A Bowflex for Life

John 2:1-11

Valentine’s Day is a Polaroid picture of moment of time in someone’s life, in their relationship.  For this day of the year, we dress up, put our best foot forward, put on make-up, the suit jacket, and we cry “cheese!”

If we want to see the Polaroid pictures that are real, honest, gritty, maybe it would be better to see a picture made in a personal diary or internet blog.  A place where the heart is put into different clothing, where the pictures are way more candid.  When searching for examples of marriage in this context, here are some examples we found.

One  blog offered the following confession of Susan who is thirty-four. She is a   divorced,  mother of two children. 

“Today was the anniversary of when Larry and I were married ten years ago.  I lay awake in bed last night, counting the headlights that passed along our road out the window.  The kids were asleep, even the dog was snoring at the foot of my bed.  But I couldn’t get images of that wedding out of my head.  I remember the way the bouquet I carried smelled.  I remember smiling so hard my cheeks ached.  I remember thinking, “We’re two parts of a whole.  Now the puzzle is complete and we can live happily ever after.”  Ugh, even typing it makes it sound so naïve.  I was young, I thought that marriage was the next step in my life.  I thought that I could leave behind my own childhood memories of my father’s anger and abuse.  I thought that Larry was my salvation.  I thought he would save me, we would carry each other along.  I thought he was my soul mate and my other half.

But how could he be my other half when neither of us were even really whole to start with?  We both had ‘issues’ from our past to deal with.  We loved each other, but our idea of how marriage would allow us to walk above our problems was so foolish.  We tried and we loved, but we couldn’t be each other’s salvation!  We couldn’t be more than ourselves, and ourselves wasn’t enough since we our expectations were so high.

“Marriage is a partnership,” my mother told me on my wedding day.  She was trying to warn me in her own way, but all I could think of was the night of my high school prom when she helped me into my dress with her eye all swollen and black from Daddy’s latest fight.  She told me then, “Have fun, but don’t expect your date to want to dance every dance with you.”  Expect.  That’s a funny word.  Expectations seem to be the death of every relationship I have had.  Maybe that’s because I expect too much.  I expected Larry to have grown past his own childhood of beating and neglect.  I expected him to be gentle, to get his anger out at the gym.  I expected that I would have learned not to be a doormat like I was with my father when he went into a fit of rage.  I expected that it would all heal itself because Larry was my prince who had rescued me.

That night a few years ago, I expected him not to hit me.  I expected him to swallow his anger and his past and everything we had never talked about.  I expected him to go on being, on the outside, the perfect husband, my other half of the perfect wife.  And when he hit me, it was all over. 

I grabbed my two girls and I left.  I went to my mother’s apartment.  And I began to examine these expectations I had of my marriage.  I looked around at my friends’ marriages, I talked to them about how they dealt with expectations.  And they all admitted that marriage was the hardest commitment they had ever entered into.  There was no salvation in the union of husband and wife, only a friendship that could be as rocky as any other or more meaningful than any other.  I think I expected too much of Larry.  I expected too much of myself.  I expected too much of the word ‘marriage.’

Maybe I can teach my girls better.  Maybe I can teach them that marriage won’t save them the pain of life, but it’s still worth the work.  Maybe one day I will find a man who will help me believe that too.”

Not quiet romantic but maybe more authentic. Then we ran across Steve, who is fifty-five, he has been married to Rose for thirty-four years. 

“I love to daydream about Rose.  I love to remember her the way she was when she was younger.  I still see her as a beautiful woman when I look at her, but now the cancer is always there, obstructing my view. 

I daydream about the day I proposed on the beach.  She was wearing a skirt that billowed in the wind.  Her hair was strawberry blonde and smelled like salt.  She had on red lipstick that drove me wild.  I got down on one knee and I showed her the little diamond set in platinum and the smile spread across her face slowly, bigger and bigger, until she ran at me and tackled me in the sand, hugging me so tight that I could barely breathe – or maybe I was holding my breath?

I remember our honeymoon in the little cabin on the beach too; it was a time of gentle passion and consummation that I will never forget.  We were inexperienced, we fumbled, but Rose always kept a sense of humor.  Her laugh never made me feel self-conscious, but like she was letting me in on our own little secret as we lay in bed.

Now she lays in bed and she still smiles at me.  She still makes me laugh every day.  We’ve fought this battle of cancer together.  Some days I think we’ve lost.  Others I’m convinced we’ve won no matter the outcome.  But even the days I yell at God, she still smiles. 

Rose and I haven’t had sexual intercourse for a few years now.  She was in remission for a while, and we were able to have sex during that time, but now it’s beyond her body’s capability.   She makes light jokes about me taking a mistress to satisfy my needs, but despite whether it’s a joke or not, I always tell her that I made a promise to be faithful in sickness and in health.  I made a promise to each other and to our maker and savior Jesus Christ, in front of our church.

