backdoor to a celebration of marriage

my good friend Janae got married last month. my brother-in-law got married last weekend. several good friends and family members are facing tough times in marriage lately. my own marriage has been unspeakably sweet through our recent time of crisis and trial. i've had lots of occasion to reflect on marriage lately.

and on Sunday i heard it again - the Christian line on marriage. it includes things like "take a stand against divorce" and "divorce is not an option."

take a stand? what exactly does that mean? it sounds militant and strong. my marriage has been to the brink of divorce, and i'm not sure that valiant Christain soldiers boldly marching into such a tender, agonizing place in my life would have helped anything. in fact i'm quite sure it would have made it worse. i was, thankfully, surrounded by people who value my heart and Ryan's, as well as our marriage, and who gently laid down their busy lives and spent themselves in prayer on our behalf. they didn't stand up for the institution of marriage, exactly, but rather laid on their face for me and for us.

and now i'm faced with the decisions about how to best love others who are struggling in marriage. nothing about my part feels aggressive. it feels slow, unsure, and requiring me to surrender much. to lay down instead of stand strong. it begs the humility to remember my own struggles and weaknesses, past and current, and share them, if needed. it is prompted by the gratitude i feel toward people who loved us from broken to healing, not pride of having "arrived" (because we haven't) or being "right" (because i'm not sure it matters one way or the other whether i'm right or not).

divorce is an option. to just march around chanting that it isn't is a bit ostrich-like. i understand the intent, but i also don't think it's working (i won't bore you with the stats about divorce rates - you're watching them unfold around you just like me). but i know from experience that divorce is not the only option. rather than insist that people ignore the enemy of divorce, we can help them look that enemy dead in the eye and choose to stay married anyway. we keep treating marriage like a fragile, weak thing, and marriage is responding by becoming just that. but it's strong - able to acknowledge the temptation to give up and walk away without automatically giving in to it.

i don't mean that Christians have had a wrong idea. the good idea of protecting and upholding marriage needs a different method. a new approach.

and new words. i think our words describe our actions, but they also influence our actions (that sentence may spark a whole post). if marriage needs more compassion than crusade, our language needs to invite the former over the latter. if we change the way we talk, it will affect the way we think and act.

like so many things in the Kingdom, this is backward and counterintuitive. we'll fight for marriage best by surrendering, and stand for marriage well by laying down.

as i write today, my heart swells and my eyes well at the thought of my Ryan. i ache with regret for the times i intended fully to walk away from this covenant we're living. and i ache with gratitude to him, to our Church, and to the Holy Spirit for showing me just how strong and beautiful marriage is.