This week, two situations of marital conflict have risen to the top ranks of news headlines.
Jon and Kate Gosselin, the stars of the popular reality TV show, Jon & Kate Plus Eight, filed for divorce, and various media made their decision public. Both of them stated that their primary concern is the welfare of their children, and Kate specified, “My goal is peace for the kids.” This couple who espoused family values on the TV show has now given up on the sanctity of marriage. You can access one of the many stories about this divorce by clicking here.
Further down the east coast from the Gosselins’ Pennsylvania home, the governor of South Carolina, the state in which I live, also brought his family into the spotlight this week when news of his affair became a topic of public criticism. Gov. Mark Sanford’s affair has been going on for a while, but it hit the headlines this week after he disappeared without notifying his office or family of his whereabouts. It turns out that he was out of the country, apparently continuing his affair, after his wife, Jenny Sanford, had asked him to leave the family for a temporary separation with hopes of reconciliation. While we are uncertain about Mark Sanford’s desire for reconciliation, I respect his wife’s comments. She is committed to doing what she can to make the marriage work, and she said in her public statement, “I believe enduring love is primarily a commitment and an act of will, and for a marriage to be successful, that commitment must be reciprocal.” You can read her statement by clicking here.
Perhaps the Gosselins and the rest of us could learn from Jenny Sanford’s wise words about love and marriage. Indeed, as we glean from the authors of the Bible and from later Christian writers, marriage should be a love that is, in Mrs. Sanford’s words, “a commitment and an act of will.” A married person must everyday make the decision again and again to be faithful to his or her spouse, in many ways, despite any tempting alternatives from outside the marriage covenant and any difficulties or frustrations within that covenant relationship. That kind of love is similar to the kind God demonstrates and invites us to live with Him and, to varying extents, with other people, especially those with whom we have entered into God-ordained covenants. Every marriage inevitably has ups and downs, times when the couple feels an emotional euphoria and times when they feel the opposite. However, a true relational commitment rises above the temporary feelings and chooses to remain faithful and responsible, for the sake of everyone involved.
This may seem strange to our culture of self-centeredness and insistence on immediate gratification of momentary feelings. We tend to think that God wants spouses to be “happy” in their marriages, and we define “happiness” as superficial and individual gratification. When we experience less-than-”happy” times in marriage, we tend to at least consider seeking that muddled ideal of “happiness” somewhere outside the marital covenant.
However, as author Gary Thomas asks in Sacred Marriage, “What if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy?” Our goal as Christians is to grow closer to God, and remaining faithful in our marriages can help people do exactly that, if the spouses are committed together to God. Perhaps we should view marriage as a spiritual practice that can teach us something about God and strengthen our relationships with God, while simultaneously leading spouses closer to each other, for God’s sake, for their own sake, for the sake of their children, and for the sake of the world in which God desires to use their marriage as a testimony of his faith, hope, love, grace, and peace.
If you are married or planning to get married or thinking about getting married sometime, I pray that you will remember that marriage is a commitment that sometimes (hopefully often) involves positive feelings but is more than emotions and requires “an act of will” to rise above and survive the negative feelings in order to remain faithful as Christians, spouses, and parents (if you have children).
However, this applies to both married and single Christians. Love is a commitment that we can live out in a multitude of relationships–in families, among friends, in congregations, and with our non-yet-Christian neighbors, coworkers, and classmates who need to see God’s love lived out in the flesh by faithful disciples of His Son.
May God empower us through the Holy Spirit to live His kind of love.
Steve,
This August 12, Donna will have been stuck with me for 26 years. I don’t know how she has made it this long, but I am hoping she keeps on bearing with me.
I can say that marriage throws unexpected things at you when you are not prepared. Enduring through the failures and the worst moments is a re-creation of what had existed before. Those unexpected things, failures, etc. often come from within oneself, rather than your partner. Even when not from within, our reaction to them is still our own. So enduring beyond those crises is essential to personal growth.
Jon and Kate have made a choice not to grow beyond. But for all those who chose to use their crisis as an opportunity to grow also have the opportunity for richer blessings.