How Struggles Strengthen Your Knot
By Jen Ferguson "Marriage is the beautiful design of the Almighty, a great and sacred mystery—meant to be a vivid example of Christ and his church. So every married man should be gracious to his wife just as he is gracious to himself. And every wife should be tenderly devoted to her husband." - Ephesians 5:32-33, The Passion Translation Fishermen use a special knot when they need to repair a line that has broken. This same type of knot is also called the "marriage knot." Essentially, you take two pieces of string or line and line them up side by side. You tie piece one to piece two, rotate it, and tie piece two to piece one. Then, when you pull the ends, the two knots get pulled closer and closer together and finally mesh seemingly as one when they meet in the middle. There are two things amazingly neat about this type of knot: First, the more you pull the strings in opposite directions, the tighter the knot gets. Secondly, when it gets wet, the harder the knot is to loosen. Satan thinks that the more obstacles he throws in your path, the more storms he can use to rock your boat, the more it will drive you and your spouse apart. Addictions, sexual temptations, health issues, troubled children, financial despairs—like flaming arrows he fires them, desperate to break your union and send waves crashing down so you feel like you're drowning. Why? Because of God's passion for marriage. Because of what it represents. If it's true that truly nothing—not death, nor life, angels, or demons, height or depth—can separate us from the love of God and marriage is supposed to be the manifestation of this truth, Satan believes if he can break up marriages he can prove God's Word to be a lie. But these obstacles that Satan throws our way actually have the power to strengthen us both individually and as a married couple. These obstacles compel us to work on our relationship. If we allow God to use for good the very things that Satan means for destruction, our marriage will actually become indestructible. The suffering Satan wants to use to cripple us ends up producing endurance. Endurance produces character, and character hope. And then all of the sudden, instead of slogging through the darkness, we end up emerging as a radiant beacon of light that others can see and it all ends up illuminating their darkness. | 
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