I have been meditating on a few verses in the Bible about resilience and thriving in hard circumstances. It made me think of why some marriages thrive and others continue to struggle. Let's face it, life can be hard on any marriage. There are bills to pay, kids to raise, pressures to navigate with jobs and relatives that drain any reserve of love and joy a couple has. The marriages that thrive have found the "secret sauce" of learning to go deeper than the pressures that surround them. Stress and pressure will come and go, but what is going on under the surface of that marriage is what will keep it strong. Jeremiah 17:7-8 gives the imagery of a tree planted along the riverbank. The roots reach deep into the water. Even when there are long months of drought, even when the tree is exposed to "extreme heat" it is not worried or bothered and continues to stay green.
“But blessed are those who trust in the Lord
and have made the Lord their hope and confidence.
They are like trees planted along a riverbank,
with roots that reach deep into the water.
Such trees are not bothered by the heat
or worried by long months of drought.
Their leaves stay green,
and they never stop producing fruit.
In his book Resilient, John Eldredge, he writes, "You need to make plans to replenish your reserves. The math is simple. Reserves are replenished when there’s more coming in than there is going out."
The couples that have a marriage they love, have a marriage that thrives, have learned to replenish their reserves. They take time to rest, to connect with God, to have fun, laugh together even when all around them is chaotic. Their roots individually and as a couple reach deep into the water, so deep that the draining circumstances pressing against their marriage do not touch the deep connection they have with God and each other. The couples who thrive protect their marriage by going deep. The result is their "leaves stay green" - their love stays tender, their relationship meaningful, their friendship fun.
Dave and I have been married for 38 years. We have been practicing this habit of making sure our "roots go deep" because we love each other and want our marriage to thrive and not wilt under the weight of all the pressures. We daily connect with each other, weekly take a fun date, get away several times a year to rest, and go deep in God daily, WHO is the greatest source of resilience for any marriage.
God is the fuel the human soul runs on. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. C. S. Lewis
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