Whether you are or you aren't, you have a vision of marriage as a product. You can't put it in a shopping cart nor does one size does fit all, but marriage is a product that sells. God created it and offered it to us, and we take Him up on the offer. Millions of couples make a purchase every year, with upwards of thousands-of-dollar send-offs to holy matrimony, and keep paying for upkeep, renovation and repairs over the product's lifetime.
This week, I hope to post a few reviews on marriage from our twenty-two years of experience with the product. I would like to offer them in increments of 5 - 8 years and see what I find. You'll see what I mean -- for when you have had five years of marriage to call your own, a person can feel smug, self-important and accomplished ... and she still hasn't had to run interference on life yet. Many marriages still have a house number on Easy Street for several years. Some never lived anywhere but on Struggling Place. All have the vision of Bliss Court.
I'm sure I will surprise myself and learn something I didn't know or understand before. That's the power of writing like this -- it opens our eyes to what God wants to show us when we let Him have control over the process. I feel curious and a little nervous to discover what He has in store, marriage-wise. In our marriage, He has provided miracles when we felt impossibility. He has provided healing when we felt ravaged by diseased spirits and broken hearts. He has provided power by holding us up when we couldn't take another step away or closer together.
He has provided. That's the main idea in every marriage, no matter what its chronological age.
For today, I have just a general look into the marriage product. You may notice it runs the gamut from secular to sacred in viewpoint, and that's no mistake. I don't believe any of us follow a biblical model of marriage every waking minute, in every thought, deed and word. We make mistakes, we compare, we judge, and we feel dissatisfied with what we have as compared to what we think we should have or could have.
In the Beginning -- an Outline
Each engaged couple holds ideas of what marriage will be, where it will lead and what it will look and feel like before making the purchase. We invest in it with forethought and hope. We insure our commitment to it by making supplemental purchases and arrangements commonly associated with it: living space, furniture, linens, appliances, medical coverage, insurances, and joint bank accounts. We They invest in the hope of the product we will soon own.
With the millions spent on weddings each year, clearly, we put a lot of stock in marriage, getting ready for it as one of the biggest life events we will experience. We view it as enduring ... until we leave this world, and with that thought in mind, we begin investing early.
In the beginning, we have marriage all figured out, just as we have parenting down pat ... when we don't have any children of our own. Theory always feels easier than practice -- the real life, in the trenches, in your face reality of life, whether we talk marriage or any other life matter. In the beginning, we have it easy. In the beginning, all we have is usually a dream that we picture ending in a fairy tale. We do not have reality in mind when we start this journey.
You Get What You Put into It
Years after a couple crosses the threshold, each mate has experience with how they have enjoyed marriage and how they've made use of its various features. Most have misunderstood their abilities and limitations within it, or didn't follow the directions and experienced breakdowns that may have required costly repair. Many couples have found deep satisfaction with the basic model and have moved along in fine form. Others have found their version continually stalling or having mechanical issues; they compare with other models, wonder if they should have chosen differently, and keep tweaking in the old trial-and-error method.
Some couples have tried to exchange a broken marriage for a new one and found the same basic issues recurring. Some have tried to upgrade to a new or different model, or to make modifications in the current one to suit their personal preferences. Some have finally, as a last-ditch effort, prayed from the bottoms of their discouraged, defeated, desperate hearts and found that the Peace they needed and the Direction they craved had been there all along, they just hadn't activated the Warrantee.
No matter how much each of us invested prior to it, no matter what our success or failure rates during it, and no matter how many tune-ups we have made to the original model, every married couple has something to say about marriage.
In Conclusion
I have written consumer reviews for more than twelve years on everything from children's books to kitchen appliances. Putting my experience with a product into words for sharing with others gives me the joy of helping, allowing my experience to provide assistance in someone else's decision-making or ability to use a product effectively. When something works as I hope it will, or better yet, better than I hope it will, I jot the details and explain with well-placed adjectives just what made me say, "Wow!" In the opposite direction, when a hope-for experience with a product doesn't pan out, I can offer suggestions at how to adjust it, make good on the warrantee, or start back at the beginning and try, try again.
In thinking of marriage as a product so many of us have tried and continue to keep in working order, doesn't it make sense to provide a review of it? From one consumer to another, from one who has found the glitches and the sweet spots and has made it through each and every recall, to the pre-purchase novice who wants to understand and have a better handle on it before actually driving it off the lot?
Shouldn't we share the "woes" and the "wows" and how we managed between them?
For the sake of everyone in it and everyone heading toward it, we married people need to do some honest, accurate, God-inspired assessment on our matrimonial experience and get it out there for the world to see -- because people are looking.
Men and women want to succeed. They need to know how to succeed. They need understanding of the biblical model for marriage and the lessons between the covers of the Bible, and they need it in terms that make sense to them.
It helps to see where someone else failed as long as that someone found God's intended path again and set out on it, determined to follow and not just dabble and wait for the other person to do the hard work.
Share. Take on the challenge ... review marriage for those already in it and those who still window shop, but have the look that tells you, "I'm buying!"
Are you ready?
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