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Sticking It Out through the Worst
By: Betsy St. Amant Haddox He answered, "Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, 'Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate." - Matthew 19:4-6 (ESV) Marriage isn't always romance and roses. Sometimes, it's sickness and Nyquil. Other times, it's arguments and slammed doors. Or grief and counseling sessions. Or career changes and moving trucks. It's not always easy—in fact, I'd say the easy times are actually rarer than the difficult. Not necessarily because of conflict or constantly butting heads, but because of life. Life is hard. In a culture that views marriage as extreme dating and thinks of divorce as flippantly as middle schoolers change their weekly crush, it can be hard to stay the course when the tough times come. And even harder when those tough times linger. It's no mistake that traditional wedding vows contain the expression "for better or for worse". Sometimes we recite that somewhat mechanically, like we tend to do John 3:16 or other overly familiar phrases, without camping out on what it means. When you get married, you promise "for better or for worse." The "for better" is the part we like to focus on. We don't like to think that "for worse" might mean raised voices and cancer and wayward children and struggling bank accounts and chronic illness and emotional baggage. We'd much rather promise to be there in the "for better," when the savings account is padded, and the vacation is planned, and the kids are getting good grades and both spouses actually want to have sex at the same time. | 
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