I don’t even know where to begin this post but it’s been weighing heavily on my heart for quite some time now.  I want to talk about marriage today.

Marriage has never been easy kids.  Historically, marriage has been hard work.  Adam and Eve even knew it was tough to be married.  Sin has always been a dividing factor in marriages.  The bible tells us stories of deceit, adultery, even murder in marriage so this is obviously not a new trend.  But now, thanks to technology, it seems marriages have a whole new set of hurdles to jump.

I’m going to start by telling you a little bit about myself and my own marriage so that you don’t feel like I’ve got a perfectly easy marriage and have NO idea what I’m talking about in this struggle.  Dave and I got married 6 years ago after a very brief courtship.  We moved rather quickly and both of us just kind of knew we were headed towards marriage from the get go.  I think we only dated a couple of months when he moved in with me and we began discussing marriage.  We toyed with a spring time beach wedding  and I sent off for an information packet from the travel agent about our wedding in St. Lucia.  We hadn’t yet set a date but were thinking sometime in March.  Life had other plans though.  In July (7 months before our planned beach wedding), I learned I was pregnant.  Dave’s reaction to that positive pregnancy test made me want to marry him even more.  Neither of us ever thought “oh no, what the hell have we done”.  Well, I didn’t anyway, and if that’s what he was thinking, he masked it well!  lol  Anyhow, we decided to bump the wedding up to August and kiss our barefoot beach wedding goodbye.  Our wedding was a simple but lovely (if I say so myself) lake front wedding.  Only our family and a small group of best friends were there to witness our vows.  I would like to tell you it’s been all rainbows and butterflies since but I would be lying.  We love each other fiercely so it always works out but we’ve had a lot of odds stacked against us.  In addition to not knowing each other fully well and a sudden unexpected pregnancy, we had a whole handful of differences to sort through.  I was raised in church while Dave was not.  I had been married before and had a small child from that marriage while Dave, an often drunk soldier in the Army, had never so much as had a serious relationship in his life.   Those were just the obvious obstacles.   I suffered from depression and had suitcases of trust issues, insecurities, and fear of being hit due to my first marriage.  Dave had his own baggage of course including some post traumatic stress from his time in war.  Moral of the story is, our marriage is not a walk in the park.  It is hard.  It’s work.  Every.day.of.our.lives! We love hard, we fight hard.  When it comes down to it though, there is no one else on the planet that can make me smile and laugh like this man can.  There is no one else on the planet I would rather fight for and fight with.   Yes, my eyes glazed over for a second and I got butterflies talking about him so I would say that’s a sign he’s a keeper still.

What was the point in me telling you our life story you’re probably wondering?  Well, the point is that people always tell me how happy and in love we look.  And we are 85% of the time.  The other 15% of the time, we often want to strangle each other.  lol  But when we fight, I don’t rush to social media to be my counselor.  I don’t air out our dirty laundry and the sacred details of our marriage and our disagreements to hundreds of mostly strangers.  Marriage is a sacred union and when I divulge the inner workings and problems within our marriage to the world, I give them a piece of my marriage that isn’t theirs to have.  Does this mean when we have a huge blowout and I need some guidance and advice that I don’t tell anyone at all?  Nope, I have a handful of people that I fully trust to be on the side of my marriage to consult with.  I consult God fearing friends who I feel will tell me when I’m being ridiculous and over reacting or pray with me and for us until we get it worked out.  I consult friends who do not pass judgement on either myself or my husband who won’t just take MY side because they’re my friend but will always take the side of my marriage and our children.  Social media sites like twitter, Facebook, and instagram can very easily harm your marriage.

I get so worked up when I log onto Facebook and see things like “I married such a useless A-hole”,  “He thinks he’s gonna cheat on me and get away with it”, “I’m so hurt by what my husband did…”, “My wife is such a B****h”,  “I wish my wife would do this…”, “Too bad my wife doesn’t look like this or dress like this…”.  You get the point, you’ve all seen these types of posts.  The problem with posting things like this about your spouse is that it is a full on public stoning.   You may as well line up all the townspeople with rocks in hand ready to throw them at your spouse.  This is an absolute blatant disregard for the sacred union that marriage is supposed to be.  The covenant of marriage was made between you, your spouse, and God and was NOT made to include 800 of your best Facebook “friends”!  When you trash talk and break your husband/wife down in a public forum, you are telling others that your marriage is not that strong.  That your spouse and your marriage is not that important to you.  You are publicly declaring that Satan is winning in your marriage.  No, no, no people!  Don’t declare that!  When you’re facing problems in your marriage no matter what the magnitude, you run like hell to get some counsel from someone who will be on the side of your marriage and not a bunch of random people to fuel the drama fire.  Go to God with your problems not the internet!

Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.  Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them. -Colossians 3:18-19

In addition to social media sites giving troubled marriages a forum to bash one another, it also opens the gates of sexual sin.  I repeatedly see married men (and sometimes women) “liking” pages that are one step away from pornographic.  Y’all, please don’t disrespect your wife by liking “big booty hoes” or “dirty housewives” on Facebook.  Wives, please do NOT participate in MCM (man crush monday) if you plan on posting a photo of some shirtless sweaty man that is NOT your husband.  Have some respect for each other for Pete’s sake!  I don’t want to see it in my newsfeed and no matter how “cool” and “secure” your spouse is, they don’t want to see it either!!!!!!!!  The problem is, we live in a society that makes objectifying women and men okay.  We’ve made things like topless bars acceptable.  We patron “sports bars” and “restaurants” that boast scantily clad, bikini top, booty short wearing waitresses and bartenders.  We are buying into sex.  We are buying into adultery.  We’ve got smartphones and portable devices that make viewing XXX videos and photos on demand easier than making a phone call!  Satan is invading our marriages and we just let him kids!  We’ve smeared a very black and white subject into a grey area with technology and these types of establishments but I will tell you God does not see this grey area we’ve created.

But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. -Matthew 5:28

The moral of the story kids?  Look to God and not the world to guide you through your marriage.  Social media does not have the answers but HIS word surely does!  Love one another kids.  Forgive one another.  Do NOT publicly humiliate and bash one another.  Use social media to build your spouse up not tear them down!

I’ll leave you with this gushy picture of me dancing with my handsome husband on the dock on our wedding day.  I don’t always like you, but I’ll always love you.  Those dreamy eyes and contagious smile will forever put you at the top of my Man Crush Monday list!!!  ❤