I heard someone say this week that, “The solution to all problems and issues lies inside of you.” This is indeed true. As a lover of both God and baseball, I have often said, “God never hits us a ball that we can’t catch.” I know that all readers of this blog to not believe in God, but I ask you please to bear with me.
When dealing with a difficult marriage, the problems can seem overwhelming, and it is easy to focus on our frustrations with our partner. The answer to these problems, however, lies in finding the power within ourselves. The rest really will take care of itself.
I just finished reading SACRED MARRIAGE, by Gary Thomas. I really found his views on marriage very affirming. We do not know what our spouse will be like when we make the promise to be faithful “For better or for worse, in sickness and in health, till death do we part.” Yet that is what we promise, and in living up to that promise, we find tremendous blessings.
Those who read this blog know that I struggle in my marriage to Cassandra. She suffered from terrible abuse as a child, she now struggles with mental illness and she can be emotionally and verbally abusive. I have to admit that the thought of leaving her crossed my mind several times through the years, but it never seemed right. In reading Thomas’s book, I understand why. He states, “If you are living in a one-sided marriage where you feel like you are giving and giving and never receiving, my heart goes out to you…Remind yourself that you are also in a situation where you can grow spiritually by leaps and bounds. If the heart of Christianity is service, any situation that shapes the spirit of a servant in you is worthwhile – even a lopsided marriage.”
Several years before I got married, I lived as a celibate missionary, and I contemplated living my entire life serving the Lord as a celibate. I knew that I couldn’t do so, however, because I did not love that lifestyle enough. I know that I made the right choice because being married to Cassandra has forced me to grow in ways that I never knew that a person could grow. I have discovered an inner goodness in me that is so much stronger than any cruel phrase that Cassandra hurls at me. I have also discovered a capacity to love and forgive that I never could have imagined.
In Thomas’s book he makes reference to Abraham Lincoln and his wife Mary Todd Lincoln. I did a bit of further reading on the couple and I found that many historians believe that Abraham Lincoln was indeed an abused spouse. Mary could not only be verbally abusive, but also physically abusive. She may have suffered from depression and may have been bi-polar. Later in life she was institutionalized in a psychiatric hospital for a time. Still, her illness and abuse did not prevent Abraham Lincoln from becoming one of the greatest politicians in the history of the world. In fact, it may have been one of the reasons why he was such a great man. Abraham Lincoln clearly understood the power of love and forgiveness, and lived according to the strength of his own character. He clearly loved Mary very much, yet he was able to rise above her dysfunctional behavior and accept her in a spirit of forgiveness. Wasn’t the behavior of his nation very much the same at that time? Yet he continued to move forward in a spirit of strength and calm, leading the United States through the greatest crisis in its history. He is certainly a man whom I would seek to emulate.
Abraham Lincoln was a very great man. We all have the same capacity for greatness. We just need to find it.
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