Marriage is a covenant between you, your spouse, and the Creator.

No marriage is perfect. It's two sinners loving each other and forgiving each other.

You don't do alone time or private time in marriage. You and your spouse are one flesh. Hang out together.

If you don't keep adding wood to the fire, it goes out. 

Love covers a multitude of sins.

No husband loves his wife like Christ loves the church. He should, but he doesn't.

Have a lot of sex. Then have some more.

Listen to people who've been married for 50 plus years. They gotta know something.

Hold your wife's hand. She likes that.

Don't let yourself go. Nobody's gettin' any younger, but that don't mean we quit combing our hair.

Love keeps no record of wrongs. 

Marriage ain't about making yourself happy. It's about being happy, together.

Drink wine together. The good stuff.

Make anniversaries special.

Repent openly.

Don't stop kissing.

Tell him/her "I love you" and let 'em know you mean it.

Get over the small stuff. Neither of you have it all together.

Open her car door guys.

Pray together, and for each other.

Go to church.

Forgive. Don't bring up the past.

Laugh together. Cry together. Laugh some more together.

Anybody can slow dance. Do it.

Go on dates. Leave your phone in the car.

If you've lived long enough you've experienced pain. I remember the day when I would play outside, and not a worry would go by. If I got hurt, my mom would come and bandage me. Those are the days, that as adults, have come and gone.

You can browse the Internet and find tons of pictures that talk about how others will let you down. Just about every single one is evidence of the self-righteousness that exists in all of us humans. I saw one that said "F-ck everyone who has 
let me down." The next one said, "Don't trust everyone else. Believe in yourself." Another read, "Move on from people who let you down." The problem with every one of these is that they describe ALL of us. There's not one of us who has never let down someone.

Yes, people will let you down, and I am a PEOPLE. You are a PEOPLE. 

Yet in our Pharisee-bent-mind it makes us feel better to harp on other people who have let us down, and trick ourself into thinking "I've never disappointed anyone." Better yet we might even believe the self told lie, "That was me when I was younger, but I don't disappoint anyone anymore." Yea right. You and I both know that's a big, fat lie.

We are going to let people down. Our kids, our spouse, our boss, our employee, our friends, our family. It's not a good thing. It's a bad thing. It's just that we forget that there is none of us who are good. 

Life is not about forsaking those who have let you down, it's about learning to show grace, love, and forgiveness to those who let you down. Christ died for you, a sinner. An enemy of the Father. You did not deserve to be died for, that's what grace is all about. When people let us down in life, the most Christ-like thing you could ever do is forgive them. 

"But..." 

You know, I can throw out as many buts as you can, but Christ could have to. Yeshua could have said, "But Father, he doesn't deserve this," and he would be right. We don't deserve what's been done for us.

Recently, I've kept going back to the parable of the prodigal son. You know, the son that let down his dad (Luke 15). Many sons have let down their dad. Many dads have let down their son. One of the things the parable teaches us though (on top of the fact that Christ doesn't let us down) is this: love loves in spite of what wrong someone does to us. Love keeps on loving when someone else has spit in your face. 

I typed out "Love is patient" the other day on my computer. I printed it out and hung it on my fridge. I needed the reminder when dealing with my children. The next morning I woke up to find that my wife had written on it in pen: "Love never fails." I've let my wife down many times in the almost 17 years we've been married. She's shown Christ to me.

We are all let downs. You can act like you're not if you choose. I'd rather be honest and open about my failures. I'm not Yeshua the unblemished lamb. I'm the cripple 3-legged, one-eyed goat with the runs. Yet he loves me, and he helps me, and he forgives me even though I'm a let down.

The sooner you admit that you are a let down too, the sooner you will begin to be healed to any degree. The sooner you realize that Christ loved you in your "let down" state, the sooner you will be ready to love others when they let you down. 

Love NEVER fails. 

-MJ