Marriage is hard.

Marriage is hard.

I say this, and some of you are like, “Eh, I’ve heard that before. I get it… marriage is hard.”

Yet, it’s not something you truly get until you are married.

You can’t even begin to understand; what others have told you barely has scratched the surface of the hardships you’ll face. Lets look at this for a minute.

It is as if you are destined to marry the person who is the exact opposite of you. I mean, literally, you do everything different. everything.

Everything.

One of you sits to pee, the other one pees in the sink. One of you can’t stand a house not to be clean, the other sometimes gets the clothes next to the hamper, if they hadn’t already stripped down in the living room. One of you needs your personal space, you can’t be bothered while you are in the shower. The other one asks you to define personal space, as they brush their teeth with your tooth brush while you’re in the shower.

That doesn’t even begin to uncover the differences.

You speak differently, hear differently, communicate different… You even eat differently!

So you’re both so different, and you’re now sharing a confined space you call “home”. However, sometimes it feels more like a war zone than a home. I did mention you argue differently too, right? One of you storms off to clear their head, while the other one needs to cling on for dear life and share their feelings. As if you weren’t going to come back when all was better…
You were going to come back, right?

It’s not like I could sit here and name every single difference you’d face. There are books out there that do a great job of preparing you, but nothing will ever truly prepare you for marriage. It’s like the saying, “You’ll never truly be ready to have kids.”

Except this kid is a grown adult who wants you to treat them with both the utmost kindness as well as baby them when they’ve made some seriously dumb mistake. And you do it too.

Why… Why do you do it?

Because after the battle is done for the day, as you pick up the pieces in the form of dirty clothes scattered throughout the house, you realize something. You become familiar with this person, one of the only people in the world you’ve told all of your deepest, darkest secrets too. The one who’s lifted you up when you were down, encouraged you while you were up, and laughed  at with you in between.

This person is your soulmate, made for you by God. Created specifically to both annoy the heck out of you and love you unconditionally. To both drive you crazy as well as grow you in ways never possible before.

Once in a lifetime love.

Sometimes you catch yourself questioning, “Why the heck did I say ‘I do’?!” and moments later (or sometimes days) you get reminded, “Oh that’s why.”

The good outweighs the bad, the love outweighs the anger, the joy outweighs the suffering. You just know, deep down, that this marriage is worth fighting for.

You’ll question yourself, you’ll ask why… Or for how long can you keep going like this? Then just remind yourself, with God anything is possible.

Make sure you are truly with God. Pray often. Be the kind of spouse you’d expect of the person your child marries to be. Remember, the Bible is the best self-help book ever written. Not the best your-spouse-needs-help book, if they pick it up and get it, they get it. You are called to love. Choose to love your spouse as they are, and if/when God chooses to transform their hearts you may truly deserve the perfected them.

Be the lover, the friend, the partner… After all, that’s why you got into this mess.
Be Christ-like, that’s what each of you need. Because…

Marriage is hard.