GlocalNet

Yesterday Nikki and I celebrated our 30th anniversary.  I tweeted about it.  Len Sweet tweeted back that someone he knew had just celebrated their 71st wedding anniversary - later one of them died and within 24 hours the other also died.  Wow - that’s incredible.  I can’t tell you how to make it 71 years or even 50 - but I can tell you how to make 30. 

1.  Love is a commitment not an emotion.  I have a friend named Mazhar from Lebanon he says, “In America you marry the one you love - but in the Middle-East we love the one we marry.”  It’s true.  The first few months of a marriage are tough - for most people - not all.  Once the emotion is gone - then you can get down to work on the relationship.  That doesn’t mean emotions don’t matter - they do.  But emotions are not the basis of the relationship but the result of a healthy relationship.  I’m convinced this is the reason why Americans have the highest divorce rate in the world.  We are driven by emotion more than anything in our relationships.  You even see that in counseling at times,  “how does that make you feel?”  - just because I don’t feel ‘good’ or ‘happy’ etc., doesn’t mean it’s time to quit - our emotions change from day to day. 

2.  Learn to complement one another instead of compete with one another.  Nikki and I are both a little headstrong!  I have a wife who’s educated, smart, intelligent, and wise.  I didn’t want someone who didn’t think and have dreams.  She always wanted and felt called to be a pastor’s wife and a teacher.  Her being a teacher was just as important as me being a pastor.  Even though she doesn’t teach now, she is involved in global ministries and tutoring at a Title 1 school. It’s a calling.  She uses her teaching now in overseas universities, and health and hygiene training with the impoverished. Another thing we had to learn was that being so opposite was really a blessing in disguise.  She would see things I wouldn’t. I would see things she wouldn’t.  I NEVER hire a staff member without her input.  She’s incredibly discerning.  She is the one who led me to think deeply about how I could engage the world and I doubt I’d be doing what I’m doing today if it weren’t for her. 

3.  Know that there are going to be tough times - you don’t say I Do just at the altar - you say it when it’s hard.  It’s those tough times that bring you close and make you work as a team, or divide you and bring unhealthy emotions and responses into a relationship.  Marriages go through different phases. Sometimes a marriage may be flat - you have to work on that.  Sometimes a marriage may be hitting on all cylinders - great!  Money is a problem for most - first it’s getting a house, then the family, then the college - unexpected illness.  How you handle in-laws will bring you together or drive you apart.  How open you are to talk about sex and intimacy will determine a great deal.  There will be challenges at all these levels - the only way to make it is to talk about it. 

4.  Chances are - if you divorce - you remarry someone else - who’s just like your first spouse!  Do I really want to start this all over again with someone else from scratch?  That’s at least what the research says.  Most of us aren’t attracted to someone just like us - there is something in us that says we need things we don’t - that’s why a marriage is two people.  The problem is not always the spouse, but often the communication.  If you learn to communicate you don’t jump in and out of relationships.

5.  Laugh, play, and have fun more than you cry, fight, and become bored.  Nikki and I have had our share of fights and challenges.  One thing we have always done, though, is have fun.  Whether it’s a trip, a project, a restaurant, a jazz club, a movie, a book, a joke, whatever – laugh and laugh a lot.  You’re building up emotional fuel when you do which prepares you for when times are tough.  You’re also seeing a different side of one another.  Make no mistake about it - marriage is work - and so is fun sometimes.  You have to break out of your ruts and do something you don’t normally do! 

6.  Learn forgiveness quickly.  Jesus came to forgive us - he initiated it.  If you’re going to keep a tit for tat list - let it be who sought to heal the relationship first after an argument or challenge.  The cross is about forgiveness.  Without forgiveness none of us are going to get very far - not in eternity - and not in marriage.  When we stuff things down, ignore them, we then become bitter, angry, and we begin to manufacture so much other junk.  We read things into things that have no meaning at all.  None of us are perfect - we’ve all been hurt - and we’ve hurt.  We all come into relationships with baggage and a past.  There’s not a person alive who doesn’t have some amount of dysfunction.  The question is what are you going to do about it and what are you going to focus on. 

7.  Celebrate your growth.  Last night Nikki and I were talking about how each of us has changed over the past 30 years.  It’s been fun.  Make no mistake about it - I’ve needed to grow up much more than Nikki - but there is more to growing up than just maturing emotionally.  There is growth mentally and in your understanding of life and the world.  Nikki and I are not the same people we were when we married 30 years ago - but we’ve changed together and challenged one another together and grown together. 

I love you deeply Nikki and am grateful for you - you are the best!