Three Reality Questions in Marriage

Last week, we ended this blog by saying, “There is no greater mirror of who you are than your spouse.”  I am not sure how many of you thought about that imagery, but after making such a statement I am hoping that you, in turn, received the following question, “How do I need to change so that I see an improving reflection of myself in my life mate?”  In order to move in that direction, here are three reality questions for you: 1. Do you realize that when you married, you were broken and you married into brokenness?  2. Do you realize there is no perfect marriage?  3. Do you have the mentality of an owner or a renter in marriage?

Question number one is, “Do we realize that we are all born into brokenness?  We all have imperfect families, wounded backgrounds and personality difficulties.  When we found the “perfect” person, we found someone like ourselves – in need of healing.  While weddings reflect perfection, i.e., perfect clothes, flowers, beauty and pageantry, they are actually filled with imperfect people and reality will set in eventually.  We take pictures at weddings in order to somehow attempt to remember how perfect things can or did look at one time.  In actuality, a reality wedding ought to look somewhat different.  Both the bride and groom should be wearing their oldest, tore up attire with bleeding wounds exposed and gauze wrapped around them like lace.  They should be pushing along their IV’s while trying to walk with crutches – not a pretty sight, but a sight of reality.  Psalm 51:5 says, “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.”

Marriage has a way of drawing the worst or the best out of us.  We’ll look at question number two next week and in the future some God steps of healing.