To do or not to do? BIG TIME QUESTION

[paisley]

"if you go into it with divorce NOT being an option to you, then you'll try harder to do what is necessary to make it work"
"I disagree. I tend to think this would lead to an unpleasant obligation, and therefore resentment that will eventually explode. However, perhaps a duty based philosophy regarding marriage will work for some. "

Hopefully a couple goes into marriage with love and therefore they are committed to their love for one another through thick and thin, so this would not be an obligatory/duty based marriage, but a love based one. There is a huge difference here. If my husband were to get disabled or lose his job, it would be tough for the whole family, but I would stick with him first because of my love for him and if for some reason I was not feeling love for him at the time, then I would stick with him because I made a vow to him before God and man. That was my vow. No one forced the words out of me so I can not resent him for that. Moreover, the Bible says in Proverbs 14:1 "Every wise woman buildeth her house: but the foolish plucketh it down with her hands." If I were feeling resentful towards my husband, then I would need to deal with the problem rather than swimming in the negative feeling lest I have to stand before God and account for my contribution to tearing down my own home. Again this is where commitment comes in. Every woman has to commit to building her home to have a loving, warm, cheerful, and welcoming atmosphere that her husband looks forward to coming home to, and every man must commit to cherishing his wife which will almost guarantee a woman wanting to build this kind of a home. I realize there are exceptions, but hopefully men and women will wisely weed out the exceptions before marriage. Commitment is not an "unpleasant obligation". It is a safety net for every family. When those warm fuzzy feelings are not there, and for most they are not always there in marriage, there needs to be a safety net of commitment that keeps the marriage together when feelings can not. Once the net catches us, we can climb back up and recapture those warm fuzzy feelings of love.

 

[Sunkissed]

Married, to be or not to be

Sahed, in marriage we can and should find a help meet (mate), a confidant, someone to share the adventures that our lives will inevitably bring, one who will encourage us to better ourselves and never give up on our dreams and aspirations while the door is still open, but who will offer comfort and solace when we realize that God's plan for us was not the same as our own. What we should remember is, above all, marriage is meant to be a picture of the relationship of love between the Lord Jesus and His bride, the Church. It's a beautiful object lesson when it is partaken by a couple who have prayed and waited on God to lead them to each other.

Speaking from my own experience, I believe that entreating God to lead you to whomever He chooses for you (if being married is His will for you) and being specific about the qualities and virtues you'd like in a mate (respectfully) are key. Asking His help and opinion are necessary because you don't want to marry out of His will (cause marriage is not a cakewalk for even those within it). Secondly, listing your preferences (not that He doesn't know them already) is helpful for you so that you can recognize His answer, because He does love us and absolutely takes into consideration our desires (though we must wisely give way to His decisions since He always sees the big picture). In fact, since He has always known you and what you like and dislike, what you can and cannot handle, what your strengths and weaknesses are, He would have been preparing her for you and you for her long before you stopped thinking girls had "cooties".

Though God saved me in my teens, my husband met Christ only a few months before we met each other when I was 24. In that short time span, wherever we both were in our spiritual walk, God moved us to be praying about a mate, and we both were inclined to put in our order (which I know was NO coincidence). I became restless at my job and moved on to a new one, where I met this future man in my life. In one month's time he asked me to marry him. I knew by the peace that the Holy Spirit gave me that he was the one, and I said yes without hesitation. Later, he told me, marriage was not at all on his mind that night, but when he opened his mouth, he heard the words he was saying and could not fathom why he was saying them. We now know it was the prompting of the Holy Spirit that put those words in his mouth and gave me the peace to say yes to a man that I hardly knew. Confirmation came to me that same night when my mom (who is not saved) looked at me when I returned home and said "He asked you to marry him." I was taken aback to say the least! (No she's not psychic. I attribute that to the Holy Spirit for my sake, too!) All else tried to dissuade us, but we knew it was the correct thing to do, so 5 months later we married, vowing to God and each other to remain faithful and true. We've kept those vows for more than 27 years now.

We are just two ordinary people, like everybody else. It's just that we, separately and apart, not knowing one another, believed it made sense to let God choose for us. He was right, and we were the ones who benefited.

Sunny