I didn’t like Kevin Samuels 80% of the time cuz he was a bully. However, he was RIGHT AS RAIN IN THE SPRING on this one. A lady once asked (regarding marriage), “Am I just supposed to be miserable?”

He replied, “You’re supposed to be an adult.”

Marriage ain’t “happily ever ever.” It is a covenant between two people to take two lives and create one out of two. To become a working unit. Sometimes, you are happy. Lots of times you are mad. In fact? You have ALL the emotions. But the one thing that has to be agreed upon? Is that you both are dedicated. Because when the sickness comes, and the poorer comes, when you have to yield to the other person’s need above your own, when you have to yield to your husband because it’s his spot as the leader of the family, when he has yield to you because as the leader he recognizes that you got the sauce in that season… it’s not about the happy.

It’s about the covenant.

Beyond the “happy” of it all is connection, the intimacy, the instinctual need to be a team because the word says that 2 are better than 1, that it isn’t good for a person to be alone without their own kind.

And sure you can have that with friends and family, not be alone.

But what I learned in marriage is that there is a distinct activation of seeing yourself in ways you could NEVER see yourself… the good, the bad, the ugly. It is the ultimate assessment of loving yourself then loving someone else like you love yourself. It’s a daily exercise in taking up your cross.

And you will fail if you only ever intend to be happy, instead of better.

Spencer and I could at best be considered slightly compatible. Different generations, different life experiences, different upbringings, different states and regions, different religious denominations. But we learned to live and lean into each other because we both decided to just stay the course. We learned what about ourselves was what it was and where sin did abound grace did more abound. On his behalf. And mine. I became a helpmeet, and learned to live a less volatile version of myself; he became a leader, and learned to live a more present version of himself.

We learned to love ourselves trying to love each other.

If you aren’t willing to look into the mirror of the word of God and allow the Spirit of the Lord to adjust YOU, do not go into marriage believing that things will just fix themselves. They won’t. But obedience to the Lord and commitment to the covenant you made will, in due season, bring the peaceable fruit of righteousness. That’s the real harvest of marriage. Not happiness. PEACE.

Thinking out loud cuz I can,

GreatJoy