Marriage

I am in no way saying I am an expert on marriage. I always think that I haven't been married long enough. I look at people I look up to and they have been married 20, 25, 30, 40, 50 years...WOW!!! (I do have a point please be patient.)

Many of the people I know have been married multiple times. Many learned from their mistakes and have strong second marriages, some not so much. We knew several who have lost count. What makes us so different? Did we tap into a secret? Do we knew something that others don't?

Well, we watch and we learn from others-

I have two older brothers who I thought set the sun and moon. When they married, I gained two wonderful sisters. Since our parents divorced when I was 13 or so I have watched my brothers with their wives to see how it's done. (They don't know this...yet) My oldest brother has been married to his beautiful wife for over 25 years. They live away and although I haven't been there all the time I know that they have been through some trials, things that I would not want to go through, but on this side of it...They love each other. My brother treats his wife like a princess and my sister-in-law? She treats my brother like a king.. Watching them I have learned that you don't run at the first sign of trouble, you ride through the rapids together, often it's easier with two people.

So my point...

Tonight I got to share with a young woman about marriage and "the one" and how you know who that is.

So what did I tell her, how did I know that hubby was the one? I just knew..I couldn't come up with anything else. I knew after spending the day with him that this was the man that God created for me. My young friend said "He filled your gaps" I had to laugh cause we quote a lie from one of the Rocky movies that goes something like "I have gaps, she has gaps, we fill each others gaps" but nothing could be more truthful; where I have weaknesses he has strengths, and vice versa. It's not easy , we have had good times and bad times. There have been days when we didn't like each other, there have been days where we couldn't imagine loving each other more. Through it all we stuck it out.

I wanted my friend to know that God created marriage and it is a wonderful thing but it is hard work. We talked about how people like the sugar coat things but folks need to know it's hard work and it's a daily decision to carry on, so that means that for the last 5,915 days I have had to make a decision to work through whatever the problem was and work through it. I would not trade any of those for anything.

Now I did learn a secret early in my marriage; Not long after we married the church we were attending at the time has a lot of people who were celebrating their 50th anniversaries. After a particularly hard week at home I asked the wife if she ever felt like killing her husband and she immediately said yes, not thinking she understood me I asked a different "If you could have gotten away with it would you have killed him" and again she said yes. I thanked her very much and walked away knowing that I what I was feeling was normal. The feeling doesn't stay and I would never act on it but it's one of the ways I know we will make it.

One of the things that we have in common is music. He introduced me to Hank Sr and Cash. I am introducing him to Glee. There is always a song to go with any situation. Today it's "Go There With You" by Steven Curtis Chapman
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I know you've heard me say these words before
But every time I say I love you the words mean something more
I spoke them as a promise right from the start
I said death would be the only thing that could tear us apart
And now that you are standing on the edge of the unknown
I love you means I'll be with you wherever you must go

CHORUS
I will take a heart whose nature is to beat for me alone
And fill it up with you - make all your joy and pain my own
No matter how deep a valley you go through
I will go there with you
And I will give myself to love the way Love gave itself for me
And climb with you to mountaintops or swim a raging sea
To the place where one heart is made from two
I will go there with you

I see it in your tears - you wonder where you are
The wind is growing colder and the sky is growing dark
Though it's something neither of us understands
We can walk through this together if we hold each other's hand
I said for better or worse I'd be with you
So no matter where you're going I will go there too

CHORUS
I will take a heart whose nature is to beat for me alone
And fill it up with you - make all your joy and pain my own
No matter how deep a valley you go through
I will go there with you

BRIDGE
I known sometimes I let you down
But I won't let you go - we'll always be together