Christians wasted no time responding to the article. Most of them mainly criticized the posts claims that marriage is about the other person. The common consensus is that they believe that marriage is about "Jesus" as the center.... They kept saying that marriage isn't about you or her, but about Christ... I wish I could add more to the articles, but sadly that is what was just repeated over and over again.... with a couple verses. The weird part is, the article they are arguing against as not biblical, actually is more biblical than they led us to believe. I mean, there are a lot of verses that say to put others before yourself. However, it was not said the way christians often like, thus responses ensued. Some of it was even bitter and rude.
The truth is, I don't know what it means when people say Marriage isn't about you it is about Jesus. All of these blogs failed to bring in some sort of picture of what it fully means. It makes me feel like marriage isn't for anyone. Don't get me wrong, I believe a relationship founded in the Gospel means something. However, I don't think it means what these articles presented. I can say marriage is for the other person, or that Marriage is about Jesus all I want, but to be honest, I think both sides present a very shallow argument. I don't get this talk about "Marriage is about Jesus" because there is nothing practical, applicable or anything else to just grab onto. I find it to just fall in the area of "Super Christian-y sayings."
I am a single male. I am not walking around looking to get married, but I would enjoy getting married one day. These articles however give me a complex. They point to this idea that marriage has to be perfect, or that one party has to be miserable, or that both of you have to work towards this idea that has no depth, or marriage is about some concept we will never be able to reach. This gives me anxiety, it makes me not want to even look for a companion.
So to all my single friends who read these articles and have romantic feelings after.... Stop. We deserve better, this article I know is not the answer to that picture of what is better. I don't believe these articles tell the truth though. They share this romantic idea about what white suburban middle class marriage is like. But, I could talk until I am blue in the face about what I don't like, so instead, I am going to make three (ish) points to us singles that have been helping me process through this area of my life.
1) Marry your friend- I can't imagine marrying someone and then discovering who they are after the novelty of the wedding fades. I have plenty of friends my age, whom are good friends, who are now divorced because they spent so much time in the honeymoon phase of a getting to know someone (flirty feelings), that when push came to shove, they never really knew the person they were marrying.... I am not saying you have to know everything about the person you are going to marry, but I am confident that you will not find someone who wants to be with you more than a friend who has dealt with your good and bad already. We often don't realize how good our friends are for us because we are too preoccupied trying to find the feet sweeper off'er that we don't realize that the best person for us is right next to us to begin with. The problem is, we crave security and safety but find that to be boring because we have a misguided understanding of safety and security. We think it lacks this adventure when in reality is challenges us to be adventurers. This is often why we don't choose our friends, we are afraid of allowing it to happen, thus making us run into the arms of people who flatter us. Flattery ends, true friendships don't. Being with someone who is already fighting for you as a friend will make a great companion. Ask any counselor or psychologist; we work well with people who fight for and have faith in us. That is what friends do. (PS I don't think there is a time period for this friendship, it can be a month or 15 years)
2) Don't rush- We have an entire life to discover who we go with well. Too often we become impatient, and spend our entire life trying to discover who it is we are going to marry. The worst part is, we miss out on life. We miss out on experiences. We miss out on the adventure. We lose sight of who we are. It is tragic because we so often believe there is something wrong with us because we aren't married at the age of 24. We somehow have been led to believe that we have something wrong with us if we aren't married yet. Trust me, rushing it is a bad thing. I can't tell you how many relationships end because they just went fast and missed learning how to be friends and how to set the relationship up for success. You have nothing to lose by moving at a pace that sets a relationship up for success. And by setting up I mean learning who is this person and how you can care about them. It does not mean doing what society expects of you, it means focusing on learning about each other. You have time. Don't rush. Enjoy your time.
3) Relationships are about each other- You deserve to be loved. We all do. Don't waste your time with non-reciprocal relationships. You will not fix it. With that being said, it is ok to care about yourself. It is not wrong to love yourself. That is a healthy thing. If you hate yourself, how can you even say you love someone else. You will become wrapped up in them to the point where everything about who you are is tied up in their being. That is unhealthy. I firmly believe that when Jesus says "Love the Lord with all your heart and Love your neighbor as yourself..." are the two most important commandments, Jesus is actually giving three. Jesus knew that it would be impossible for you to Love the Lord and Love your neighbor if you hated yourself. Jesus knew that if you resent everything about yourself, you would be in no position to love that which was involved in your creation and that which was your neighbor. Which leads me to my main point. You deserve to be with someone who is willing to reciprocate that love, willing to sacrifice, willing to be with you through the rough times and the remarkable times and all the moments between the two. Having someone who supports your dreams and helps lay the foundation with you, as you reciprocate that to them, is showing that you are both following what the Lord created in you. In that way, I fully believe that the relationship then is about Jesus and how He leads us. He knows our passions, and following that seems to me to be the only way I could make the relationship about Christ; by being who God created us to be and responding to the world the way Jesus would, together. Making it about the other is how a relationship grows.
3.5) I am not traditional. When I say relationships are about each other, I mean they are about the fact that the person you are with should be your equal, not your servant. I am not traditional. I won't expect any woman to be anything less than what she is and can be. I am fine if a woman asks a guy out on a date. I am fine if the woman makes more money than the male. I am fine if the woman takes leadership. Because if I am being honest, I sometimes don't think or know how to do some of these things. I find a woman who will allow me to compliment her weaknesses as she compliments mine, with strengths, to be a very humbling need in my life, and I assume others.
Secret side extra point- Spend time casting a vision for your life, and move towards it as an individual. Don't be afraid of what you are passionate about. I always tell people when I meet with them that the best way to meet someone is when you as an individual and they as an individual are moving forward and experiencing life. When you start running towards your passions, and they start running towards theirs, and you meet, I am convinced you will gain a far better appreciation for them because they have a foundation and you have a foundation, thus leaving you incapable of resenting a person because they held you back from your passions. If you are both finding satisfaction in where you are passionate, gaining a companion can only make that better and often sustainable. (PS I am not saying you have to have the same passions.)
I am not an expert, I could be way off, I have no clue if I am being too optimistic or too shallow. I have so much to learn. But what I do know is that when the time comes, I pray that I am lucky enough to be in a relationship that allows us to learn, sacrifice, compliment, and grow together in this adventure we call life.
The blogs I am talking about:
Aritcle 1-http://sethadamsmith.com/2013/11/02/marriage-isnt-for-you/
The rest are responses to this article:
No comments:
Post a Comment