Healthy Marriages

By Pastor Mark McAdow
It’s wedding season! As we come to the last Sunday in June this weekend, I want to take a moment to talk about healthy marriages. Whether we’re single, married, divorced or widowed, we all benefit from healthy marriages. They are the building blocks for a healthy society.

This Sunday I will share about five keys to healthy marriages. As some of you know, Robin and I just celebrated our 41st wedding anniversary on June 16. (We didn’t go anywhere this year, so I still have my luggage!) Eleven other couples in our Willow View Family also had wedding anniversaries this month. Congratulations! Marriage was created and designed by God, so our Father knows how it works best.

I’ve had the privilege of officiating at all of our children’s weddings.  All had beautiful weddings – outside! (You’d think one of them might have been married in a church since their dad is a pastor and could have had a great price on the venue! Oh well ...)

Robin and I were married in a beautiful church in downtown Tulsa. It was a sacred ceremony as we – like many of you – committed our lives each to the other with these significant and timeless vows: “I take you to be my wife/husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until we are parted by death. This is my solemn vow.”

Indeed, it is designed to be a solemn vow. Our good friend Pastor Charlie Spears shared with Robin and me in our pre-marriage counseling, “I hope you will be more committed to the institution of marriage even more than each other.”  I thought that was a strange thought at the time; but I now understand what he meant. Since God created marriage for individual and societal benefit, we should all support it, whether we’re married or not.
 
Marriage is about more than just the individual couple. It’s His plan to build a stronger healthy society. It really takes three to make a good marriage: husband, wife and God. That’s why it says in Ecc. 4:12, “A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.”  God needs to be the strong center strand in every healthy marriage.

I always close my wedding ceremonies with these words of advice:

1.  Pray together regularly – daily is best. “The couple that prays together stays together.”  It keeps our relationship with God and each other in good standing.
2. Continue to “date” one another. Plan date nights on the calendar and especially celebrate your anniversary and special occasions.
3. Keep romance alive. Say “I love you” every day and demonstrate it in practical ways (making the bed, putting gas in the car, washing the dishes, doing laundry, etc.)
4. Never let the sun go down on your anger. Communicate. Learn to talk through your conflicts. Don’t play the “silent game,” but be willing to talk.
5. Laugh with each other every day. Laughter really is good medicine according to the Scriptures. It helps reduce conflict and to not take ourselves too seriously. (We’re trying to improve on that!)
6. Learn to use these seven important words in life and in marriage. “I was wrong. Will you forgive me?”  If you use these words in true humility, the Holy Spirit will help you reconcile your differences.
7. Trust God. Your joyful task is to attempt to “out love” one another.

 Blessings to you all. See you this Sunday.

Yours in Christ’s love,
Pastor Mark

Praise the Lord for a great Vacation Bible School week at Willow View. Mandie and her team did a fantastic job loving our kids closer to Jesus, the True North!