A glorious journey
August 24, 2023
By Jeff Becraft
One of the statements I utter the most these days is: “Well… you see what my wife lives with.”
I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that my wife and I were celebrating our 38th wedding anniversary. And I made the comment that it has been a glorious journey. And that is true. It has been a glorious journey. That doesn’t mean it has all been smooth and easy; there’s been the good, the bad and the ugly.
Now, I know that there are some married couples out there that it’s like something out of Cinderella or some other fairy tale story… where they just seem to not have any problems, not have any issues. They seem to just totally get along with one another all the time. And maybe you know some married couples like that, too. Yeah, I want to punch those people in the throat.
It hasn’t been that way for Brenda and I and it’s not that way for most married couples. The word glory many, many times is associated with sacrifice and suffering. Without suffering, there’s not the glory.
But when you walk through the good, the bad and the ugly together… then that’s where the glory is. That’s where true love is really seen.
One time there was a young, engaged couple that were at a camp and I had not met the guy yet. But I knew the woman. Not real well but we would see her about once a year at this one camp. She said to me, “Oh, I’m engaged! And I want you to meet my fiance’.” So, she takes me over and I meet him. We’re getting ready to head into breakfast; we’re standing out on this gravel road outside the picnic shelter and I just say to them, “Hey, your marriage is not for your happiness. You might think it is… but happiness is a byproduct. If you will learn to love one another and lay down your life for one another every day, whether you feel like it or not or whether the other person deserves it or not… but you simply lay down your life for them and love them with all you’ve got… that’s where the glory is. That’s when the world will see what true love is.”
Well, they just kind of stood there wide eyed… and I kind of just walked off into the picnic shelter to have breakfast. I left them there kind of semi-stunned and I was thinking to myself, “I wonder what they’re thinking – ‘Who is this guy who we hardly know and he blurts out this podcast… and we weren’t even looking for that?’”
It’s very interesting that a year later, we’re back at the same camp. It’s a weekend camp and we are sitting down for breakfast. This woman is sitting at the picnic table that several of us are sitting at and she’s right across from me. She then says, “I want you to know that the conversation you had with us on the gravel road back there a year ago… we have gone back to that many times in our first year of marriage.”
And so, a lot of times we look at marriage and we look at it as compatibility. I can tell you right now, Brenda and I are not compatible. But I love her more than anyone else on the planet. We do almost everything differently. If we are working in the yard at our house, we work in two different sections of the yard… because we will do it so differently. We’re not married for 38 years because we’re compatible — we’re married for 38 years… and this is where the beauty comes in… because we’re committed to one another. Love is not just a feeling; that’s being in love. Love is a choice. And when we choose to love the other person and you walk through the valleys together, that’s where the glory is. That’s where the beauty really shines forth. It’s not that marriage is an easy road… but it is a glorious road.
Dan Crawford stated, “There is no high hill but beside some deep valley. There is no birth without a pang.”
It’s a great day to love unconditionally today!
Jeff Becraft is the Interim Director of Our Place of Hope and the Director Emeritus for Youth Corps and has dedicated much of his life to helping shift the vision of people’s lives. Youth Corps is a life-changing leadership development experience that inspires high school students to be leaders in the Midlands and beyond. You can connect with Jeff at [email protected].
