Last week we celebrated our 34th wedding anniversary. And although we’re going through some very difficult circumstances in other areas of our lives, God showed us that we had reason to celebrate because of this great achievement. Not everyone makes it to 34 years of marriage and yet still loves each other the way we do.

It’s been a rocky road at different times in our marriage, and even now we can’t rest and say, “We made it!” because we’re still two very different individuals that can spoil the love we have if we don’t keep working on our relationship.

But as we celebrated our anniversary last week, we made a pact to leave our troubles behind for this one day and focus on a day of celebration. We had a grand (but simple) day together!

Throughout the day I (Cindy) was reminded of something we have posted on our web site in the “Marriage Matters” section in a great article written by Michele Weiner Davis titled, “The Marriage Map.” In this article Michele writes of the various stages of marriage (which each couple visits for varying lengths of time).

Stage One is the passionate stage where you’re “head over heels in love” with each other. Stage Two is where you start wondering, “What was I thinking (in marrying this person)?”—a very disturbing stage indeed! Stage Three is where you try to change each other saying, “Everything would be great if you changed!” Stage Four is where you start to realize that “That’s just the way he/she is” and you start to reconnect and accept your differences more readily. And then Stage Five is the stage we’re in: “Together At Last!”

Here’s what Michele writes about the fifth stage that might speak to your heart in some way:

It’s really a tragedy that half of all couples who wed never get to stage five, when all the pain and hard work of the earlier stages really begins to pay off. Since you’re no longer in a struggle to define who you are and what the marriage should be, there’s more peace and harmony.

Even if you’ve always loved your spouse, you start to notice how much you really like him or her again. And then the strangest thing starts to happen. …You’re pleased to discover that the qualities you saw in your partner so very long ago never really vanished. They were just camouflaged. This renews your feelings of connection.

By the time you reach stage five, you have a shared history. And although you’d both agree that marriage hasn’t been easy, you can feel proud that you’ve weathered the storms. You appreciate your partner’s sense of commitment and dedication to making your marriage last.

You also look back and feel good about your accomplishments as a couple, a family and as individuals. You feel more secure about yourself as a person and you begin to appreciate the differences between you and your spouse. And what you don’t appreciate, you find greater acceptance for. You feel closer and more connected.

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I kept thinking on our anniversary day, “I wish everyone could get to this stage of marriage because it’s so great!” I know that not everyone can do that. Some people WANT to do that but they have a spouse that manages to sabotage their efforts. 

Despite this, sometimes the hurting spouse is able to hold things together for a period of time and eventually as a result of answered prayer, and living faithfully out their vows, and being a living testimony to their spouse—displaying the love of Christ to them every day, the other spouse wakes up and eventually makes better choices to turn their life around.

Together they eventually make it to that fifth stage of marriage we’re enjoying. (It’s not a perfect stage but it’s still wonderful all the same.) To those who are able to get to this place we celebrate together! Yeah God!

Others are never given that opportunity. And to you, we want to express our deepest sorrow. We’re so sorry your spouse (at this point in time) just isn’t able to comprehend what it is to live faithfully and do the work it takes to get to this place in marriage. We really do cry with you and pray the Lord comforts, strengthens, and helps you in every way you need it.

But in the concluding thoughts of this Marriage Message we want to pass along to you something that was recently written in a wedding ceremony program. We love what it said and pray it’s something this couple will remember and live out for the rest of their lives together.

We also pray God uses it to speak to all of our hearts. We just know that God has a very special message in it just for you! Read the following and ask the Lord what He wants you to apply to your marriage:

A Sacred Union

Marriage is a mystery. An old Rabbinic writing says that, “The man is restless while he misses the rib that was taken from his side, and the woman is restless until she gets under the man’s arm from whence she came.”

Sometimes it is said that when two people marry they become one, but the question becomes, which one? The answer is “neither one.” Marriage is God’s mathematical miracle where one plus one is still one.

Marriage is a bond which blends and binds two together in one. Each receives what the other is. It is the fusion of two hearts, the union of two lives, the coming together of two tributaries, which after being joined in marriage, will flow in the same channel in the same direction, carrying the same burdens of responsibilities and obligations. It is a one flesh union.

But the selfishness of our hearts sometimes blinds us to God’s beautiful plan of marriage. As husband and wife, we must remember the words of Saint Paul in his letter to the Philippians, “With humility of mind, let each of you regard one another as more important than himself.”

The prayer of St. Francis gives valuable direction:

Lord make me an instrument of thy peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love, where there is injury, pardon, where there is discord, union, where there is doubt, faith, where there is despair, hope, where there is darkness, light, where there is sadness, joy.

Lord grant that we seek not to be consoled, but to console, not to be understood, but to understand, not to be loved, but to love. For it is in giving that we received, in forgetting that we find ourselves, and in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.

Our love and prayers are with you!
Cindy and Steve Wright

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