Why Marriage Matters

Marriage matters for a host of undeniable reasons. I am not here to attempt to defend or espouse them all. I think it may be sufficient to say that deep down we understand that marriage matters. If cultures and societies decide marriage does not matter - that culture may cease to exist, at least in any way that has stability. 

But I want to tell you my “why”. Why does marriage matter to me? Why do I feel so strongly about doing it well? Why did we start a ministry to help strengthen and support marriages? Let me give you my reasons.

The first thing is that I didn't do it well at the beginning. I foolishly thought marriage would be easy (well if not easy, then at least “manageable”). I discovered very early on that Johnny was not going to be “manageable”. I hit a wall that I could not get over. The way I saw it, he was “difficult” and he did not make things easy therefore I concluded “He is the issue.” So, I started a personal improvement project on Johnny. Now, let me say when I put my mind to something I am pretty good at getting it accomplished. But, for the life of me I could not make headway in this project. Johnny did not cooperate!  I was so frustrated! But God, (I love that phrase in scripture) was doing a work in my heart. It was like open-heart surgery. It was painful at times. God was taking a scalpel to my misunderstandings, wrong assumptions, and judgmental attitude. God was teaching me that I was not in charge of changing Johnny to make him what I wanted him to be. I learned to allow God to meet my deepest needs and then love Johnny from that place of overflow. 

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God planned that marriage would reflect the intimate kind of relationship He wants with us.

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The second reason is that over the years I was so amazed at what happened when I stopped my “improvement” project and started loving Johnny the way God wanted me to that I was blown away. I wondered if God did this for me (for us), is this something we might share with others? Could we help others who might be struggling or who wanted their marriages to be all God designed them to be. We thought (well again maybe me) that we might have a platform to share our story because we had experienced a number of hard places.  To mention just a few, we had two of our three children who were born with congenital heart defects. Our oldest son Zach, died at the age of 18 after a “successful” heart surgery. The pain of chronic illness, of years of hospitals and dashed hopes was exhausting. Grief is a long arduous journey that will beat up a marriage. We also experienced several other traumatic events over the years. All of these things and many more are part of our story, the message of our marriage, not just surviving but flourishing! 

I guess the third reason that marriage matters would be that God in His wisdom, (beyond our human understanding) has chosen to put marriage on display as His image to the world of what it looks like that Christ, the husband loves His bride the church. God planned that marriage would reflect the intimate kind of relationship He wants with us. God puts that much value on marriage! 

So that’s why marriage matters to me!

~Carla