Marriage is Not About Me

By Liz Wann

All my girlfriends were in a desperate frenzy to find a husband, and I was the fish swimming against the current. I gave a resounding “yes” to Paul when he said, “I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another” (1 Corinthians 7:7).

But my upstream swim was due to a dark cloud of fear blocking my vision. I was afraid of marriage. I was afraid of getting hurt.

Though I wanted to remain single (sometimes selfishly), God kept putting marriage on my heart. I sensed he wanted to give me a gift, but in my heart, I kept resisting him. To me, marriage looked mostly bleak and dark. I didn’t want to be put in a vulnerable position, because I wanted a life without personal pain and heartache.

Then I met my future husband.

As I confronted my fears in our dating relationship, I kept walking ahead with faith in my Father. God gave me peace to trust him on that path, and the end result was marriage.

Is Marriage Really a Gift?

But a few years into marriage, I began to question again whether it was truly a gift. Aren’t gifts supposed to make you feel good? There is typically pleasure and happiness in giving and receiving gifts.

Marriage doesn’t always feel like this type of gift, because at times it does not make us happy. Marriage is hard. We, humans, tend to have a shallow view of the word “gift” against the higher definition and purpose God has in mind. When God gives gifts, his number one aim is not our felt sense of happiness.

I wrongly viewed the gift of marriage through the cultural lenses of romanticism and sentimentality. My perspective of gifts in marriage looked like a dozen red roses, romantic lakeside picnics, balloons, and teddy bears. Paul Miller, in his book “A Loving Life,” compares this romanticized view of marriage to Disney:

The promise — marriage happily ever after — dominates the popular mind of our age. It is a good but unrealistic dream. When God is removed from the dream, the story turns out badly. Christianity without Jesus just doesn’t work. The Disney dream raises unrealistic expectations and then dashes them on the rocks of human frailty.

Like Miller says, the dream is good; it just needs some tweaking. Romance and sentimentality are a special part of marriage, and gifts we can delight in, but God is taking us somewhere deeper when he tells us marriage is a gift. He wants us to put on his glasses of grace: the glasses of his purposes for his glory and our good.