My Response to “Marriage Isn't For You”

I'll freely admit, I've always been a hopeless romantic, just ask the girls I wrote poems and letters to oh so long ago. The first time I read the Marriage Isn't For You post, I read through it with a smile on my face, but then before I hit the “share” button, I thought about it some and read it again. After reading through it again something didn't sit just right with me, but I didn't realize what it was until I had read through a bunch of the comments (I don't recommend reading through the comments of anything that has gone viral, it can make you start questioning the sanity and decency of humanity).

All one comment said was, “Marriage is for God,” yeah, this is true, but without expounding, no one knows what the crap you're talking about. Another comment was fairly long but they wrapped it by saying, “God is happiest when we are happiest.” And that caused me to realize what didn't feel right about the post, my “hang-up” word was “happy.”

I went to the Bible to try and learn God's purpose for marriage and, if you simply read Paul's reasons, it's actually a little depressing for a hopeless romantic. Basically, Paul encourages people to stay single, but if they can't control their “passions,” they should marry as a way of having a righteous way of dealing with sexual urges. Well, that's not very romantic and if that's the only reason someone is marrying me, then I think I'll pass. So I went back further, to the verses where God talks about creating Eve. God said “it is not good that the man should be alone” so he paraded every creature in front of Adam that he might name them; even after that, God didn't think their was anything suitable to be a companion for man, to be his “helper” (which the word “helper” here is used elsewhere as a term referring to God as our helper, it is a term of honor). A cat or dog wouldn't do away with man's being alone; even though God walked in the garden with Adam, that didn't take care of Adam being “alone.” So God created Eve to be his companion and to chase away his loneliness.

I think God creates some people with a longing for companionship (an aspect of this being physical intimacy) which cannot be fully filled, while in this flesh, by God or anything else. Maybe it is a weakness, maybe it is better to stay single, if you can, so you can more fully devote yourself to God; but God has his writers again and again compare the relationship between Christ and those he has saved to the marriage relationship. In other words, God thinks marriage is something beautiful that can exemplify aspects of Christ's love as no other thing can.

Why did I get hung-up on the word “happy?” Because I don't think it dives deep enough. First I'll say, maybe the author of the post did intend a deeper meaning, but the commenter I spoke of did not. I'm not sure where and when this idea that what God wants most for us is for us to be happy slipped in, but it's wrong. Christ promised us peace and joy, but he also promised trials and persecutions to those that would follow him.

This next thought was influenced by C.S. Lewis and one of my Bible professors in college, but I think it is also implied in the Bible, “Count it all joy, my brothers and sisters, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete...” James 1:4. The idea is that this world is a schoolroom in which our souls are shaped into beings better suited to heaven, better suited to see God and praise him. C.S. Lewis and many others think suffering is one of God's greatest tools in this shaping (that's not to say he is always the cause of the suffering, only that he uses it).

In one of those poems I wrote when I was young, I spoke about wanting to shield the girl from all pain but of also wanting her to grow, so instead of promising to shield her (which is an impossible promise anyway), I promised to be with her through her pain, to walk beside her.

So why do I think we should marry? To fulfill a longing only another human can fill, and to fill that longing in them. To paint a picture to the world of what Christ's love for his church is. An addition to this painting can be made through having children and your love relationship with them, but if you can't/don't have kids, just focus on making your painting the most beautiful it can be.

Through all of our experiences I think we have the potential to learn aspects of God we could otherwise not learn, that we will one day share with one another once at our heavenly home. If you stay single and Christ is your sole lover, you will learn aspects a married person will not learn. If you marry, through that relationship, you will learn aspects of God's love you would learn no other way. Through having children, you would learn other things. And on and on, in all parts of our life.

So, I'm sorry, dear, wherever and whomever you are, but my primary goal is not to make you happy. A teacher once shared with me that when Paul said,”Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her...” what he was saying is that I should live and love towards you in such a way that will make you whole and perfect, so that your soul is better suited to heaven, so that by the time I'm done loving you on this earth, you will be an even more beautiful bride for Christ. My primary goal is to walk beside you, whatever emotions you are feeling, no matter how dark the trial is. I cannot and will not shield you from all pain, but I will experience it with you, try to see the light in the darkness with you, even if it takes years and years and even if we still have to search for it in heaven. I hope we laugh a lot with each other, cause joy to spill from one another's hearts and faces. I will try to love you in such way that makes you more beautiful than you are, more ready for heaven. I hope you will do the same for me.

All that to say, marriage is a tiny bit for me, a little bit for being a light to the world, mostly for you, and all for God.