My marriage will always come before my kids. It’s a vow I made on my wedding day and it’s a vow I’m living in the every day. It’s a promise to guard my heart, attitudes, and words toward my husband – my daughter’s father – because her happiness depends on it.
Legalistic parenting is common not because parents hold ill-will toward their children, but because legalism is the easy route. It’s much easier to follow rules than to walk daily in faith, and it’s much easier to parent based on fear and control than complete trust in Jesus Christ.
We’ve celebrated marriage as the haven for God-defined sexuality that it is, but we’ve forgotten something. We’ve forgotten that marriage can’t fix a lust problem.
Perhaps the most beautiful thing about our wedding day is this: it wasn’t the best day of our lives. It was beautiful, special, and monumental in its significance, but each year we spend together and each challenge we face brings deeper joy than we felt back then. The wedding is just a day. Marriage is a lifetime. It only gets better with age.
God tempts no one (Jas. 1:13), but His good gifts can be used for evil if our hearts are not on guard. Marriage – a holy relationship reflecting Christ and the church – is one of Satan’s primary targets. If he can make Christian women idolize marriage before they have it, he can destroy that marriage once they do.