Monday Morning Marriage

You’ve seen a bumblebee when it bounces frantically, persistently into the window, unaware of the clear and solid obstacle between him and the luscious bouquet of wildflowers on your sun porch?

The squirrels and robins watch this bumblebee and try to shout to him “it’s no use!” but he doesn’t seem to get it. He thinks he can fly through the glass (if he just hits it hard enough and enough times until his head is flattened).  Then something happens inside his little bumblebee brain and he jerks in a new direction.

That was my first marriage.

I was the bumblebee.  The plate glass window wasn’t going to change (hint: it can’t).

Time lapse: 10 years.

For the last two Sundays, I have sat all soft in our big and loving church community, taught by our brilliant servant Pastor, alongside the most unfathomable gift a girl could get … direct from God Himself.

Now I get it. I think I get Marriage. I still need daily exercise to avoid the pitfalls of silliness that creep into my words and my thoughts. But I have a whole new soundtrack playing in my heart. And after a dozen years in bumblebee land, I drop in gratitude every single day.

Pastor Samra gave us a two-week teaching on Marriage: the dreaded Ephesians FIVE.  But wait don’t go! Jim gave us all a chance to be challenged and elevated in a new way.

If we’re willing to create something new.

Here’s the jolt: there’s no room for words like “compromise” and “equality” when we’re approaching our spouse.  Those basic camouflages for negotiated selfishness are obstacles to the kind of thrill that God wants for us in our marriages.  He’s drumming his fingers at our foolishness and he’s waiting for us to get it.

[box] Husband: head of the household, rising to the call of sacrificial love and leading his family in spirituality, joy, honor and integrity. Lifting his wife as a woman of beauty and priority and the object of his highest affection.

Sacrificial Love changes everything.[/box] [box] Wife: husband’s partner, honoring him as the proper head of the home. She leads through her gifts, and respects him in everything as head (but not in sin). She doesn’t impose her way on him. He feels the respect in her heart.

She is made holy by his love.[/box]

Now the kicker:  He isn’t her everything; she isn’t his everything; they point each other to Jesus.  (We’re all human, y’all).  A strong marriage is the gospel.  It’s HOPE for everyone who encounters us.

Or not.  It’s our choice. Your choice. I didn’t get this until I gave it all up.  Gave up my idiotic selfness and imaginary control. We have gotten terribly confused in our efforts to be strong individuals, and in our intellectual pursuit of sophistication and high performance, we totally miss the boat.

I know.

No one said it was easy.  But the thrill that Steve and I share as a couple striving for this kind of marriage is like 120 on the Autobahn … in a Ferrari 458. Together. Laughing.

Pastor Samra’s homework assignments:

Husband ask your wife: how you have loved her sacrificially?
Wives ask your husband: how have you submitted to his leadership?

Can you handle the joy?