All the Good Things

by Byron Ware

Marriage should be honored by all... (Hebrews 13:4)

    Do you ever feel like you're on a teeter-totter? (You know the kid's playground equipment that you try to balance with someone sitting on the other end.) On a teeter-tooter you are constantly going up and down and trying to find balance.

    Marriage can be like that, can't it? Seventeen years with my wife has seen a lot of ups and downs. The view of marriage by many in America has also seen a lot of ups and downs. It seems that the news on marriage is all bad and not much good right now. I even found a book that stated "we're living in a post-marriage culture." But wait! This is a quote from a great book on marriage, The Case for Marriage: Why Married People Are Happier, Healthier, and Better Off Financially, by Linda J. Waite & Maggie Gallagher:

This book is based on the authoritative research of family sociologist Linda Waite and other scholars. The book's findings dramatically contradict the anti-marriage myths that have become the "common sense" of a lot of Americans. Today, a broad consensus holds that marriage is a bad deal for women, that divorce is better for children when parents are unhappy, and that marriage is essentially a private choice, not a public institution.

    Waite and Gallagher's research and analysis flatly contradict these assumptions. Through analysis based upon a broad range of indicators, they show that being married is actually better for a person physically, materially, and spiritually than being single or divorced. Married people live longer, have better health, earn more money, accumulate more wealth, feel more fulfilled in their lives, enjoy more satisfying sexual relationships, and have happier and more successful children than those who remain single, cohabit, or get divorced. Statistics show, for example, that violence is less prevalent in married households, and that divorce reduces male life expectancy on the order of a pack-a-day cigarette habit. (See Genesis 2:18)

    What was most interesting to me in The Case for Marriage was that the authors looked at what happens to bad marriages that don't end. The turnarounds were shocking: Five years later, 77 percent of very unhappily married couples that stayed married now called their marriage either "very happy" or "quite happy." A bad marriage is not a hard and fast forever fact. It's a judgement, by one person, at one moment in time, about a future that can change. Just as good marriages go bad, bad marriages "go good," and they are more likely to do so in a society that strongly prefers staying married to divorce.

    A temporary "bad" marriage is like a trial. It is not easy, but it is something that God can use to mature and bless us.

"Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." (James 1:2-4)

    Do you remember the line in As Good as it Gets? "You help me be a better man." That statement is maturity gained through trials. It is encouraging the best out of our relationship. It is growing up.

    I was very blessed when I first got married. My next door neighbor was my eternally optimistic grandmother. When I got to feeling down, she would tell me focus on all the good things. This is exactly what we all need to do with the marriage institution! We need to focus on the positive. Let's remember that we live in a culture obsessed with negative information, negative news, and the negative aspects of prominent people. But all this negative is not reality. There are a whole lot of folks with media clout that have a whole lot invested in showing the most negative side of marriage because they are anti-marriage. We must acknowledge what is positive about marriage! We need to focus on it, honor it, model it, and mentor it.

    Let's make sure the teeter totter on marriage is tilted in the right direction, the direction of truth.

Posted: 09/08/2001
URL: http://www.heartlight.org/articles/200109/20010908_goodthings.html

(c) 2001 Byron Ware. Used by permission.

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