Stay.

When I felt the call to pursue Biblical counseling, I was expecting years of training and supervised hands-on experience. The world tells us that without a degree, our counsel is just "advice" at best. I realized right away that God sees things differently, because as soon as I took the Counseling in Community class, 4 friends came to me right out of the gate, expressing frustrations in their marriage, and all of them were already standing at that jumping point of Divorce or No Divorce. It was curious to me that they chose me to talk to, since not too long ago I had chosen Divorce. But they were clear in their intentions: "Marella, help me choose No Divorce. Give me a reason to choose No Divorce." That put me in a tough spot, and I immediately let my fear of being under-qualified creep in. When I prayed about it, I felt that God was silent. All I felt I could offer (often awkwardly, and not void of flat-out stuttering) was, "When I divorced my ex-husband, I was wrong. I love Quentin and he's the man I want to spend the rest of my life with and truly believe that he is the man God has for me to do life with and be sanctified with, but I was still wrong." Unless Holy Spirit is present and guiding both me and a woman seeking guidance, that doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. On its own, that advice seems hypocritical and...confusing. But I have had to trust that things happen in the Lord's timing and not mine, and that ultimately, I can't trust my own words, but only the words of a God who knows and understands not just the present, but the future. His words fall on His people when He means for them to. It is not about me or what I say, but about how He glorifies Himself through me, to refine and sanctify His children.

In the past few weeks, and more recently, this morning - I've heard the Lord reveal to me a few truths and one Big Idea that I feel convicted to share. I know that I don't have only 4 friends who are struggling in their marriages (in fact, 2 more friends came forward after those first 4) - or even in their dating/courting lives as they anticipate entering into a permanent relationship. My hope is that my obedience in speaking Truth will someday - any day that may be - benefit all of the people on here whom I call "friend", and ultimately point them (you?) toward Christ - the only One who has been through it all, and can walk beside you in your pain, happiness, struggles, joy - all of it. 

So, here it is:

I think that we go into dating/courting/marriage with the idea that we've somehow, whether coincidentally or Providentially, stumbled upon the person who will make life happy and doable and pleasant, while Cold Hard Life is raging around us. More mature people will admit that the marriage relationship is not without its struggles, but that if we choose The Right Person, it should at the very least, not constantly be an upward battle through a raging storm. The Right Person should always, always, always *love* us, even if they don't *like* us. At the end of the day, we should always go to bed - fighting or not (let's be real here - we don't *always* obey that little command to not let the sun go down on our anger) - knowing that we have chosen The Right Person, so the fight should be over soon (maybe only a couple of days or months?), and we will surely have that 60 years of bliss that all of the Old People speak of. We should fall asleep *knowing* that we love our spouse, even if we don't *like* them at that particular moment. We think that when we commit our lives to The Right Person, the relationship shouldn't be *hard*.  A little bit of work, yes...naturally...but not *hard*. After all, that couldn't possibly be how God designed marriage to be, since marriage is supposed to be a reflection of Jesus loving the Church. I've been guilty.

I just want to throw it out there - THESE ARE LIES- straight from the depths of Hell. God's design for marriage was a little messed up by a couple you may have heard of. I won't mention any names, but if they were a Hollywood couple, they'd be dubbed as "Adeve". And since they were the very first married couple, none of us stood a fighting chance at being able to experience God's "perfect" design for marriage. Except...that's the tricky but awesome part about God and who He is. He makes all things new. And when "Adeve" chose to believe a lie about God and His perfect design for marriage and relationships (Romans 1:25), He already had the perfect back-up plan in place...only since He's God, that means it wasn't really a back-up plan at all. He already knew how everything was going to go down and He already had his Rescue Mission planned out. 

A dear friend recently told me of a lovely experience that she had some time ago while hostessing at a famous Seattle restaurant. I may get some of the details wrong, and of course I'm paraphrasing off of her paraphrase - but the main idea is still intact.

A couple in their 80s, celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary, walked in to be seated. The little old lady held on to her husband, smiling at him and batting her eyes as though they weren't a day over 16 nor more than a week into dating (I won't even say a week into marriage, because I know from so many, including myself, the very real things that start rearing their ugly heads during that blessed "honeymoon" - HA! Ahem, I digress....). My friend said, "Please...tell me what you know." What the little old man knew, in short: "You think you love someone the day you get married, and you are fully prepared to keep all those promises that you make at the altar. But you don't really know what love is until you've hated that person you've promised to love for 5 days, 5 months, 5 *years*, and stayed anyway. You don't know what love is until you've been through unemployment, the loss of a child, infidelity - and stayed anyway. Most couples today don't hate each other for more than 5 minutes before they file for divorce. Most will never get to experience true love." His little old wife gazed upon him knowingly. 

What can anyone say to that? He knew. He *knew.* He and his sweet little wife chose the Big Idea - that marriage is hard, and marriage is work, and marriage is NOT what you find in the movies and even the best-intentioned Christian novels. Marriage downright sucks sometimes. Marriage brings moments where your spouse looks at you and says, "I don't know WHAT the heck I was thinking when I stood before you and made that covenant. These beautiful children that we have made together mean NOTHING to me in this moment. Would that I had never met you!" Marriage brings moments when you look at your spouse and spit it right back. Marriage brings "I understand now that I never actually loved you, and it's unfair of me to stay and make you do this" moments and "I'm sorry I was unfaithful not once, but ten times" moments and "I can't do life with you anymore if little Johnny is dead and he can't be here with us anymore, and I have to look at you and remember him" moments. It brings moments of feeling like you can't get out of bed one more day and look at the same annoying person one more time and choose Love. Marriage brings moments of feeling like Death is upon you and you aren't strong enough, you aren't qualified enough, you aren't equipped enough to stay with someone you *know* doesn't love you - let alone *like* you, and your white-knuckled grip is sweaty and furthermore, it...is...slipping....

But it also brings moments of fulfillment and joy in Christ - knowing that you accepted the mission of daily laying down your life as a living sacrifice for a person who God chose specifically for you to be sanctified with, and whom His son also died for. It brings moments of looking at your marriage and saying, without regret, "I wouldn't have chosen this. No way. But I wouldn't change a thing. Truly." Marriage brings moments of coming through a tough season where YOU STAYED, DAMNIT! and you now have a real, aching, grateful, holy sense of the sacrifice that Christ made when He stayed with you. When He loved your through your infidelity and idolatry and your nasty, nasty, nasty sinful secrets. When He forgave you anyway. When He showed you that hard work and sacrifice and faithfulness produces sanctification and True Joy. 

So my "advice" - stay. STAY.