We weren’t prepared for this. Certainly “for better or worse” sounded so romantically bittersweet. I’m not sure many of those entering into a lifetime of marriage say those words and think of being worse in a way they cannot see. “In sickness and in health“—a deathbed, an epic medical failure, a withered body with a hand to hold. We take our vows and imagine the contrast of these words will not be tested until our relationship has matured through the decades. But we know better than that now, don’t we?
The truth is, I’m broken in a way we cannot see, you cannot understand, and I cannot fix.
This hurts, and it’s painful in a way we’ve never known. And as I battle with a broken mind, you battle with a broken heart, feeling helpless and confused from the weight of it all. Together in our brokenness we feel through the dark, searching for answers but arriving only at one: this is the journey He has given us to endure together.
“My eyes are blinded by my tears. Each day I beg for your help, O LORD; I lift my hands to you for mercy.” {Psalm 88:9}
Of all the people who have seen how I fight, you’re the one who sees how I lose. The anger. The crying. The silence. The sorrow. The cycles. And oh, how I pray. I read. I study and meditate and memorize and fast. I confess and repent and plea and seek. I calculate and document and strategize and equip. The battleground of my mind is soaked with the blood of the Lamb—with every blow of the curse comes the swell of the gospel in its place. Battered and beaten I march in the trenches, wet from the streams of red mercy which flow from His side.
And this is the bride you were given. And this battle is for a party of five.
You, me, the Holy Trinity. It’s no mistake that the worst of me is meant to bring out the Christ in us. Together we are one flesh (Mark 10:8), and this flesh—however weak—is what keeps us together. Paul writes,
“In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. Indeed, no one ever hated his own body, but he nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church.” {Ephesians 5:8-9}
This one flesh, this broken mind and broken heart, we are to nourish and cherish as best we possibly can this side of heaven, leaving the rest up the God’s good plan and purpose. Yes, he can save us from this fiery furnace, but even if he does not, whom else have we in heaven but One who paved our path to its gates?
If there was another way to sanctify this one flesh of ours…oh, if there was another way. Do Jesus’ words ring loud in your ear yet?
“My Father! If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.” {Matthew 26:39}
This is what he has chosen for now, for the good of our one broken flesh. Somehow this chronic trial is also what he has designed for you all along—this is our brokenness, and together we limp to the cross for our hope and restoration. Indeed two are better than one.
