Now I wonder if I had any idea of what I was promising. I was a starry-eyed 21 year old gazing into the mesmerizingly blue eyes of my beautiful 19 year old bride. We were young. We were in love. After several years of being high school and college sweethearts, we were convinced that we were ready to get married.
And, on that warm first day of summer long ago, standing before 200 of our friends and family, I promised, “I, Larry, take you, Gladine, to be my wedded wife. To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness or in health, to love and to cherish till death do us part.”
The years have come and gone. Now we are in our “seasoned” years. Life is different than it was years ago. I’ve changed. My wife has changed–and so has our marriage. We face different issues than we did as a young married couple, issues that we didn’t really think about that much–if at all–in the early years of our journey together.
Our kids are grown and gone. Where do we learn how to build a healthy relationship with our adult kids who, understandably, are living their own lives independently from ours? And though we may not have the same financial challenges of our younger years in trying to get established financially, we now wonder if we have saved enough money for our later years. Will we outlive our nest egg?
Another challenge that many couples in the second half of life face: where is the “fire” that characterized the first months and years of our marriage? The red hot passion of the honeymoon era is now a nostalgic memory–like a long-lost friend that we wonder if we could ever reconnect with. How are we supposed to learn how to resist the marital monotony that seems to characterize the relationship of many couples in this season of life?
And, as we gradually transition from our middle years into our older years, we come face-to-face with other questions. How does the Lord want us to think about retirement? And, what would be a God-honoring response to the many losses that come with aging–loss of physical health and strength? The gradual depletion of our financial savings? Loss of long-held jobs and ministries? Loss of the ability to live independently? Loss of friends who have preceded us to glory? And, how are supposed to prepare for the end of our own life–or that of our spouse?
We married couples encounter so many challenges, so many questions, in the middle years and beyond that we didn’t think about in our early years together. It’s doubtful that many of us were strategically trained in our younger years in knowing how to face the issues that will almost surely arise in our marriages as we journey into the second half of life. Many seasoned couples assume that their marriages are stuck in less-than-desirable ruts with little promise of positive change. The path ahead doesn’t look all that inviting. But, the good news is that we don’t have stay in our marital ruts. By God’s empowering grace, we can change. Our marriages can change. We can climb out of our marital ruts with grace-fueled hope. Strengthened by gospel hope, we can embrace God’s ultimate purpose for our marriages. God wants our marriages not only to survive, but to thrive as together we embrace the glorious mission of reflecting the greatest love story ever–the love that Christ has for his bride (Ephesians 5:32). God is for us. God is for our marriages. With the indwelling Holy Spirit’s help, we can commit to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18). And, as we continue to be transformed into the image of Christ as individual Christians and as a married couple, our reflection of Christ and his love for his bride should increasingly brighten, drawing people’s attention to our glorious Savior.
So, how does that work? How does the gospel give not only hope to seasoned marriages, but also provide help–practical, life-changing, marriage-sweetening help? All too often our marriages seem stalemated as each partner lives with the disappointment that our spouse isn’t loving us sufficiently. “If my spouse just loved me as they ought, then I would have sufficient love to give back to them.” And, each spouse waits for the other to make the first move. But the gospel breaks the stalemate by reminding each of us that our love for our spouse is not dependent on our spouse’s love for us. The simple yet profound truth of the gospel is, “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). Even if our marriages don’t dramatically change overnight, most will experience notable progress as husbands and wives realize the functional centrality of the gospel in their marriage. We can always have more than enough love for our spouses, not because their love for us is perfect, but because God’s love for us is perfect.
The gospel truth is that God loves us not because we deserve his love, but because Jesus Christ stands in our place through his perfect life and sacrificial death. That gospel truth provides the power we need to love our spouses. We can find daily help in our seasoned marriages when we apply God’s generous grace in these ways:
● Because of the gospel, we love because he first loved us (1 John 4:19).
● Because of the gospel, we can accept our spouse as Christ has accepted us, not
demanding certain changes to earn our acceptance (Romans 15:7).
● Because of the gospel, we can forgive our spouse’s sins against us as God in Christ
forgave us (Ephesians 4:32). Forgiven sinners forgive sinners.
● Because of the gospel, we have experienced the “perfect patience” of Jesus Christ (1
Timothy 1:16) and can, in turn, live with our spouse “with all humility and gentleness,
with patience, bearing with [our wife/husband] in love” (Ephesians 4:2).
● Because of the gospel, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in
Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). There is no need for us to be defensive every time we detect
imagined or even real criticism from our spouse. We are safe, not because of our own
perceived goodness, but because of the grace found in Jesus Christ on our behalf.
The gospel of Jesus Christ is rich in life-giving hope and life-changing help as we face the challenges that come in our seasoned marriages. Rather than feeling hopeless and helpless in seeing our spouse’s failures and our own, our eyes are drawn to the limitless, unfailing love that God has for us through Jesus Christ. We are generously loved by God and, therefore, our marriages can experience the sweetness of the gospel in our seasoned years.
And that is good news indeed!