UMC20160719 Wholeness is important

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UMC20160719 - Wholeness is important¶

This past week marked the final week in a five week marriage course I have attended with my soon-to-be wife Dominique. And if I had to sum up my whole experience of the course into one word, it would be ‘difficult’. 

In my life, there have been two common themes of marriage that I have observed. The first picture of marriage is one often portrayed at the end of Disney films, that ‘happily-ever-after’ story. Get married and everything will be happy. Always. No disagreements. No sadness. No rough edges sharpened. Everything is always joyful.

The second picture is one which is often joked about on wedding days. I can just hear the best man staggering up to the mic after a few beers and cracking the joke: “Marriage is a three ring circus; engagement ring, wedding ring and suffering”. A picture that once you’re together, it’s over. Ball and chain. Held down. Stuck.

How often are our pictures of relationships painted with an apathy toward dealing with things ‘unjoyous’. As human beings, we don’t believe that there should be ‘unjoyous’ aspects to our relationships. If something is bringing about disagreements or sadness then there must be something wrong, something unhealthy. We treat sadness and disagreement almost as diseases.

But this is not who God wants us to be. God calls us to be real, with each other and with Him. He gave us a proper mixed bag of emotions to fully experience and embrace. I would challenge us to change the phrase that tells us that “relationships have their ups and downs” and rather use the phrase “relationships have different seasons or phases” in the hopes that we see sadness and disagreement as real and worthy parts of our relationships. All aspects of our relationships, if attended to with the right heart, give great room for personal and communal growth. Let us take a step toward “real” and embrace all parts of how we feel toward each other and toward God.