Ever heard someone tell you that marriage is hard? Everyone says it. They will tell you that your first year is the worst, because that is exactly what you need to know while planning the biggest event of your life. Or that year three, five, seven or every year is the hardest yet and you will want to give up...because that reassures you as newly weds to hang in there, right? The matter of fact is that there are three types of people in the world, the kind who tell you it is hard, the kind who tell you it is not worth it and to stay single and the kind like the man who drove by as Kaitlin, Jordyn and I were taking bridals who said that marriage is the best thing you will ever do. Personally, I like his regards concerning marriage the best. Three weeks in makes me far from a master at this whole being married thing but I know I am not wrong. Marriage is not hard. It can't be.

Marriage is what God designed to give Adam a helpmate suitable for him, it is what God created so that a child may be born into a family unit. It is how God chose to redeem both women and men for generations. It is how Jesus and the church are depicted to the rest of the non-believing world. Therefore, let me say it again.

M A R R I A G E I S N O T H A R D.

What is hard is that your spouse is God's chosen tool of redemption and change for a sinner with a defiant soul (If that went over your head, let me clarify: your spouse is one of the tools that God will use to prune you to produce better fruit. After all, they are the first and most consistent person who sees, hears and witnesses the areas that your heart and life stray from the Lord. They are his tool of choice when it comes to administering grace and sometimes the oh so needed tough love). That my friends is the disguise that makes marriage seem hard. What is actually difficult and trying and frustrating is conducting a marriage of unity and grace and redemption amidst a fallen, broken world. No wonder we all love the Walking Dead. At least my husband and I do. We love the shows where the world is falling a part and one family or group of people beat out the darkness, overcome the brokenness and survive to give humanity a second chance. We love it because we love the gospel of Christ's redemption of this world, we just don't love the reality that we live after the redemption of the cross and before the redemption of the world. We live in brokenness. Our marriages and families are contacted daily by the grotesque, defiled, destructive world and we cant' figure out where the ugly comes from. H E L L O. Your marriage is not what is hard, your marriage is what saves you and redeems you. Your spouse is not the enemy, they are the tool in which God uses to defend you from the enemy. Confusing the two will make the journey very hard my friends.