But I can still hold her.   I can still kiss her.  I can still caress her hand.  I can still give her foot rubs.  I can still whisper my daydreams in her ear.  And while it’s hard, it’s enough.  She is the woman I want.  Some of my buddies take me out sometimes to give me a break from the homecare and they want to know how I do it, go without sex for so long.  It’s all jovial, and I say, “What, you want me to go out and do a different woman every night or something like they do on TV?  Give me a break.”

It’s not that I’ve given up daydreaming about the times we’ve been together physically.  But Rose is still there.  I can still touch her, speak to her in an intimate way.  I think really that I may know more about sex than any of my friends or bachelor buddies do.  I’ve had a partner for 34 years.  I won’t let someone else’s sexual expectations or assumptions ruin what I have with Rose.  What we have is still sexual, but it’s also spiritual.  Somewhere along the way sensual faded into spiritual and my lover became my best friend.

Real life is not like the movies.  We also discovered a young lady named Amber, she is twenty-two. Here is her confession. People say in cyber-space what they fail to say in the confessional booth.

“There was the best sale today at Abercrombie and Fitch.  They had these corduroy jackets to die for!  And the newest kind of low-rise jeans, with sand washing at the knees, in several different shades.  Then I went over to find some tennis shoes to match the outfit.  They didn’t have any sales going on, but these brown and blue suede tennis shoes were calling my name.  They would go absolutely perfectly with the pants.

I wanted to  wear a new outfit to feel special when I go out to see Josh tonight.  I still look down on my finger and I can’t believe we’re engaged!  The diamond is kind of pathetic, though.  I sometimes wish I could have convinced him to take out that loan for the one I REALLY wanted – it’s a Harry Winston look-alike at a local jeweler.  But he said maybe for one of our anniversaries.  So I can dream about it for a while.

Speaking of taking out loans, I sat down and talked with Josh about my bank account last week.  It was one of the hardest conversations I’ve ever had to have.  Josh said that now that we’re going to make the ultimate commitment of marriage, the debt I’ve accrued is not only mine, but also will become his.  That made me feel pretty cruddy.  But I was also really impressed that he would feel that way.  I told him about everything.  About how I had all of my student loans to pay off, and 3 credit cards that I wasn’t very good at managing.  And my problem with shopping when I feel stressed.  At least my old car is paid off – I had money saved up to buy it in one payment in high school – I was proud to tell him that.

Josh talked about his dreams to save up for a house, and what kind of loan he wanted to take out for it, and the big down payment he wanted to make.  He talked about good kinds of debt and bad kinds of debt.  I didn’t know he knew so much about finance, and I kind of fell in love all over again with him and the way he’s planning for our future.  We sat down and sketched out some of the expenses we’ll have when we’re married after college.  We’ll be able to make more of a concrete budget when we know what kind of jobs we’ll have. 

So like I said, Abercrombie had a big sale.  And there were these great shoes.  I was there at the mall, and I sat down on a bench and I thought about Josh.  About how we had talked about trusting each other and watching out for OUR financial future.  I thought about that outfit.  But I walked out of the mall without buying anything.  Instead, I was twirling my sweet little diamond engagement ring, confident that my patience would pay off.”

According to John the first miracle Jesus performed was at the “Wedding in Cana.” I imagine marriage continues to be the place where Jesus’ miracles can most often be found. Turing strangers into friends. Exiling loneliness with companionship. Creating sexual unity. At Cana Jesus turned water into wine, the common into the uncommon. The ordinary became the extraordinary. This is what love does, with God’s help it moves us from what we feared the most to what we never thought we could be. It turns water into wine.

Years ago in Thomasville, Alabama I was locking up the gym during basketball season. When I locked it up there was only me and an elderly African-American man left. He was standing outside with his grandson and I asked him if I could give him a lift somewhere. He said his wife was at the grocery store and she’d return in a moment. I hated to leave him alone so I told him I’d wait until she arrived. As were passing the time I asked him how long he had been married. He said fifty-three years. I told him I had been married six. Then he said something quiet profound, “I was born weak but marriage made me strong.” At the time it went over my head, but now I have enough miles to appreciate his insight. Sometimes we pursue love thinking it will make us happy, some even pursue it thinking it will make them rich, others believe love will complete them. In the end, the only thing love can deliver is strength, marriage is like a bowflex for our lives.

How does marriage make us strong? Our heart is seldom stronger than we are born. The process of life usually weakens our heart, it is the natural process. It may sound funny but marriage breaks our heart, and this is a good thing. You see without being broken our heart remains cold and calloused. We remain sterile and distant. Marriage is a contact sport and the heart is easily broken, this broken heart becomes soft and tender. We become caring, genuine, and sympathetic, and are re-born strong,  this is the gift of marriage.

Paul put it well when he wrote,

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.