Healing in Marriage

by Stasi Eldredge
Spring 2015

We are each on a journey. The journey of each our lives is meant to be one of transformation. I believe we are here to learn how to love and there is no greater context to learn that than marriage. How do we learn? Moment by moment. Day by day. Week by week. Our marriages grow and become what God intended and what we ultimately long for in the same way. Not anniversary to anniversary or even month to month, but day to day — in the ordinary ins and outs of time — in increments we can actually handle. We are, all of us, learning to love. And we learn to love by choosing to love. In the moments and through the months.

My husband John and I have been journeying on the road of transformation together for over thirty years. Neither one of us is the person we were when we first married and that is a very good thing. Healing has come. Jesus has come. He is coming still, growing us individually and as a couple. How marvelous is that? What hope we have! We are meant to grow and change throughout our lives. We are meant to be increasingly healed and live and love more fully from an increasingly restored heart. It's possible. It happens!

It happens over time. It happens in the tiniest of choices that we make; the choices to yield, to sacrifice, to put the other person first. It happens every time we choose to fight for our own healing and that of our spouse's — through every choice to love.

If life is a journey, it's also a process, and one in which we must agree to participate. God is a God of process. He can move and heal a person very quickly — and sometimes he does. But most often, as you well know, the process is slow. God is after deep restoration in us and his eye is on eternity. He is not in a hurry and there is no rushing him. Still, he came to heal and he comes still. He comes himself and he comes through other people. He comes through our spouse. He comes in our marriages.

Because marriage is the sanctuary of the heart.

In your marriage, you have been entrusted with the heart of another human being. Whatever else your life's great mission will entail, loving and defending this heart next to you is part of your great quest.

Marriage is the privilege and the honor of living as close to the heart as two people can get. No one else in all the world has the opportunity to know each other more intimately than do a husband and wife. We are invited into their secret lives, their truest selves; we come to know their nuances, their particular tastes, what they think is funny, what drives them crazy. We are entrusted with their hopes and dreams, their wounds and their fears.

An incredible honor is bestowed on the one to whom we pledge our lives and a deep privilege is given to us as well. Not only is marriage good for a person (it adds an average of seven years to the life of a man and three to a woman), but married people as a whole say their lives are happier than those who are single. Married people are healthier, and better off financially. And the impact of a lasting marriage upon one's children is sobering. Children of divorce do not fare nearly so well in life as those who grew up in an intact family.

And why is this? Because we bear the image of God; we are made in the image of Love. We are created to love and be loved. And there is no greater context, no better opportunity to really love someone and be loved by them throughout an entire lifetime than you will find in marriage. Of course it is dangerous as well — the two always go together. There is no greater place for damage, too, because there is no greater place for glory. God uses marriage to bring us the possibility of the deepest joys in life; Satan tries to use it for destruction.

Without you, your spouse will not become the man or the woman that God intends them to be and the Kingdom of God will not advance as it is meant to advance. Your spouse plays the most vital role in your life. You play the most critical role in theirs. No one will have a greater impact on your spouse's soul than you. No one has greater access to their heart than you. This is an enormous honor.

Being married will cost you everything. Tears. Nights of sleep. Incredible vulnerability and sacrifice. It will cause you to take a deeper look inside your heart and soul, your desires and your personality. It will hurt. It will not be easy. But that does not come as a surprise to you. You already knew that! Of course loving costs everything — look at the cross. But loving is always worth it.

We all know that loving is hard. Marriage is hard. It is opposed. The devil hates marriage; he hates the beautiful picture of Jesus and his Bride that it represents. He hates love and life and beauty in all its forms. The world hates marriage. It hates unity and faithfulness and monogamy. Our flesh is not our ally here either — it rebels when we put others before ourselves. Our flesh hates dying.

But God loves marriage! The Holy Trinity is for it. God loves intimacy and friendship and unity and self–sacrifice and laughter and pleasure and joy and the picture of the Sacred Romance that you have the opportunity to present to the watching world. God is with you. He is for you. He commands you to love and he says that with him and in him all things are possible. Not easy. But possible.

