Gray hair is a crown of glory; it is gained in a righteous life.
PROVERBS 16:31
It’s always good to learn from others who have experienced things before us. When you want to purchase a new computer or television, for example, you can go online and read reviews of the items that interest you. In the same way, you can learn from the wisdom of those who are truly “golden” and have built marriages that have lasted 50 years or more. Get a cup of coffee or tea and listen to some sage counsel:
“Bill and I have learned that God has a plan for our lives, and when we realize that He’s in control of all circumstances, it has a calming effect.”
“You need to have an attitude that you’re going to be committed to marriage no matter what it takes. I’m just a firm believer that you have to be committed to marriage and to each other.
And if you both love Christ and are conscientious about your conduct, knowing that you will have to give an account to Christ, I think that makes a huge difference in a person’s life.”
“In marriage you learn that God uses crooked sticks to draw straight lines!”
“God has used the hard times in our lives to draw us closer to Him and to help us depend on Him.”
“If a husband is willing to come to his wife and ask for forgiveness, she should forgive him. Of course it might stay with her for a while, but after a while it won’t worry her any more. When you forgive somebody you have to let it go. We have to forgive each other because God forgave us.”
“Just have faith in the Lord and pray. Couples that pray together stay together. We rely on the Scripture: ‘Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths.’”
When I read quotes like these, two themes usually run through them. The first is that many of these couples—married at a time when divorce was not nearly as common as it is today—considered marriage a covenant, a lifetime commitment. Period. No escape hatches. No prenuptial agreements. No bail-out clauses. There were “in it to win it!” As one couple said, “We don’t think of ourselves as being special. I don’t feel like I’m special and don’t think Glen does either. We got married and we’re just supposed to stay married.”
The other theme is the necessity of a strong commitment to Christ when working through the inevitable struggles of a lifelong relationship. Paul and Mona Sproull, for example, had been married 58 years when they were interviewed. But when they first married, Mona recalled, “We didn’t realize that we were two very sinful people who needed a Savior.”
One of Paul’s problems from the outset was that he didn’t know how to show affection. Even when he became a Christian a few months after they were married, he had trouble loving Mona with a Christ-like love. She told him, “I don’t know how you can love God when you don’t even know how to love me.”
Four years later, she says she was “loaded down with a weight of sin and never felt rested.” Then she saw a road sign that said, “Are you tired of living in sin?”
“My, oh, my, was I tired,” she recalled. “Too tired for a 24-year-old. I stopped the car and cried my way through to His grace. Life changed for us at that time.”
But they still faced many rocky years in their marriage relationship. Mona said, “Now that we are old, . . . we see how we hindered the Spirit for a lot of years when we didn’t go to church and take God seriously.”
Paul added, “For the first 31 years of our marriage, I had one of the world’s worst tempers. I ruined automobile transmissions, broke equipment and doors—all out of anger. In 1979 I asked Christ to take complete control of my life and got deliverance from my temper, alcohol, cigarettes, you name it. . . . I am so grateful.”
Even during the difficult years, the Sproulls clung to their marriage, and in their twilight years they were enjoying the benefits. “Today, Mona and I think about love in a far different vernacular than most people,” Paul said, “We think of each other as the greatest things since Pepsi Cola, and there’s no place in our marriage for anything but total commitment to one another and to God.”
Discuss Special project: This little assignment could be one of the biggest payoffs in this book. You are about to embark on the journey of a lifetime—marriage—and you can benefit from the wisdom of couples who are have traveled to the other end of the road. Find two or three couples in your family or church who have been married 40 years or more. Ask if you can bring dinner (maybe a pizza, but ask first) to their house and have them share their stories with you. Devise your own Top 10 List of questions, but be sure to include these three:
Of all the things you are told to do in this book, this little assignment could have the biggest payoff, so take it seriously