A thought by Andy Stanley (2015-01-06) from his
book, The New Rules for Love, Sex, and Dating
(p. 20). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com
to buy the book.)
Now I’ve quoted this
thought as a grabber. It is not to be
read and just accepted and quoted but it is something that I hope does get you
to stop and strive to understand what it really means.
Here is the context
that Andy said it. He said, “I’ve met
with many struggling married couples who would describe themselves as having
‘marriage problems.’ But in all my years I’ve never talked to a married couple
that actually had a marriage problem. What I’ve discovered is that people with
problems get married and their problems collide. What was manageable as a
single person eventually becomes unmanageable within the context of marriage. Marriage problems are easy. They rarely
require counseling. But when the premarriage past surfaces in a marriage,
that’s another story.”
My son Brett and his
wife Marissa and my daughter Stefanie and her husband Andrew are both
celebrating their anniversary’s this next week.
One is on Wednesday and the other on Sunday. Margaret and I celebrate
our 40th anniversary back in November. We have had 37 great years, and three really
bad ones. Now those three difficult ones
came about because of some problems in us that came into our marriage and
finally came out at a certain time. So I
very much understand what Andy is saying.
The problems in us followed us into our marriage.
Down near Joliet,
Illinois the Mississippi and the Ohio rivers come together and then make up one
great Mississippi River which heads down to the Gulf of Mexico. They look great on the surface but there is a
lot of stuff below the surface that they each bring with them that cause great
problems when they hit each other. That is
a tremendous example of marriage.
Now Andy says, “That
dynamic is one of the primary reasons I wrote this book. There’s enough
unavoidable pain in life. I want to help you avoid the avoidable pain. Namely,
pain you will experience later because of decisions you are making right now.
Margaret and I could
have avoided those times if we would have somehow in our beginnings come to
grips with those problems but the good thing is we finally did come to grips
with them without running away from our marriage. And we are so glad we did. Margaret outside of Jesus is the best gift
that God has ever given me. Yes our relationship
has some work to be done in then but it is so worth it.
How are you doing?
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