In our marriages we have the opportunity to partner with God in bringing healing to our spouse. Their healing is ultimately not up to us, nor ours to bring, but we can — through prayer and acts of mercy — cooperate with what God is doing.

Just last night, John looked at me and said, "You're one of the good ones. You're a treasure." They were surprising words that came straight out of the blue. Hey, we weren't in a conversation about what we value in each other. We weren't even talking. We were just getting ready for bed. And his loving words made my heart burst and propelled me along the road of healing.

We get to do that for each other. Friends do. Spouses do. We get to partner with God in creating atmospheres of healing. Sanctuaries of love. Safe places for the heart. One of the most meaningful ways John speaks his love to me is simply by asking me the potentially dangerous question "How are you?" and wait, really wanting to know my answer. He will ask me this when I am soaring but he will also ask it when I am clearly flailing. He has chosen to pursue me countless times when I was aware he had many other matters pressing on him. Phone calls to return. Emails to write. Deadlines to meet. By stopping and asking me how I am, John is affirming both his love for me and my position in his life. He is saying that I am his number one priority, and the look in his eyes, the tone of voice, the posture of his heart, assures me that it is true. He is asking, "How are you?" He is saying, "I love you."

And love heals. It heals over time and it heals in the moment. It heals in the choices we make that speak our love and the priority our spouse holds in our hearts.

Little thoughtful acts on my part convey to my husband that I love him. Tiny acts. Miniscule matters. Simple things. They add up. Like buying his favorite cookies or making meals he enjoys. Like laying on his side of the bed on cold winter nights before he gets in to warm it up for him. Little things he likes. It means I am paying attention. To him. I am telling him without words that he is loved. He matters. He is my priority.

Ok. We all know that there is much more to life than cookies in the cupboard, warm sheets and skipping down the road with lollipops and happiness. The journey is sometimes gut wrenching. And oftentimes, marriage is fabulously hard.

That may seem like an odd thing to say at this point but it is true and everybody who's been married knows this. Years into marriage it still catches us off guard, all of us. And newly married couples, when they discover how hard it is, seem genuinely surprised. They're often shocked and disheartened by the fact. Are we doing something wrong? Did I marry the right person? The sirens that lure us into marriage — romance, love, passion, sex, longing, companionship — sometime seem so far from the actual reality of married life that we fear we've made a colossal mistake, caught the wrong bus, missed our flight. And so the difficulties also come as something of an embarrassment (don't you feel embarrassed to admit how hard your marriage is?). Maybe it's just us.

Nope. This is everyone. We might as well come out and say it.

The sooner we get the shame and confusion off our backs, the sooner we'll find our way through. Of course marriage is hard. In fact, if you look back at the first marriage, that almost fairy–tale–like story in Genesis, you'll see that Adam and Eve had a pretty rough go at it. And they didn't even have parents to screw them up as children, or friends to give them ridiculous advice. My goodness, the fall of man seems to come during the honeymoon, or shortly thereafter. (And how many honeymoon stories re–enact that little drama?) They hit rough water as soon as they set sail, poor things. If this is the story of the first marriage, it's a bit sobering.

But it also gives us some encouragement, too. It's normal for marriage to be hard. Even the best of marriages.

And God is in that.

In order to have the life that we want, the life we are made for, and the marriage we long for, we will need God. And that's a very good thing! Without him, nothing is as it should be. But with him, all things are possible! Yes, marriage can be extremely hard. But that is not a reason to despair, nor the final truth. There are seasons in marriage — in every relationship. Marriage is meant to be wonderful, and most of the time it can be! Though sometimes so hard, think of the difficulty as a doorway. A doorway to all the more that Jesus has for us in Himself and in our marriages! There is hope friends! God is our hope. He is our strength. He is the source of all love and he is with us every moment of our lives helping us heal and learn how to love.

Stasi and her husband John Eldredge are co–speakers, co–authors and lead Ransomed Heart Ministries. Check out their ministry at www.ransomedheart.com