On the way back from lunch, I was listening to a converted atheist tell how his wife's conversion eventually won him over when, right in the middle of it, he threw out a line that just - for a moment, at least - sucked the life and hope right out of me. It was nothing, really, except an observation that before he accepted Christ, his wife's Christian friends were able to encourage her to at least stand on the common interpersonal ground on which they had built their relationship.
In my marriage, our common interpersonal ground was her loving me; my loving her, even rooted as it was in my desperate need to be loved; her desperately needing a future she couldn't build on her own. Frankly, I'm jealous of people who have built their marriages on a strong friendship full of common interests.
It didn't take long for me to remember that the common ground we now share is Jesus Christ. He has promised that his grace is sufficient. My life and hope are in him. And my bride is a treasure with whom he has gifted me greatly, even from such a dysfunctional beginning.
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