Preparing for Marriage

This season of engagement has been beautiful! A time for preparing, discussing and anticipating marriage… the great times, the normal times, and the hard times! Deep introspection and getting all the weaknesses out on the table… not easy but SO good!

Last weekend when Mike and I were together for Valentines day we started down this road. Our first assignment is to read “This Momentary Marriage: A Parable of Permanence” by John Piper.

We have books but we also have it on CD, so on our way home from the airport we listened to the first couple of chapters and discussed them. Then, at Mike’s church they have been working through Eph. 5, so Sunday morning’s sermon added to and confirmed what we had already been learning.

I’ve been trying to journal about this, but honestly it’s hard to hand-write this all out! So, here are my thoughts/journaling on what I’ve been learning:

“It is not your love that sustains the marriage, but from now on [after the rings are exchanged], the marriage that sustains your love.” – Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Quote in Momentary Marriage)

The covenant nature of marriage is not founded on the emotions or romance… even those are SOO wonderful! For me it has been the undeniable work of Christ bringing us together in such a way we cannot deny it’s the work of God. Then, we walk obediently into the unbreakable covenant with each other and Christ as the center."

“The ultimate thing we can say about marriage is that it exists for God’s glory. That is, it exists to display God. Now we see how: Marriage is patterned after Christ’s covenant relationship to his redeemed people, the church. And therefore, the highest meaning and the most ultimate purpose of marriage is to put the covenant relationship of Christ and his church on display.” – John Piper, Ch. 1

Just as Christ sacrificed his WHOLE life for the sake of His church, so we must sacrifice our WHOLE lives to put the other first. We must be willing to lay down our life for the other. Our bodies are no longer our own but belong to the other… just as Christ is the head of the Church and we are part of His body in perfect unity with Him!

“…is it a deep, deep mystery, to think that Christ cherishes you as His own body, that Christ considers you as His own body, that Christ welcomes you into His own body; that to touch you as a member of Christ’s body is to touch Christ.” - Jeffrey Costa (Mikes’s pastor/friend)

“And you see that this means that when there is discord in marriage, when there is disunity in marriage, when there is a lack of love from a husband to a wife, and a lack of respect and regard from a wife to a husband, it isn’t just a tragedy at a human level—though it is…it’s a tragedy at the divine level, because in marriage we’re supposed to be displaying that glorious, incomprehensible mystery of our union with Christ.” – Jeffrey Costa

And just as Christ would never leave His wife, the church, we must never leave each other. Instead we must extend to the other the same grace that both are given by Christ...

“when, in fact, a husband and a wife do many things that they should be ashamed of – [the key to not being ashamed] is the experience of God’s vertical forgiving, justifying grace bent out horizontally to each other and displayed to the world.” – John Piper, Ch. 3

Ultimately – Christ must be the center of everything we do, say, and think! So many times in marriage the husband and wife look to each other for completion and healing, but instead they must look together towards Christ and keep their eyes focused on him!

Easier said that done… I know!… but such a deeply profound and important reminder!