Love Bears Hardships of Marriage

My neighbor Julie South called on the phone the other day to ask a favor. She was scheduled to teach a lesson on marriage the following Sunday to a group of women in our church. Toward the end of the lesson, she decided to ask a few people to share their thoughts on what it takes to make a marriage work today.

But Julie jokingly had just one major concern in inviting me to be one of the concluding participants. Could I limit my comments to two minutes?

That is hard for university professors to do. But I agreed to try. I would go to Julie’s class and give one thought not lasting more than two minutes. Before Julie hung up she said that the women in her class came from a variety of backgrounds. Some were single, a few divorced, there were a few recently married women, but most had been married for several years. “Try and say something about marriage that would appeal to all women, regardless of their backgrounds,” she said.

So for the next few hours I gave serious thought to the assignment. I would not have the luxury of time to elaborate. Two minutes is not very long. And Julie asked that it be something extraordinary. Something that would be interesting to both single and married women. What would I say?

As the time drew near for the two-minute thought, I finally decided to quote a Biblical verse. It is found in 1 Corinthians 13:7 and states, “[Charity] beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.”

When it was my turn to stand before the women at the conclusion of the class, I read the few lines and suggested that those words contained an answer for many contemporary marital problems.

Love is supposed to bear and endure many things . . . many hardships if you will. When we marry each other, we commit not only for the good and pleasant times when we are healthy, have sufficient income, and things are generally going well. At our wedding ceremony, we also commit to each other when things are not going so well. Times when we have ill health, are out of money, and hardships fall upon us. That is what is meant, I believe, when we commit to love each other and bear and endure many things together in marriage.

The way we learn to bear and endure, I suggested, is by believing and hoping. We must believe in ourselves as capable marriage partners, even when we may act otherwise. We must believe in the institution of marriage as the way the majority of men and women in America still choose to live their adult lives. We must believe there are sources of help – both seen and unseen – that will guide us through difficult times.

During difficult times love is also hopeful, which simply means we can usually anticipate better times ahead. When we are discouraged it is often difficult to be hopeful. But life is fair. It seems to offer more joy than sorrow – more pleasure than pain – even though we often experience an abundance of both joy and sorrow in married life.

As expected, I took nearly four minutes rather than the assigned two. So Julie, I apologize on one hand and thank you on the other for giving me the opportunity to give a two-minute talk in church on a topic of deep concern to all.

If you were asked to share a two-minute thought on contemporary marriage, what would you say?