Dear Marriage,

I get it. It’s hard sometimes. You start out young, starry eyed, idealistic, You know exactly how you want this love to go forward and what it should look like. Then life gets in the way.

The kids come. They grow. You work hard every day, keeping a roof overhead, food on the table. Responsibilities pile up. Another diaper to change. Another meal to make. Another bill to pay. Another illness. Another obstacle. Health challenges or special needs add extra weight to this marathon. It’s heavy and all-consuming.

Money, energy, time and patience often run short. And it seems the love has as well. The expectations are high and no one is meeting them exactly. You weren’t aware that love was more choice than feeling, keeping it alive was such hard work and the sacrifices would be so huge. This hasn’t turned out the way you envisioned and you’ve forgotten why you did it in the first place.

The days are routine. Mundane. Days turn into weeks. Weeks into months and months into years. Then one day, suddenly, it’s over. One of you is gone. The other chair is empty, the bed lonely. There’s less clothes to fold, no one to talk to and the person you made history with, the one who knew you like no one else, doesn’t come home anymore. The final vow has come to collect and one of you is left to sift through the memories.

As the grief overwhelms and the great aloneness presses in, you realize all of life together was lived, not in the beginning or in this ending, but in the middle. In the mundane and in the routine. In the imperfection. In the stress and the joy. In the days that both dragged and flew by.

Then you know without a doubt, you’d go back and do it over again if you had the chance. Love was far from perfect, and was sometimes buried beneath the constant challenge of everyday life, but it was there and it was good.

Remember Jesus, who loved the most and gave His all? He willingly offered the greatest grace. How can you not do the same?

Still somewhere in the middle? Be helpful. Be patient. Be prayerful. Find closeness and joy in the small moments. Persevere all the way to a no-regrets ending.

As you drown in tsunami waves of grief and sob through tears of unrelenting sorrow, a breath of joy will arise from that broken heart, a thankfulness that you didn’t give up on love, even when you couldn’t always see or feel it.

You stayed.

You endured all the way to the end.

And it was worth Living For. Fighting For. Loving For.

 

Ecclesiastes 7:8 “The end of a matter is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride.”

Galatians 6:9 “Let is not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”