At the junction of marriage, the sisters and brothers in the church began to tell me, “You need to have the Lord in your marriage.” I heard this phrase so many times that I was immune to it; the next time I heard it, without thinking, I said, “Amen!” Sometimes I would even utter the same sentence to others, saying, “Don’t worry about me, I have the Lord in my life and marriage!” But what exactly does it mean, that I need to have the Lord in my marriage? I tried to answer this myself: Do I follow the “rules” from the Bible? Be a capable wife? Be a good person? Be generous and gracious to my neighbors? Forgive others?…The list keeps going. But does this complete me? Can this give me inner peace? Am I that powerful that I can be so “perfect”? Or this is just another mask I need to try hard to uphold? If this is all there is to know about having the Lord in my life and my marriage, why is it even necessary to pursue more? Why did the brothers and sisters take the risk of offending me to tell me that? I needed to find out these answers myself, as it is a matter of who God is to me, and if the Lord is my salvation.
Finally, I brought up this question to ML, who is now my husband. “What does it mean to have the Lord in our marriage?” I asked him when he was driving; that was a good conversation. After some discussion, we both agreed that having the Lord in our marriage is not a matter of what we do or don’t do; it is not a religion, not a form, not trying to please each other, but rather being real to the Lord and to each other, putting the Lord first, being grateful for whatever happens, believing in the Lord and not worrying. This was a good answer when the weather was fair. As we proceeded to get married and move in together as husband and wife, now the question “What does it mean to have the Lord in my marriage?” came back to me again.
This time it was even more real. There are no “ifs”—things just happen. There can be small things, like if he did not look into your eyes when you were talking, and you feel hurt. What do you do? How do you react to someone you love? I have no answers in myself, and this is where I have no choice but turn to the Lord. The Lord is also with me when I want to prepare a study area for my husband’s dissertation. When I just look at him, I feel loved. The Lord is also with me when I feel misunderstood, when I feel vulnerable, when I do not agree with some saints, when I feel I am good at nothing…it is painful to understand and realize that I am not capable of a lot of things; it is just sad to know that I cannot hold the happy moments. It is just sorrowful that you do not know how to “run” a marriage when you are married. But the Lord is with me, just like a lot of brothers and sisters; I do not know how to explain that more clearly. But with the Lord’s love I am brave enough to be enlarged and change. In return, I can enjoy and have the Lord more, which gives me more strength. I am grateful for the happy or unhappy moments in our life, which are all for our benefit in the end. I am even more grateful that my husband pursues this truth with me and leads me. Having the Lord in our life and our marriage is not a slogan, but as practical as when I messed up a breakfast, and my husband still enjoyed it; as practical as when I wanted to vent anger, and I saw the Lord smiling at me.
-CC