Yesterday Tom and I went to an estate sale,then picked up lunch at Taco Bell to eat at home. For the first time this year, we sat at the white table on our front porch. The air was still chilly in the shade, but just right in bright light.
We read our mail and listened to our happy neighbors in their yards. Everywhere we'd gone that morning we'd seen people just standing in their yards looking upward, simply enjoying the arrival of what appears to be Spring-Come-To-Stay. It blessed me to drive past so many 20-somethings, especially, standing alone on their lawns, just soaking up the bright, perfumed silence.
But back on our porch--I sat there with a heart full of memories of my life here. I wouldn't have missed these 12 years Back East for anything! And I looked at Tom across the table and Taco Bell wrappers from me--I wouldn't have missed marriage to him for anything, either.
Long ago we found something better, more lasting than marriage counseling (here is my controversial twist). We discovered that if both husband and wife allow God to change and remake them, then everything in the marriage miraculously rights itself.
If I let God destroy my selfishness, my need to have the last word and my pride--well, then I'll become an easy person to live with. And if God is meeting my deepest needs, I'll not be suffocating Tom with a whiny clingingness. I'll not nag him about having his own life because I'll not be lonely while he partakes of what he enjoys.
If I let God reduce me to love on all levels and with all people, then my 'marriage level' will certainly be affected. If I am 'dying daily' (as the Apostle Paul would say), then daily I'm becoming more like Jesus--and if that doesn't affect a marriage, what will?
Tom and I have been married 26 years and have found that there is something greater than following marriage advice, techniques, programs, hints, traditions, or systems from counselors, books or seminars. For us, we've found that letting God break us into smithereens and then, piece by piece, remaking us His way--well, that's the best harmony-maker.
These two recent empty-nesters are on their second honeymoon and are more crazy in love than befits 40-somethings. Each day grows sweeter and the glow in our home burns brighter, come rain or sun.
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Post Script: Ah yes! Regarding the commitment factor as commented upon by Tina and Saija. Just nights before Tom and I were married, (in 1978--the Dark Ages), we sat in my living room and told each other that we were going to stay married no matter what. Whether we had a happy marriage or a miserable one--the choice would be ours--but we were staying married forever. Of course we were just babies at the time (19 and 21), but that one decision has kept us from ever using the dreaded D Word all these years. The question has never been, "Will we stay together?" but rather, "Will we be happy or miserable in this thing?"
"Heaven may be in a sordid slum or a palace, and I can make My Home in the humblest heart." ... From the book, God Calling
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