opening my marriage.
Marriage remains a contentious conversation in today's culture. When we look back to Jesus's time, it was a difficult conversation then too. Marriage has always been an area where man has taken God's design and said, not your way God, my way. As we look ahead to the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima we cannot overlook the warning of St. Lucia, that the final battle will be over the family and marriage… I’d say she was on point.
For me, understanding marriage has been a journey. I was married at 19, I was pregnant, we were on the beach. I didn't say my vows in a church because I didn't think much about God's thoughts on my marriage or plans. I said vows before my family, friends, the ocean, and a kind man who signed our papers and sent us off to eat cake and dance the night away.
Over the years, our marriage was messy. War and wounds, children and anniversaries, Many, if not most of the couples around us, were divorcing. Wandering in a depression about 10 years later, I crawled back into a Catholic Church and found myself, quite literally, sobbing at the foot of the Cross. There was a beautiful crucifix in the side chapel of my local church. There I sat, on the floor, before our Lord. It had been so long. I was so lost. My heart hurt in ways I couldn't understand. The groans of my pain spilled out of me. For so long, I had lived the mantra, not your way, God, my way, and here is where it got me.
That day, I cracked open the door to my heart and to our marriage and invited the Lord in (not as a joyful host, but as a miserable slob who needed help sorting through a mess). Not too long after I begged God for His mercy and help, I was invited to a beautiful Bible study of young moms. I began to learn about my faith with a thirst that I can't explain. Praying with other women, spending time in Scripture, discussing God's design and His desires for my heart — I had never done that before, and it was transformative. I started to learn about marriage, my femininity, and his masculinity — not as dueling strengths and weaknesses — but as two complementary parts that were made to become one.
I started to understand marriage because I began to understand what Christ did for us on the Cross. Christ freely and totally entered into His passion so that He could lead us to heaven. My job, as my husband's spouse, is to lead him to heaven. From Genesis to Revelation, dust to salvation, marriage has always been the lens through which the faithful can understand Christ's work on the Cross — salvation as His spousal gift for His beloved – us.
When I say, God's plan for marriage is written into our very bodies, I mean this in a dramatically precise way. The thumbprint of intelligent design is pressed within each of the 30 trillion cells that come together in scientific genius. Within this divine precision, there is a whole part of us that doesn't make sense without another. My femininity, and all that it entails, only reaches its final end when it unites itself with the masculine in a free, total, faithful, fruitful gift of self.
I know that a marriage like this was an impossibility, but for God's grace. If I was going to love my husband the way he deserved, and God commanded, we needed to open our marriage to include God.
In a small ceremony in that same chapel, before that same crucifix where I poured my heart all over the floor, we exchanged vows and formally invited God into our marriage. I finally had the courage to say, not my way, God — your way.
Marriage is not a construct of man. Created just breaths after the sun and moon, God's design for marriage can no more be redefined than we can redefine how the moon pulls on the tides or how the Earth circles the sun! When we try to redefine it, we are making a declaration that His design is irrelevant. When we do this we close the door to His healing salve and tender mercy and find ourselves wounded and wandering.
Every one of us is called to live out the spousal love of marriage. Sometimes this looks like uniting ourselves intimately and exclusively with Christ, often it means man and woman entering into a sacramental marriage together with God.
When we feel different, when we desire something different, we must resist the temptation to redefine God's plan. Instead, we must allow Him to enter into what we're feeling —our desires, our longings, our pain, and confusions — and help us make sense of who He created us to be and how we can flourish within His perfect design.
This week, our Pray, Grow, & Serve explores the Spiritual Works of Mercy, Our Lady of Fatima, and a special prayer for families and marriage! Download our Pray, Grow, and Serve below to help you in this conversation with your kiddos!
