A Bottomless Pit

So where does God fit in a marriage? Do I put God first or my hubby first? Of course occasionally my hubby wants to feel like a God, master of his domain etc. etc, but that aside is there room in a marriage for three? Him, me and God. In some ways, it may be easier to focus on God when you are single...channel that energy towards God, towards service, time for pray, time for reading, just time. I once had a friend tell me I spent way too much time in my own head. It think that was a subtle way of saying I spend too much time thinking about myself. He thought I should adopt a child so I would have someone else to think about. Instead I just got a new friend – seemed easier.... Anyway, now that I am married (again) seems I have very little time to think about myself. Of course I am heavily involved in ministry now, so I guess my outside focus is much more active than my inside focus. I also notice my Christian walk...my God Walk....is much more enhanced now. I need God more than I did before I was married. The struggle of living with another human day-in and day-out deepens my need for God. By personality type I struggle enough living day-to-day with the people around me (work, family, friends), but then to marry one....holy cow, that is an entirely different story.

When I was in my teens or twenties and wandering thru the dating world, my mother once told me that I was like a bottomless pit...I had high expectations that could never be fulfilled. I’ve thought about that for years. She may have been right (somewhat cruel sounding at the time, but ultimately right). I dated a lot...no one ever fulfilled me...most fell short, very short. I eventually married, nothing fulfilling there. Went back to single life...this is of course when I spent way too much time inward focused (isn’t that called narcissistic?). And then I met Mick, by far the closest anyone has ever come to meeting my expectations, to being truly fulfilling. It is so much the marriage, the man, the relationship that I have looked for, maybe even longed for my entire life. Bummer we didn’t meet until I was 45...would have been nice to add a few more years on the front end. Of course maybe we will live until we are 100 and then be truly sick of each other...who knows.

But I digress... so even with a man who really does fit almost perfectly, who meets so many of my expectations...who dare I say it...completes me (yuck!)...does God still come first? As I really ponder it, I believe it is probably not Mick that fulfills me or completes me. I think it is God working thru Mick, working in our marriage, our lives, our work. It is God filling that bottomless pit, bringing me up to a level that I can stand eye to eye with Mick and love him as he loves me, but both of us under the umbrella of God’s love – that is what truly binds up together. It is God that completes, that fulfills, that brings contentment and peace. God meets my needs. It is only when I forget this and think that I need to get all my needs, expectations and dreams met thru Mick, my husband that I’m truly disappointed. And what an unfair demand on Mick. I am asking him to do what only God can really do.