50 years - and counting!

Our wedding day.

It was today, fifty years ago (and it was a Friday then, as well!) that my (then) fiancée and I stood at the front of St George's-Tron Parish Church, in the centre of Glasgow, before our minister, the late Rev George B Duncan, and heard him pronounce us "husband and wife"! I was then allowed to "kiss the bride"!

That was the beginning of a fifty-year adventure that has seen us go through "richer and poorer", "better and worse", "sickness and health"! It has seen us produce our two much-loved daughters. It has seen us move house more often than anyone has hot breakfasts in a week. It has seen our love for one another deepen. I have been blessed with a great wife, for whom I give Father God thanks on a daily basis. We have few regrets.

Sadly, it would appear that we are a "dying breed" - a couple who have stuck with one another, no matter what. I hear of so many couples of my acquaintance who are separated, divorced and, in many cases, remarried - sometimes more than once. And that doesn't include those who have never been married, in a legal sense, in the first place! Of course, when there are such marital breakdowns, those who suffer most are any children of the union. 

The point is that I am convinced that those couples who are no longer together felt, on their wedding day, exactly as my wife and I did. So what went wrong? Well, I would suggest two reasons - but do so in a positive fashion! 

Fifty years on!

First of all, too many couples rush into marriage (or even co-habitation) much too quickly. They have never heard, or forgotten, or chosen to ignore, the old adage: "Marry in haste, repent at leisure!" They haven't become well-acquainted (and being 'good in bed together' doesn't actually count!). They haven't taken time to discover if they are in agreement in the important areas of life - such as what they believe in spiritual terms; how they will raise any children that result from their union; how they will manage the family finances. If areas such as these are nor dealt with before a marriage, they have the potential to destroy that marriage when they are, eventually, considered.

My second thought concerns that unity of belief in spiritual terms. My wife and I were disciples of Jesus before we ever met. We have sought, however poorly at times, to serve Him in what we do. We raised our children in a Christian environment. 

There is something special about a relationship like that. When, in a ministerial capacity, I counselled couples who came to me to be married, I shared with them the concept of "the eternal triangle"! No, not the one that involves a man, his wife, and another woman; or a woman, her husband, and another man. The "eternal triangle" to which I referred is a husband, his wife, and Almighty God. There are two important truths about that particular relationship. 

If one imagines a triangle standing upright on its base, then the two points at the base angles are connected, and each is connected to the apex. Now, if we imagine that the two base points are the husband and the wife, and the apex is Father God, we discover that a crack in the base does not cause the triangle to collapse and given the right conditions, it may be repaired. However, a crack in either of the sides - i.e. between either partner and God - will cause the whole structure to collapse. The teaching, there, is that it is our relationship with the Lord that is the most important aspect of our marital relationship.

The other truth is that if we imagine those base points (the husband and the wife) each moving closer to God, then we will see that they are, simultaneously, moving closer to one another. Again, the important factor is our individual relationship with the Father, that is only possible through a living relationship with the Son, as we seek to live our live under the guidance, and by the power, of the Spirit.

Have my wife and I had a perfect marriage, with never a disagreement? Of course not. We are two human beings! However, after fifty years, we can testify to the keeping power of Almighty God. May more who have entered this relationship - which Paul (and I!) often uses as an illustration of the relationship between the believer and the Lord - find that some of the above helps to safeguard their own marriages. It will be for their good, and to the glory of God.