With Valentine’s Day coming up tomorrow, I have seen a lot of articles this week about marriage (maybe that is surprising – we might expect to see a lot of articles about love). This article in the Atlanta-Journal Constitution said we should commit to marriage itself more than the other person; this one said we need to find a mate who has the same anxiety level as we do.
I’m no expert on marriage – or am I? My grandparents have been married 68 years, my parents 41 years and we were married 15 years, so I come from a string of good marriages. And while I wouldn’t assume to be an expert on anyone else’s marriage, I know what worked in ours.
You must give up part of yourself to create a successful couple.
Anita and I agreed early on that we must both give up part of our own individual dreams in order to build one for us as a couple. That principle saw us through many fights, arguments and maturing. It guided our decisions for what was best for our family, not individually regardless of the other. We still pursued our dreams, and in fact wholly supported each other in pursuit of those dreams because we had made a joint decision to follow them. Everything I did, Anita felt invested in and vice-versa. And in time, those things that we gave u didn’t seem so important because we had built something together even better.
I think the same case can be made with your relationship with Christ and God. I remember one day in 2004 when I finally decided to give my life to Christ. I called Anita at work to tell her my news and she was thrilled. I was terrified. I was scared to give up who I was to become something I didn’t know. The funny things was that all the great things God had built into me had a purpose. And as you follow Christ, all those things you were hanging on to don’t seem so important any more.
