”

My son will be getting married on June 1^st of this year.  I am happy about this. I have two other children who are already married and have children of their own.  My husband and I have been married for almost 29 years. Marriage is important in our family.

I think about all the marriages that take place in our country, and I think about all the divorces that also takes place. I often wonder if people actually look at marriage as a life-long commitment. I was thrilled when I first got engaged—the ring was beautiful; but one day I took a serious look at my relationship and asked myself, “Can I be married to this person for the rest of my life?” The answer was, “No.” I knew that if I married this person that my marriage would end in a divorce, so I broke off the engagement. How many people actually ask this question before they get married?

I then married another man– my husband. Our marriage was very rocky the first few years. I never realized how different we were and we dealt with conflict very negatively. There was even a point in the early part of my marriage that I considered getting a divorce because the tension was so great, but I thought about the question I had asked myself—“Can I be married to this person for the rest of my life?” My answer was, “Yes,” so I couldn’t give up just because we were having problems communicating.

We had some good days but we had many bad days—it was like that for the first 16 years of our marriage. It started to feel like we were just going through the motions of being married—like we were married only because we were obligated to stay together. Since we were both students at the seminary, we took a class together—a marriage enrichment course.

After several weeks of listening to lectures and doing role-playing exercises, we realized that our marriage was not all it could be. That one class made us realize that we had to work on our marriage so we signed up for marriage seminars and read books on communication. We broke patterns of old behavior that inhibited open communication. We still have times when we disagree, but we can actually discuss them now—no longer are we mad at each other for days on end.

I think we both recognized that God had brought us together but Satan was trying to pull us apart. Even though we both wanted to fight for our marriage, we were still battling Satan by our own power. We had so many false starts—times when we picked up the Bible and said we would read it together but after a few days we would stop.  It wasn’t until we actually made the commitment to read the Bible and pray together that our marriage really changed.

I can never say it enough—if you are in a “loveless” or a lackluster marriage then please consult the One who is the Author of love and marriage, God—read His Word and pray to Him—do this together as one flesh.

Copyright © 2013 Dr. M. Teresa Trascritti