Marriage

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Could the Lord really use a few misplaced alfalfa sprouts to breathe life into a marriage that should have been given it’s last rites? Over the weekend we had decided that the best reason either of us could come up with for staying married was because a divorce was too expensive and too messy. I knew that, in time, we would find better reasons for staying married, but for now, that’s the best we could do. A friend reminded me, "If that’s the best you can do, then stick with it – and God will be faithful and bless you for being faithful to your marriage vows." I knew in my heart it was true, but I was growing immensely weary of waiting for the blessings and the good times.

Then, yesterday, the clouds moved in – good, a-storm-is-a-brewing-rain-clouds over this parched desert of my marriage and my heart. Three different people, placed strategically in my day – at the gym, at a meeting, and in a phone call – all said, out of the blue, "I prayed for you yesterday!" What droplets of relief. I’ve not been forgotten – not by my God, nor by my fellow travelers. By the time I got off the phone with the third traveler, I had new strength and new resolve. Yes, God was blessing me all right. And, I would let Him be the strength so that I may carry my family on my back while my husband was unable to share the load, or even carry himself. I was refreshed, I was ready.

Then, the familiar rumble of thunder over our dry and weary land was heard at our fancy dinner. Required for my husband’s job, we went, put on our nice clothes and happy faces as we have had to do too often lately and tried to guess which fork to use when. Right in the middle of the salad an unidentified flying object caught the corner of my eye from my husband’s direction. Then, I noticed that the hurricane globe surrounding the pillar candle of our centerpiece had a new decoration – about 3 ranch dressing covered alfalfa sprouts. I glanced around – no one had noticed, so I was able to enjoy my own private joke. When my husband glanced up and saw it, he asked, "Did I do that?" I assured him that he did and, better still, no one saw. I thanked him for providing my entertainment for the evening.

The rain began – on the drive home we both laughed so hard at the alfalfa sprouts that sat on the hurricane globe for the remainder of the evening. By the time we got home we were laughing with tears in our eyes at what the wait-staff must think happened there for that to have happened, and how remarkably alfalfa sprouts flung against a hurricane globe resemble sperm. With those alfalfa sprouts, we laughed harder and longer than we had the entire previous 3 months combined. The rain came and soaked our famine-stricken marriage. We danced and laughed in it. The drought is not over but as we splash in the puddles of the shower of blessings and laughter we can be reminded that God will always be faithful.


"I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them. I will make rivers flow on barren heights, and springs within the valleys. I will turn the desert into pools of water, and the parched ground into springs." Isaiah 41:17,18

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