“Committed Love”
Question: My uncle and aunt were happily married for nine years before a couple of terrible things happened. First their youngest child drowned in a neighborhood pool, and then my uncle was injured in an automobile accident. Instead of bringing them together, these two events drove them apart. How could they have weathered the storms? How will my fiancée and I stay together through the difficult times in our lives?
Answer: Having served on a large medical-school faculty for fourteen years, I watched many families go through the kind of hardship your relatives suffered. All too commonly, I saw marital relationships succumb to the pressures of personal crises. Parents who produced a mentally retarded child, for example, often blamed one another for the tragedy that confronted them. Instead of clinging together in love and reassurance, they added to their sorrows by attacking one another. I didn’t condemn them for this human failing, but I did pity them for it. A basic ingredient was lacking in their relationship that remained unrecognized until their world fell off its axis. That missing component is called . . . commitment.
I heard the late Dr. Francis Schaeffer speak to this issue some years ago. He de- scribed the bridges that were built in Europe by the Romans in the first and second centuries A.D. They are still standing today, despite the unreinforced brick and mortar with which they were made. Why haven’t they collapsed in this modern era of heavy trucks and equipment? They remain intact because they are used for nothing but foot traffic. If an eighteen-wheeled semi were driven across the historic structures, they would crumble in a great cloud of dust and debris.
Marriages that lack an iron-willed determination to hang together are like the fragile Roman bridges. They appear to be secure and may indeed remain upright . . . until they are put under heavy pressure. That’s when the seams split and the foundation crumbles. It appears to me that many young couples today are in that precarious position. Their relationships are constructed of unreinforced mud that will not withstand the weighty trials lying ahead. The determination to survive together is simply not there.
It’s not only the great tragedies of life but also the daily frustrations that wear and tear a marriage. These minor irritants, when accumulated over time, may even be more threatening to a marriage than the catastrophic events that crash into our lives. And yes, there are times in every good marriage when a husband and wife don’t like each other very much. There are occasions when they feel as though they will never be in love again. Emotions are like that. They flatten out occasion- ally, like an automobile tire with a nail in the tread. Riding on the rim is a pretty bumpy experience for everyone on board.
Let’s return to your specific question. What will you do when unexpected tornadoes blow through your home or when the doldrums leave your sails sagging and silent? Will you pack it in and go home to Mama? Will you pout and cry and seek ways to strike back? Or will your commitment hold you steady? If you want your marriage to last a lifetime, you must set your jaw and clench your fists. Make up your mind that nothing short of death will ever be permitted to come between the two of you. Nothing!
Article by: James Dobson
