'Til Death

So, you stood at the altar before tte preacher and proclaimed your love to each other, proclaimg "'Til death do us part," except you're not dead and you are not together.  The reason?  Someone didn't - someone, maybe both did not continue to love 'til death.

It may not have been your wish, your spouse may have simply left or may have become physically abusive or gotten caught up in an addiction that made life together impossible.  Nonetheless, the 'til death part became a footnote in the marriage obituary.  It doesn't necessarily take two people to end a marriage, one can do that.  But it does take two for a marriage to continue 'til death.

The element missing in a marriage on the rocks or one already on the garbage heap is biblical love in one or both.  This kind of love, the love God intends for us to have for one another, doesn't end when the good times end, it doesn't end when the good looks end, it doesn't end when bad attitude begins, it doesn't end when the bad news begins - this kind of love "always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres" (1 Cor 13:7).  This kind of love continues "in good time and bad, 'til death do us part."

This kind of love is often better illustrated in the way we love our children than how we love our spouses.  Our children can disappoint us, lie to us, steal from us, cause us harm, cause us to weep, turn their backs on us - you name it.  But as parents, when it comes to our children, we tend to persevere in love, we look for ways to work it out, we keep the door open, we continue to love even when they don't love us back.

It's rather amazing, this love that parents tend to have - not always, some people are not very good at being a parent and some children push parents to points beyond the limits of human endurance.  But, so often, it remains.  It remains because it is the love God invests in us and we invest in our children and ought to invest in our mates.  And when couples do, they have marriages lasting a lifetime.  Familial bonds extend to one's last breath when based on this love.

I'm not saying that marriages should continue regardless.  Some people are cruel and dangerous.  Some people do not keep their vows of fidelity.  Some times an individual has no choice but to accept the fact that the marriage is dead, and have, in a sense, been faithful 'til death.  But what I am saying is that couples need to bank on the good times as they struggle through the bad ones; as long as there is any life in the relationship in order to have a marriage that truly lasts 'til death.  Jus' Say'n.