Reblog: Let’s be still

( I’d only like to add this: Marriage is much more than a longing for security and permanence. It’s nothing so fleeting and deceptive–only it’s beginning to become that.

What I’m about to say is something that a lot of people don’t believe. It’s a very controversial statement and a lot of people are going to hate me for saying it. But it’s something I do believe needs to be said.

Marriage is important.

The seasons pass away, and the world around us “changes and fails,” and our lives undergo alterations. We become different people. But through it all, day after day, season after season, the sun still shines, the moon is still there. Summer or winter, there is still day, there is still night. There will be clouds that cover the light–but the light is still there.

That’s what marriage is really about. It’s the permanence amidst change. You are the one constant in your own life; the person you marry should be the person you can rely on as that second constant. You can’t choose who you love, but it’s your choice who you marry. That person should be your sun and your moon.

The words “through sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, for as long as we both shall live, till death do we part,” still matter. There’s a gravity in those words, and they shouldn’t be spoken unless you mean them. Your spouse should be someone you can rely on, and someone who can look to you as their sun and moon.

Marrying someone you can’t trust, no matter how much you may love them, is asking for your tree, “ancient and huge,” to fall and decay. Don’t look for permanence where it can’t be found. Don’t pretend it’s there when it’s not. Be still. Wait for it.

That said, this is a beautiful article well worth reading. )

candidkay

I was probably all of six years old, crying, as my mother packed her suitcase. She was going to her uncle’s funeral and leaving me home for a few days. I cried and begged to go, not so much because the funeral interested me but because I wanted my mother. I wanted permanence. Her presence, like a rock, always there.

I held on to a soooooo-over relationship in my twenties, one that didn’t really even make me happy anymore. Not so much because I couldn’t live without this man (obviously I could, I’m still kicking) but because I had engraved in my mind that he was IT. And I wanted the permanence of his presence, of that surety.

I watch friends hold on to marriages because of this same longing for something that lasts. Doesn’t matter if he drinks, does drugs, loses the family savings, kills her with his sarcasm…

View original post 377 more words