Real Life Marriage: There is an Enemy

(Photo by Arris Affairs) 

"How's married life?" People ask.

"Marriage is good," I reply. "But life is rough."

When Chris and I married, we committed before God and man that we would stick it out, for better or for worse. I anticipated that we would struggle to meld our lives together into one, especially after so many years of being single. Maybe it's God's goodness, or the fact that Chris is very adaptable, or the fact that we had good premarital counseling, or the fact that we've been intentional with our actions, but so far, praise God, most of the hard has not been internal. We truly love each other, and we try to act in ways that show it. But the external, that has been hard.

Over the past three months, we've had sickness and stress. We've had crazy work schedules. We've had major church and family changes (both positive and negative). We've had pushes and pulls we'd never have expected. We've had to be super purposeful about spending time together, and even that has been tough. I've felt super emotional for days on end. My work has been some of the hardest it's been. The Holy Spirit has had to convict me time and time again to combat the bitterness and resentment that so easily want to build up in my heart. I've had to face up to the fact that I cannot meet even my own expectations of what a wife should be, never mind everything culture dictates. I've had to be honest and vulnerable with Chris like never before. It's been hard.

As Chris and I have talked about our marriage thus far, we've come to the conclusion that our fight for our marriage is a team effort. We're a team against the stresses and strains of life that want to pull us apart. We're a team against the emotions that cascade our days. There is an enemy, but we're not it. We're a team against the enemy Satan, who wants to destroy and demean our marriage so that it isn't what Christ intended it to be. So by Christ's power and the Holy Spirit that lives in us, we'll continue to fight, not against each other, but for each other, and for our marriage. Because our marriage is a treasure worth fighting for.