‘Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed. If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble. Likewise, two people lying close together can keep each other warm. But how can one be warm alone? A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken.’ Ecclesiastes 4:9-12(NLT)
‘Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever! Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture! But when the time of perfection comes, these partial things will become useless. When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely. Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.’ 1 Corinthians 13:4-13(NLT)
Scripture: Ecclesiastes 4:9–12; 1 Corinthians 13:4–13
When Gene and I (Carol) faced the devastating news that our son was in jail for murder, our marriage faced new challenges—to say the least. Our distress over Jason left us short-tempered, and we sometimes allowed little disagreements to escalate into full-blown arguments. Those disagreements often involved money: How would we ever afford the huge retainer for the highly recommended attorney we were considering? Should we empty our retirement accounts? Would we have to sell our home?
At other times, the awkwardness between us was over intimacy. I (Carol) couldn’t even think of enjoying the pleasure of making love with my husband while my son was in jail awaiting trial. Gene, on the other hand, believed if we ever needed the release and the closeness of physical intimacy, it was now.
We were both aware that we had a choice to make. Would we allow the stress of our son’s incarceration to tear us apart? Or would we stay together—no matter what—and learn how to let this experience make us not weaker but stronger?
A couple does not defeat a difficult life crisis by each angrily separating himself or herself from the other and trying to handle the crisis alone, resisting whatever efforts are made by the other. It doesn’t work that way.
You will not survive a devastating crisis unless you face it together. Unless you have each other’s back. Unless you live out Ecclesiastes 4:9–12 and help each other up when you fall (which you will). Unless you lay down together and keep the other warm. Unless you contribute your own cord to combine with your partner and the Lord to create a threefold cord that will withstand the power of this crisis and all other crises.
This requires a together-come-what-may, for-better-or-worse, in-sickness-and-in-health, for-richer-for-poorer kind of commitment. It’s the commitment you already made once, and it’s the one you have to recommit to now as the hurricanes of life sweep over your relationship.
When have circumstances caused you and your spouse to be impatient with each other? What has helped you see each other with more compassion during those times?
from Staying Power by Carol & Gene Kent and Cindy & David Lambert