eMatrimony.org

Supporting, Encouraging, and Challenging the WWME Community

  Resources - Miscellaneous

A New Beginning

Eddie Bowab

Each year on January 1st we tend to set goals for the year ahead. It seems easy to make dedicated commitments toward a new lifestyle, diet, and exercise. However, as the newness of these commitments begins to become habit, we have a tendency to become complacent and lose the enthusiasm we had at the beginning. This, too, seems to be the path we follow in marriage.

In marriage, it is easy to become distracted from our real goal because life presents many new distractions all around us. Our jobs, our families, rooms to be cleaned, bills to be paid and even schooling can become distractions from what is really important in our lives - loving God.

"LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND." "THIS IS THE FIRST AND GREATEST COMMANDMENT." (Matthew 22:37-38)

This is what we should be doing all the time. But how, how do we maintain our focus? We must decide what is most important to us by asking God to help keep our priorities in the right order. We should also bring God with us into everything and find a way to turn our activities into a service to the Lord.

God's love is not coercive. Gifted with freedom, we can turn away from the divine mystery. When we allow the distractions in our lives to alienate or divide, we enter the realm of darkness and both our personal lives and marriages can suffer. Therefore, we should always strive to accept God's love in all we do. God, who is love, is always compassionate and filled with light and life. Having Him in our lives allows us to experience, in freedom, the source of all peace and joy.

Marriage is the culmination of two people agreeing that they want to commit their lives to each other before God. When a man and woman desire to become one flesh their rite of passage is manifested in the form of a ceremony performed by a priest or preacher; and in this ceremony a marriage is a marriage before God. God is the one who created marriage (Genesis 2:18-25). In the act of marriage, when a couple professes their love to one another before Christ, they too become a new creation.

We married people need to do everything possible to insure that our marriages are based on Christ and lived out according to the principles the Church gives us. Marriage is a state of continual self-giving - it is a holy state. Marriage is the place our Lord will work to sanctify us. It is a life of generosity and lived love. We should make it our goal to model real love, and real marriage, to the world AND to our children. We need to let our marriage provide others the opportunity to understand, through word and deed, that following Christ means a life of loving sacrifice - no matter our vocation. We should allow them to see faithfulness in action.

".BE FAITHFUL, EVEN TO THE POINT OF DEATH, AND I WILL GIVE YOU THE CROWN OF LIFE." (Revelation 2:10)

"I LOVE THOSE WHO LOVE ME, AND THOSE WHO SEEK ME DILIGENTLY WILL FIND ME." (Proverbs 8:17)

Just as we set new goals each New Year, we should make it our goal in marriage to live each day as God's gift of a new beginning. We should work together each given day to openly show, not only our love and commitment to each other, but also, to express our love, acceptance and commitment to God.

"AND HE WILL LOVE YOU AND BLESS YOU" (Deuteronomy 7:13)

Click here for a printable version (PDF, 8KB)