In these "marriage humdrum" blog entries, we’ll look at a bunch of different warning signs that will help us identify marriage pits that most couples drift into. And, we’ll look at the decisions necessary to having fun again together.
Marriage Humdrum Part 7
The seventh warning sign is, when a marriage gets wedged in a monotonous rut, it becomes easier for you to justify isolating yourself from others. I have talked to countless couples struggling in their marriage who think everyone else around them, especially at church, won't understand what they are going through. So, they don't talk to anyone about it!
After my wife and I had our first and second daughter in our marriage, we decided to go for a third child (yes, it was another sweet girl). The process of making a baby was easy for us (and fun!). God had blessed us with quick pregnancies, until the third... We tried for almost 2 years and then decided maybe this wasn't what God wanted, and then Raegan was pregnant a month later.
During that 2 year defeating, confusing, frustrating, spiritually stretching period, we didn't really reach out to anyone for help or encouragement, thinking, "Since we already have 2 children, this will sound like we're complaining, and we know so many who can't have their first child". Come to find out a few years later, we run into couples all the time going through what we went through.
Everybody falls in love with the front end of the puppy.
You know where I'm going with this, right? We fall in love with the front end of the puppy, but every puppy has a back end. Every marriage has a back-end story. Every marriage has a story of struggle, pain, frustration, trials, and disagreements.
When you are in a rut, you fall into pride and begin saying, "Nobody gets what I'm going through." That's not true! You've caught the lie the Enemy has been throwing at you.
What's sad, is I have seen this played out many times in church. A couple commits to being a part of church and even joining a bible study or small group, but never opens up to anyone. When their marriage begins a downward spiral, they drift and isolate, and don't open up until, in many cases, it's too late.
When you're in that rough season of a marriage and isolate from others, you fall for the lie that no one understands what you're going through. That's just not true. Your stories may have different details, but the symptoms are similar. What you'll find, if you will take a risk at transparency, is encouragement, trust, and real friendships. And, you might even go home saying, "Wow, at least we're not as jacked up as those other couples." :)
When you feel stuck, press into biblical community. You need to hear "What you are going through is not unique to you. We've been where you are now. You can make it through this. We will help you."
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. 5 For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. 6 If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. 7 And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort. 2 Corinthians 1:3-7
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