We have recently been astounded at how many couples we know who are choosing to end their marriage. Are you seeing the same thing? It is breaking our hearts.
We personally know the depths of pain that can almost sink a marriage. We know the feelings of an uncertain future.
But we also know the exhilaration of a marriage that is renewed and restored. We know that God is a Healer, Reconciler, Restoring, Renewer, and Refresher. He makes the weak to become strong. He gives hope to the hopeless. He gives wisdom to those who ask. Choosing to remain in a marriage that is hurting means you are choosing to trust God to guide you toward hope and healing.
While we are seeing couples make the devastating choice to end their marriages, we thrill to see couples who choose to have a long-lasting love. They have pressed through the valleys of pain and experienced the joy of being united with the same person as mates for life.
Recently one of us had to undergo a routine medical procedure that happens when you hit a certain age. 🙁 You can’t drive yourself home after this procedure, so you had to bring somebody with you. As we were waiting in the waiting room we were struck by the fact that almost every person in the room was with their spouse.
As we pondered all of these couples walking through this procedure together, we came up with a list of some of the benefits of a long-lasting love:
1. Shared Faith
Through the highs and lows of life and marriage, your faith in God deepens together. By listening to the same sermons and other teaching, your hearts are bonded tightly as soul-mates through Jesus Christ.
2. Shared Depth
As you grow old together you share a mutual history that weaves the fabric of your lives together. You share the same friends through the years. Your paths are the same and interlocked together with shared memories and experiences.
3. Shared Familiarity
Through the years the things that bothered you early in your marital years become qualities that you are accustomed to and accept. You know your spouse’s likes and dislikes. You know their characteristics and they know yours. You adapt to one another.
4. Shared Family Bond
Because of your long-lasting commitment to love, your children have a stable home. They come home from school to mom and dad. As adults, the children come home to mom and dad. There are plenty of studies available to back up the positive exponential effect of mom and dad married and raising the children under one roof.
5. Shared Friendship
You and your spouse’s friendship deepens through the years. You talk hopes and dreams. You see some dreams come to fruition while others fade. You go on vacations together, make decisions together, discuss the day’s events. You appreciate and enjoy each other’s companionship.
6. Shared Intimacy
You know each other’s bodies regularly and intimately. You experiences the joys of making love through the years. As you age, even the physical changes of your bodies become an opportunity to show unconditional love, acceptance, and tenderness through your intimacy.
7. Shared Health Benefits
Studies repeatedly show that married people have significantly healthier lives. They are less likely to develop pneumonia, have surgery, develop cancer, experience dementia, or have heart attacks. In fact, the mortality rate for unmarried women is 50% higher and for men it is 250% percent higher than for those who are married! You can read more here.
8. Shared Legacy
You two know each other’s families: grandparents, parents, siblings and extended family. Not only do you know your shared roots, but you are building a legacy together as well. You are setting an example for the next generation that marriage matters. Commitments are kept. And that long-lasting love is really the best love there is!
What else would you add to the list? Renew your commitment today to a long-lasting love as together you build your marriage!