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“Doesn’t anybody stay
together anymore?” asked a once popular song.
Sadly, it’s a question that’s still in tune with
today’s marriage miseries. Home breakups are the
major tragedy of our time and the trend keeps
accelerating. Thankfully, there are some efforts
to right the marital ship and stem the tide of
this plague that so negatively affects children
and those left alone to raise them.
The seven days leading up to
Valentine’s Day have been designated as Marriage
Week in the United Kingdom since 1996 and in the
United States since 2002. This special
designation is to celebrate the importance of
marriage.
Julie Baumgardner, director
of “First Things First,” believes Valentine’s Day
is the perfect time to make this emphasis, saying:
“We celebrate birthdays, we celebrate holidays,
but when it comes to marriage, people often forget
that it’s really something to be celebrated.”
An organization called “Anscombe,”
at Princeton University, is sponsoring an upcoming
conference titled “Making Marriage Last.” I’ve
written to this Princeton group, commending them
for their effort to strengthen marriages. We need
all the help we can get.
My first five words today
were spoken to my valentine of more than fifty
years: “I’m thankful we’re here together.” And
my sleepy valentine’s reply made my day: “I’d be
thankful to be anywhere with you!”
Love makes marriage one of
life’s greatest adventures, but married people who
ignore the importance of cultivating love through
caring words and attitudes miss out on the mutual
feeling of accomplishment that results from making
a marriage last.
A seminary student and his
wife were having such serious marital problems
that they concluded divorce was their only
option. Then, agreeing to give their marriage one
more chance, they sought counsel from one of the
professors at the seminary. The wise professor
advised them to read 1 Corinthians 13 together
each day for a month and then report to him on how
they were doing. This moving description of love,
so often read at weddings, says love is to be
patient, kind, giving, forgiving and faithful. At
the end of that month long experiment, this
searching couple had discovered the meaning of
love and rescued their marriage, enabling them to
have a long and satisfying relationship and share
their discovery with others.
During my years as a pastor,
I developed a counseling approach for couples who
came to talk to me about getting married that I
hoped would help them keep their love alive.
First, I asked the
prospective groom why he wanted to marry this
woman. His answer was almost always the expected:
because he loved her.
“Why do you love her?” I then
asked.
An awkward period of silence
often followed during which I felt sorry for the
bride-to-be whose future husband couldn’t think of
one reason for loving her. Fortunately, after
time to think about it, the groom usually stated
good reasons for his love, to the great relief and
pleasure of the one he intended to marry. If you
haven’t voiced your love to your valentine
recently, speak up!
Remove all doubts about your
love today. |
