Is There Hope for My Marriage? One Good Reason to Stay Togetherಮಾದರಿ

He Said, “Yes!”

When my husband was a pastor, we often received young couples for premarital counseling. They graced our living room, handsome and beautiful, with lilting laughter and glowing eyes. Being part of those special days was a gift as they planned their weddings. At some point during our sessions, my husband asked each man, “Are you willing to love her as Christ loves the Church, laying down your life for her?” With a tear in his eye, the handsome young fellow would look toward the raven-haired beauty smiling up at him and confidently say, “Yes!”

He couldn’t know what he was committing to. Rarely do young couples know what they are in for as they commit to each other on their wedding day. I know my husband and I didn’t.

One day, we had a session with an older couple. They had been married for 25 years and were in trouble. They hardly looked at each other, but they had come so very far in their struggle to love each other. At one point in the session, my husband asked, “Are you willing to love her as Christ loved the Church, laying down your life for her?”

I’ll never forget the scene. Gray hair frosted his temples. She had a hardness that only years of difficulty can cultivate in a woman. She was softening, but years of sarcasm had left wrinkles where there shouldn’t have been any. She wasn’t the young beauty he had married, but he looked at her as tears poured down his face, punctuated by sobs. “Yes,” he said.

I am still humbled by that moment that only God could have orchestrated. In the weakness of his flesh and the strength of Jesus, he said “yes.”

Something miraculous happens when a man decides to love his wife like that. The days that followed weren’t easy for this couple, but they had glimpsed just a bit of Jesus’ love and sacrifice, giving them the power to do the impossible. There was no good reason for them to remain together, much less flourish in a love that gave back her smile lost to many challenging years of marriage, but they did because God is committed to the covenantal love within His Church.