Marriage

In church we hear a lot about marriage. The institution is celebrated, at times it’s even venerated and possibly idolised. But is church actually helping us to get hitched?

Every relationship is different but here are some questions I think are worth asking to help you decide whether your relationship is a healthy one…

John Lennon’s Imagine is a classic song, immediately recognisable by most people in the Western world. Rolling Stone magazine named it the third best song of all time.

The song starts, “Imagine there’s no heaven, it’s easy if you try”. It may be easy to imagine there’s no heaven. But for Christians, it isn’t easy to picture what heaven will be like either.

If I’d known these three things before I married, I would’ve been much better prepared.

When I was single, I regularly asked my married friends to share their advice on what it took to have a happy marriage. Almost every response was a variation of the same, foreboding theme: “Just remember this: Marriage is hard work.” That was it — no further explanation.

‘Don’t worry, HopefulGirl, you’ll meet someone soon – the divorcés are coming back onto the market every day!’ declared my friend, cheerfully.
‘Great,’ I sighed. ‘Divorce, broken families and shattered dreams – and me picking through the carnage. There’s something to look forward to.’
Divorce is a touchy subject for Christians. Some believe that, once married, a person is never free to marry again unless their spouse dies – and no exceptions. Others believe God doesn’t condemn us to be single forever if we, or our former spouse, made mistakes or behaved badly. It’s a theological tangle I’m not qualified to unpick – we each have to exercise our own judgement.

Let me start by confessing something: I don’t have it all figured out. I’m waiting on God to bring that person that I connect with into my life. When it comes to being single, we’re all in the same boat. The trouble is that sometimes we jump the gun, misinterpret signals or simply take a risk that doesn’t pan out.

There are few people that really know what they’re getting into when it comes to getting married. I was one of those people. I mean, we all have an idea of what marriage is all about. We have hopes, dreams, and expectations of what it will look like. We watch movies, idolize TV shows, and even observe marriages in the world around us to try and get a glimpse of this thing we call holy matrimony. But we don’t really know until we’re there, do we?