Better Than Before

One of the best features of a good and growing marriage is that your spouse inspires you to be better than you are today.

This can be a painful process.  Being better tomorrow requires you to look at yourself -- with all your faults and mishaps -- today.  Marriages where the two just high-five each other all the time and excuse the other's sin are unhealthy ones.

We all know some like this.  The two people have major sin issues, like say, anger, and every body in the universe knows except the two people! They are either completely blind to the fact that they married an angry lunatic or they cover over all their partner's sins with rationalization.

That is a really dysfunctional way to live, people.  If you know a married person who cannot honestly name areas in their spouse's life that need changing, you are witnesssing one of these couples.  Everyone in the world is wrong, but their husband.  All the other women in the church gossip, except their wife.  This is not normal, not healthy, and not a safe place to be. Being oblivious to one another's weaknesses and faults is not a wholesome psychological state. It is skewed. It is biased. It is ignorant and wrong.

I want to be in a marriage where if I am going off the deep end, he lovingly and privately, um, hello, tells me! He tries to save me from myself.  He tries to bring me up higher.  Why wouldn't you want this?  The only reason I could think of is that it is easier to stay the wretched slob you are than to change. I know that must be a law of physics somewhere (if not from Newton).

Certain people in our lives makes us want to be better people.  They bring out the best in us, not the worst. They model integrity and courage.  And courage hurts.  Courage is doing the right thing when you're afraid.

It takes courage for my husband to tell me that I am overreacting to a simple discipline issue with one of our kids. It takes courage for me to tell him he must forgive his brother who hurt him, even though we agree he doesn't deserve the forgiveness. (Did we deserve Christ's forgiveness?)  It took courage, when my husband and I were terribly wronged on a vacation in Florida, to quietly leave the key in the room and pack our things and leave. Honest moment here : I was prepared for WWIII.  Don't think I couldn't go over there, to the home of these people, who committed multiple "crimes and misdemeanors" against us and read them the riot act. But it wasn't the right thing to do. (A few months later, we heard that the husband died fixing a car when the car fell on top of him and pinned him for hours in his garage.) How would I have felt if Andy would not have corrected my attitude and what would have been my bad behavior? I have looked back on that incident with gratitude for my husband ever since. He stopped me with loving correction. He had the guts to tell me there was a better way to handle things.

I have a relative by marriage whose husband endured one of the worst possible things in life that can happen to a human being: his brother was kidnapped, probably tortured, and killed by one of history's most vile serial killers -- John Wayne Gacy.  He and his family spent thousands of dollars and months of their lives looking across the country in cult groups, at concerts, and other events young people attend to find his brother, who they hoped was a runaway, to no avail.

Finally, they were told his remains were among the others unearthed in Gacy's basement of horror.  This relative had the courage and integrity to approach her husband (the victim's brother!) and lovingly say, "You know Christ died for Gacy too, and we have to forgive him for what he did."  Instead of the reaction you would expect, her husband simply said, "I know."  I have been a Christian for years, and I will honestly tell you that would be a struggle of mammoth proportions for me, though I know forgiveness is God's will for us.

But, if you're one of those blind mates who sees no fault or sin in your partner, you will never confront or  challenge that person to be better, or to reflect Christ more.  And then I will tell you candidly, that you are part of the problem. And, until a little piece of you begins to actually enjoy the process of being dragged kicking and screaming to the altar of your own ego, you will not change and you will not improve.