I remember like it was yesterday. I was standing up there, middle of the day, wearing a morning suit, looking like I was heading to breakfast at Wimbledon to have tea and crumpets with the queen. I was nervous and flop-sweating, thinking, “what kind of husband would I be? Could I provide for her like I had hoped? Was I worthy of this woman?” (Short answer: “absolutely not”). It was like every insecurity I had ever experienced in life crashed on me like a tidal wave in one, defining moment.
Then, the doors flew open, and all that vanished in a wisp. This beautiful vision in white came walking down the aisle, kind-hearted, stubby little daddy on her arm. I’ve watched a million different brides walk down the aisle, seen them look right and left, acknowledging and greeting the guests and well-wishers who came to bear witness to this holy covenant. Not mine. She looked nowhere but right at me, her eyes laser-locking with mine. She stared me down the entire time, smile on her face, like I was the biggest prize she could ever hope for, and I was now hers. In that moment, it no longer mattered whether I felt worthy or not, no longer mattered that I brought very little to our soon-to-be newlywed table. I swore a lot of things that day, but in that instant I promised that I would spend all the days God gave me with her trying to be the man she thought she saw in that moment.
Fast forward 22 years. That woman has now seen the light. She realizes that she’s married to a fallen, broken man. She’s all too aware of my many, many faults, slapped in the face with them every day. And, yet, despite knowing things about me that my friends would no longer want to be my friends if they knew, she stays. She loves. She perseveres. She’s patient. It’s as if she sees the man who will be: the resurrected man, the man in the New Jerusalem who will no longer be her husband but will somehow still be bound to her as her partner and fellow traveler in this life, and she deals with me as if I were already that guy. People sometimes describe me as having vision. I don’t know about that, but I do know, when it comes to me, this woman has vision that stretches into eternity.
As for me, I’ve been married to five women over 22 years, each more fascinating than the next. They all just happen to reside in the same body and spirit. As God has conformed us more to the image of Christ, He’s taught us to love difficult people; namely, each other. He’s used each other’s rough edges and the friction of life to sand us down, smoothing out our own edges. It hasn’t been easy, but God has been gracious and good, and our life together has been good. I just thought I loved her when I was wearing that morning suit. I had no idea.
People ask me all the time how to raise great kids who love the Lord. Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll write about what that looks like for boys and girls, but the best, most concise advice I could ever give is, “love Jesus, and love their momma (or their daddy).” God has wired into His plan for the family so many metaphors of His nature and character, and our life in Christ: how we are joined together as one flesh, as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one; how we love and serve each other sacrificially, as Christ loves the Church, and as the Church is Christ’s Bride; how the very purpose of marriage is not primarily to make us happy or to meet our needs (that’s a lie, by the way, and people fall for it all the time- Christ alone meets those needs that many people look to a human to meet, and no human can). The purpose of marriage is primarily to make you holy. As you just live as husband and wife every day, God unveils to your kids how He loves them, how He loves His Church, truths about the Christian life, about perseverance, and sanctification, and forgiveness, and steadfast love. You live all of that out daily, a living metaphor. Those are the greatest lessons you can teach, all by loving each other well.
If your marriage to your kids’ mom or dad has ended and cannot be fixed (if it can, get your church involved and try to fix it), love your former spouse anyway. It’s not too late. You can still teach your kids a powerful life lesson through your love for each other, your brokenness, and your honesty. Some of my closest friends who have intimate marriages with their spouses are children of divorce whose parents didn’t try to justify, but were broken, honest, faithful, and lovingly respectful of their mom or dad, thus teaching their kids to do it better in their own marriages. I’m one of those kids.
Just because the sexual and family ethic has changed in our post-Christian culture, doesn’t mean that the basic truth about sex or family has changed. The metaphor remains the same, because it’s rooted in the nature and character of the timeless God. The new sexual, family ethic is the same as other distorted ethics have been for thousands of years. It can’t stand on its own, and it will eventually fall. When it does, one of the greatest gifts we can give this culture is the powerful witness of our strange but true families, living as beautiful, faithful presences in their communities, producing kids who understand and embrace these truths, showing a better way.
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