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the decision to move to texas fifteen years ago was one that changed everything for mike and wanda. basically, after twenty years of marriage, two kids and a lifetime in southern california, we sold most of what we had…packed the rest on the back ten feet of a moving van and hopped in our 1982 dodge pickup and said goodbye to our lives as we knew them.
the decision to leave it all behind was not entered into lightly. we wrestled with it for months. it dominated our discussion and created a prayer life that was more mysterious than it was victorious, as they say on christian television.
some days were frightening. others were simply sad…at the thought of leaving. at times we knew we were clueless… and other times it just felt that way. there were days we laughed. there were days wanda cried…and i probably just continued laughing…sensitive guy that i am.
we did our best to include our two little boys in the process. we made up stories of how great it would be to live somewhere besides san diego. they tried their best to believe our feeble attempt to paint pictures of life somewhere other than 70 degrees year round, chilly summer nights watching the padres play, great friends, their grandfather, and the best mexican food in the world. come on…who wouldn’t believe that story?
the night we said goodbye to my dad and headed to our new home in texas, driving east into the california desert was tough. really tough. i remember sitting in the cab of the truck…all four of us…and nobody said anything for the longest time. we all had lumps in our throats and minds that were filled with second guesses.
about an hour into the drive, wanda broke the silence with the most profound theological question. “what if we made a mistake?” geez…great time to ask that question.
i suppose my answer was equally profound. “i guess we’ll just come home and start over.” wow. that was deep.
and there you have mike and wanda’s theology of god’s will. really. that’s it.
so what’s this got to do with marriage tuesday? well…pretty much everything.
the quality and depth of your lives as marriage partners will be defined by the choices and decisions you make. are you always going to know what god wants you to do? no way. i would argue that you never really know what god wants you to do. even after it’s all said and done, you’ll probably always have questions.
but that’s not the point.
this may sound a little shallow…and a whole lot sacrilegious…but since you’ll never really know exactly what god wants you to do in your marriage decisions, you probably ought to spend the bulk of your time talking to each other about your decisions.
you may not know what god wants, but you sure as heck better know what your partner wants!
and then you spend all your time and energy and emotions and prayer and listening and talking…getting yourselves on the same page. what you do (in your marriage) , is seldom as important as simply doing it together.
to you who are married…would you consider going out one evening this week and laying all your cards on the table…and talking with each other about your dreams and fears and ideas for how you want to live out the rest of your days? take a risk and talk with each other about the things that god appears to be laying on your heart (through the word or through bible teaching or even your life circumstances)…no matter how uncomfortable it makes you.
i dare you. this is what real marriage is made of.
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