The Purpose of Marriage

This morning, in a moment of peace while I was reading the Bible, I remembered what one of our priests said in church a few months ago.  He was talking about marriage, and he said that when we get married, we are totally in love and infatuated with our spouse.  Of course, life always interferes with this first bliss, sometimes in the form of the tragic, devastating illness of one of the spouses; or in countless other life problems that assault the happy couple.

The priest said: after we get married, God molds our marriages for His greater purpose, which sometimes we can see or sometimes not.  God wants to PERFECT our marriages.  The main purpose of marriage is to teach us to have the selfless love that God/Jesus has for us, a love so complete that Jesus willingly died for our salvation—for all of us, no matter how rotten we may be.  He has given us all a chance for eternal salvation by His death on the Cross.  Certainly giving every bit of my physical, mental and emotional strength to Vince's care is by necessity selfless.  I give 1000 percent to this marriage; Vince gives not much, but it's not his fault, of course.

Years ago, I gave my life and my marriage to Jesus on the Cross—I think of our marriage being safe and perfect on the Cross with Jesus, and pray that I will meet my husband again in heaven, restored to health.
When I think of what Jesus did for us, my problems pale somewhat.

God is using our marriage to perfect us.  I have to admit that as much as I am devastated by Vince's illness and just miss the real him so so so so much, I have grown much stronger and feel that I can rely on God for everything I need.  In my weakness and grief, I can be strong and confident that God will carry me through every day, and that He does have a reason for Vince's illness.  I see all the wonderful new friends I have made, by virtue of the illness; have found tremendous support in the church (from priests and people!); and have given and received invaluable emotional support from other well spouses in the Well Spouse Assn.

On my better days, I can see real beauty in our marriage.  Vince is in no pain and seems perfectly content in his inability to do anything for himself; he doesn't speak any more.  Vince always liked to "develop" people, to bring out their hidden talents.  He has certainly done that for me in so many ways.  Much of this has been extremely painful as I have had to be in charge of everything in our lives (home maintenance, finances, etc.), but with God's help, I have managed.  I see people whom God put into my life who have helped me along the way.

So while Vince sits calmly, doing nothing, I am constantly struggling to keep up everything I need to do.  It's not fair in human terms—so NOT fair—but I feel that as I have been saving Vince's life, he has been saving my soul and "growing" me into a much better person, whom I am learning to respect and appreciate.  I sometimes wonder what would have happened to us had Vince not gotten so ill.  Maybe we would not have gotten along; I'll never know that, but I do know that we still love each other completely, and I am better off as far as my own person growth, as horrendously painful as the journey has been.  Always HOPE.