How do you deal with disappointment and difficulty in marriage?

If you have been married for any length of time, you have had to learn how to deal with disappointment and difficulty in living together as a married couple working hard to keep your vows. This morning I am in the midst of finalizing a wedding ceremony and came across a wonderful challenge to married men from Jack Taylor. It came from a talk that I had previously prepared when I was a rising senior in college while serving with Campus Crusade for Christ in Tokyo, Japan in 1983.

He writes: “Don’t love her (your wife) for what she appears to be, but for what she will be when He appears.” The Apostle John tells us in his epistle: “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he (Jesus) appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.” (1 John 3:2) Everything you do in your marriage is for the purpose of helping to prepare your wife for this moment when she will be like her Lord – made whole and completely glorified and set free to serve and worship her Savior without hindrance and limitation.

C.S.Lewis writes in his wonderful treatise ‘The Weight of Glory:’

“There are no ordinary people. You’ve never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization, these are mortal and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. It’s a serious thing to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to, may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship. Or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, with the awe and circumspection proper to them that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, loves, play, and politics. Next to the Blessed Sacrament, your neighbor (in this case, your wife) is the holiest object presented to your senses.”