Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: Husband and Wife (08/08/14)
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TITLE: E Duo Unum � E Unum Pluribus | Previous Challenge Entry
By Noel Mitaxa
08/14/14 -
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Well, thank you for asking, because it does matter.
Though times have changed in the decades since our wedding photos were taken, so have we. Four grown-up kids and four grandchildren have deepened and stretched our love. As my title translates: “From two: one; from one: many”―and who knows many more―since grandchildren are God’s reward for us not strangling our teenagers...
Is there a secret to staying together when our peers separate or get divorced? Or when the nest empties and two people can discover differences emerging from beneath all the activity of earlier times―and there’s less energy or income to indulge in activities that could replace facing up to these differences?
Is staying together really enough, when there’s still so much room to keep on growing together?
While there is the one secret―of respecting the fact that we belong to each other in the mystery of being one flesh―there are so many ways to express this respect.
This is why I advise couples to get to know couples whose marriages they respect―especially older couples―for this will build their perspective beyond their own special dreams. These connections with have other positive spin-offs, for these older couples discover how God can use their marriages to provide strength beyond their own families―which underscores the pluribus that we started with.
But back to the “e dou unum”for a moment; as two families come together in the planning, celebrating and integrating that marriages usher into existence. Will two different backgrounds compete with each other? Or will they complete each other?
They will compete any time tensions are compounded through sickness or time shortages; when we naturally resort to our default positions.
However the competition is prolonged if we don’t respectfully and honestly take time to discuss our separate backgrounds. For this honesty allows us to unwrap ways to build on past strengths and to starve weak points; so we may keep completing each other.
But ultimately, who’s in charge? Is the husband head of the wife―and the wife the neck that moves the head? The submission of Ephesians 5:21 is mutual; urging us to submit to each other out of love for Christ, to give him room to draw us together into his best direction for us. Then we may free him to strengthen us as individuals and in the intimacies that keep us growing―with neither one of us needing to know all the answers or have all the authority.
For with Christ as our head, even our imperfect marriage can still be part of his force of creative nourishment in a world that hungers for stability across communities and nations.
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I was just a little bit confused by the beginning of the piece. Was it that you (the author) sometimes wondered if counselling was a waste of time, and reminded yourself that when your wedding photos were taken, you needed that? It felt as if the introductory question maybe didn't quite match the rest of the first paragraph. Although it did draw it back in at the second paragraph. It could be just me and my slow brain.
I especially loved and identified with your last few paragraphs. Thank you for putting that taboo m-word with the infamous s-word... "Mutual Submission". My husband and I strive to apply those very principles. We have found ourselves quite alone in this and often rejected by people in the church because I am not "submissive enough" and my husband is not "a strong enough leader". The fact that we both strive to treat each other with a gentle and honoring spirit doesn't seem to matter. :P
I'll step off my soapbox. Thank you again for writing that. It was exactly the encouragement I needed to face current struggles. Knowing we are not alone really helps. My (biased?) opinion says this one needs to be a winner. So let it be written, so let it be done. :)
Joking apart, I appreciate that all you have said is sound advice for a Christian couple to enjoy a long and happy life together, and to provide a loving and stable environment in which to bring up well balanced children. (Did that sound like I'd just lifted it from a book?)
A great contribution for this week's topic, and as always impeccably written.
My wife and I are coming up on our 27th anniversary, and my youngest (of four)is turning 18 on Monday. So we are close to entering that "empty nest" phase of our relationship, and I know that there will be new challenges ahead. Your entry gave me some insight into that phase, and makes me realize that, even though we are often the ones younger couples look to for marital counsel, it wouldn't hurt for us to look for some couples who have been through this next stage of our relationship.
Excellent work! Thanks for sharing.
I like to tells folks who are experiencing marital differences that marriage very well may be designed to make us Holy rather than happy, if we allow it to.
I read that somewhere years ago and it resonated with me.
Well done, well said, and phenomenal writing.
God bless~