'The true goal of marriage is not happiness but oneness. Jesus taught, 'So they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let no man separate.' Happiness is a by-product. However, seeking oneness is costly. It involves sacrifice of the ego, so human pride is crushed until it has no life of its own anymore’.
The above quote is by Dr Glenn Knecht from Fourth Presbyterian Church in Bethesda and was something I came across this weekend in my daily reading.
God’s blueprint for marriage is two becoming one, so by default ‘as we assert this unity in different practical ways, our marriage gets stronger and stronger’.
Yay or nay?
Genesis 2:24-25 talks about it very clearly:
That's why a man will leave his own father and mother. He marries a woman, and the two of them become like one person.
Although the man and his wife were both naked, they were not ashamed.
The nakedness talked about above, while a physical state, also refers to a mental state. They were both naked with each other and were not concerned about it. They had no secrets, they shared everything. All was out in the open and ‘and they were not ashamed’. What an awesome benchmark of oneness!
In the early part of our courtship Mr E gave me the password to his Yahoo email account. His words ‘we are together now, I have nothing to hide’. I was taken aback! I couldn’t believe that he would want to make himself so vulnerable to me. I turned around and offered my Facebook account! Pathetic I know, but baby steps right! I wasn’t ready to give my email info, not because I had anything to hide, but because I wasn’t ready for that level of oneness and didn’t deem it necessary at the time.
How wrong was my thinking! Two don’t become one the moment you reach the altar. The road to oneness starts long before you say ‘I Do’. It is these practical steps which reaffirm the choice to become one and strengthen your relationship.
Very often one thinks that there needs to be a back up plan, a get out clause {not out of the relationship, but out of the situation}, in case it doesn’t work out, so will not fully embrace it e.g. giving my Facebook info rather than my Gmail. I’m was holding back, ‘just in case’ and that is not how it should be.
Oneness is about jumping in head first, being willing to take the risk, willing to lose everything. It will challenge who you are, force and encourage you to let go of self and look at ‘we’, rather than ‘me’.
It is not easy but the rewards are great and ‘because one doesn’t become two, then it is secure and lasts for a lifetime. Out from this security of love and commitment, love, joy and peace easily grow’.
What practical steps have you taken in your relationship to achieve oneness, was it easy and what lessons did you learn?
p.s. Mr E now has access to my Gmail, Yahoo, Facebook, amongst other things – you get the picture!
Picture Credit {New Jerusalem Jewellery}
Quotes Credit {Foundations for Freedom}
