Marriage Monday, Take 2

It's Marriage Monday again over at Chrysalis. This month's topic is, "Girl Talk: Mothers & Daughters Talk About Love". I'm going to loosely focus on the suggested question, "What are you teaching your daughter about love and marriage?"



Want this button?
My children are fairly young yet with the oldest only being 10, but I still try to insert little tidbits about love and marriage here and there in our conversations as the opportunities present themselves. If my daughters (and sons) remember nothing else as adults about what I've tried to teach them about marriage, I'd want them to know the importance of marrying a spouse who shares the same faith in God as they do and keeping the Lord foremost in their marriage.

This does not necessarily mean that they should marry a person who is the same denomination as they are (since a Catholic and a Lutheran could share more of the same beliefs than two Lutherans ... or two Catholics for that matter). What it does mean is that, when a person is dating another, they should talk about their beliefs and not shy away from them. Discover any differences. Talk about them. Are the differences merely in regard to religious tradition, or are they doctrinal? Can the differences be resolved, or will they be a stumbling block in a marriage?

Marry someone whose shared faith is as devout as yours. This encompasses not only things like how often you each attend church, but how deeply the other's faith is woven into his life. Faith affects a person's moral and ethical views and how he lives his everyday life and treats others.

There was a time when I was a teenager that I didn't think it mattered too much whether I married a person who shared my faith. In my naivete I thought I could just convert them before we married. But as I got a bit older and slightly wiser and thought about it some more, I knew that I wanted a husband who was strong in his faith. I realized that if he was just willing to convert to my faith, his foundation of faith wasn't anchored very strongly in the first place.

Josh and I have talked and expressed gratitude to each other many times over how blessed we are that God brought us together and that we do share the same faith. I honestly do no know how we would have gotten through the events of the past two years without holding the other up and encouraging each other without our shared faith in God and his eternal promises. Whether one of us is at a weak point and the other is strong, we are both clinging to our Father with white knuckles through tears, or we are celebrating an occasion with joy, we are joined in a marriage rooted in Christ. It is he who binds us together.

A cord of three strands is not quickly broken. Ecclesiates 4:12b

Make God the third and most important strand in the cord of your marriage.