My uncle used to tell me that marriage was like fellowshipping with God’s suffering! Perhaps intimidating advice as i was thinking of marrying, but still, after years, i got his point!
(Marital advice)

To birth a higher symbol, like marriage, you have to die to self many times daily. This is why my uncle’s marriage advice to me was to “fellowship with His Suffering”. At first it was intimidating, then i got what he meant. I’m going to need to lay down my life daily for this person’s growth and life to progress! Marriage is an opportunity to die often!

Still, love that he risked that advice. His other advice was: it’s easy to love someone, but much harder to like them the rest of your life! He had a humorous wisdom which has stuck with me over the years!

Yet, marriage is fellowship with suffering and many deaths daily, isn’t the kind of advice which would propel many towards life long intimacy. And yet…anything that can form you on that level, must be worth it! Anything which requires that much death, must perforce, lead to life!

Land is made fruitful through argument, as long as it leads into intimacy! Was other advice my wise uncle imparted! All funny, all somehow true.

Of course, the motivation for marriage has to be spiritual formation, otherwise, you would quit before you started! If you are just trying to get your needs met, forget it-go to a car wash. But if you want spiritual formation, hard to beat marriage. We are just learning to love one another down here, and marriage is still one of the most intense containers for that sort of learning! It really is the quickest way to spiritual growth, if you let it do it’s work on and in you!

There are many ways to die, but marriage is a good one.