For the last 6 months, maybe longer, Levi and I have been struggling in our marriage. It had gotten so bad, in fact, that we had already informed our immediate families and closest friends that we did not intend to stay married. This was hard for us, particularly because we both still loved each other, but it was so overwhelming to try to find ourselves while walking alongside the other. I remember going to church with him and being approached by friends of his family asking, "How's married life?" We never had the heart to share the news with anyone, partly because of embarrassment, and partly because nothing had been made official.
Through all of our problems, we still made the effort to go to church together. This even became awkward at times. When you are looking at getting a divorce, it is uncomfortable to hear sermons that confront you with how to treat your spouse and God's intentions for marriage. Little did we know then that those sermons were the medicine to the ills of our marriage.
After a lot of heart-to-heart discussions with family, friends and each other, it became clear to us that God's plan for us was not to divorce, but to be more willing to love each other. We discovered that we had both been too proud and had not loved each other like God loves us. In marriage, we are called to love our spouse unconditionally. God pointed so many things out to us--the world has a broken vision of love that says, "If you love me, then I will love you back. If you treat me well, then I will treat you well back." This is not how marriage was intended to work. We have learned to approach each other with our "first and our best," another phrase that we picked up from the church services that we attended together.
A little over a month ago, we decided to try to make our relationship work again--BEST DECISION EVER! We officially told our family and friends a little over a week and a half ago, because we wanted to test drive our new relationship first, without the pressure of families and friends who were heartbroken about our separation. That is exactly how it feels, too--like a brand new relationship. I would say we are lucky to have figured it out for ourselves, but that would be incorrect. We are blessed to have the God of the universe taking time to heal our marriage for us because we were incapable of doing it for ourselves.
