My Marriage Confession

I have a confession to make. As many of you know when Kim was battling stage IV cancer much of last year I was pumping out blog posts like my life depended on it. So many of you prayed for us and I felt like as a husband there was little more I could do than share our story and beg for prayers. I wrote about every step of our cancer journey, how it affected me, Kim and our kids. I wrote about our love story - my three year pursuit of Kim (and her repeated rejections). I wrote about the need for bone marrow registration and the health struggles of some dear friends who were also battling cancer. But there was one thing that I held back from sharing. Something that consumed much of my thoughts and energy during that time and still does today. And that is marriage.

Outside of a few close friends and family no one really knew this but when Kim was getting chemo treatments I wrote tirelessly on the topic of marriage. I was getting about 4 hours of sleep a night and we spent 42 nights in the hospital last year so I had plenty of time to write. It was a welcome distraction from the daily stresses of cancer and despite undergoing the challenges of chemotherapy Kim was supportive every step of the way. Insecure about the fact that I still have so much to learn about marriage, unsure of the best medium to communicate this and at times afraid of what people might think I've been holding back on sharing it on this blog up until now. (I'm out of excuses) I know this topic tends to be a very sensitive one for many and a lightning rod for controversy and so I'm going to try and balance what I share with equal parts grace and truth (would Jesus do any different?) with the hope that it will generate more light than heat.

I don't think I need to spend much time trying to prove that marriage today is "broken". The statistics on marriage speak for themselves. In the last 30 years the marriage rate has dropped by 1/3 while divorces have tripled. Children living with single parents has doubled and child births from unwed mothers has quintupled (now 35% of all births). For the first time in the history of this great country there are more unmarried people over the age of 18 then there are married. Marriage is being redefined by our culture today and the next generation's worldview of sex, love and marriage is being radically transformed. If you don't believe me check out this recent article from Vanity Fair entitled "Friends Without Benefits" (if you have kids or want to some day have kids, regardless of age, you owe it to yourself to read this article).

I think this clip from the classic film The Princess Bride sums up the cultural view of marriage today. Externally it maintains all the glitz and glamour of a sacred institution but internally it is exposed as nothing more than a meaningless farce of a joke.

So what in the world has happened to marriage?

And how are we to view marriage? Is it a man-made invention that is open to interpretation and up for redefining in lockstep with the "evolution" of a culture? Or was it created and defined by God and if so for what ultimate purpose? If marriage was created by God how are we to understand God's design for marriage for our lives and for this world? How can we provide a winsome defense of a biblical view of marriage without coming across as a "bible-beater" or a narrow-minded bigot?

Well, I hope my next few posts will address some of these important questions. I think you will find that marriage does not teach us so much about how to love one another as much as it teaches us how much God loves us. I think you will find that marriage is not about me and my happiness but God and His glory. I think you will find that marriage is not about protecting a tradition but proclaiming a truth.

Looking forward to hearing some of your thoughts on the comments section and I promise to engage with them.

For His Glory,

Peter & Kim