The other night, I was working through some of the comment sections on a Bible study group I follow online.

Someone had posted a simple thought about difficult relationships and knowing when to move on.  My mind had immediately gone to friendships that change over time, those that last despite the changes, those that grow and adjust, and those that just end.  It just happens.

Never, though, did I stop and think that it applied to marriage… until I read the comments.  Woman after woman posted, telling about suffering marriages, hurts, separations, wrongs done, divorces. 

And it made me really sad.  One woman was very young, and her marriage was only a few years old.  She said that her husband had moved out but that they were going to have Christmas together with their families to try and keep up appearances until after the holidays.  I thought about how hard that would be and just cringed at the advice she was given by other posters — that sometimes relationships change.  And that sometimes they need to end.

I’m not naïve enough to think that life doesn’t happen, that things don’t go wrong, and that marriages don’t end.  But this is marriage.  And it was and is so sad to me that this woman felt she was reaching an inevitable end, that the relationship was changing because the people in it weren’t willing to change themselves to make it work.

Even though she was willing… he wasn’t.  And they were at a point where moving forward seemed impossible, leaving her to conclude that there was no solution but saying goodbye.

I thought about this, blinking back tears, knowing that it takes BOTH people to make marriage work… and sometimes, it just doesn’t happen. 

As I was sitting there, thanking God that it’s all grace that I don’t find myself in the same position because I have a husband who would change everything about our lives together for the sake of keeping us together as us, Wes asked, without any clue as to what I was reading or thinking about, “So, marathons for the spring of 2015… what do you think about Little Rock?”

There are women who can’t count on tomorrow with their men… and Wes is counting on many, many tomorrows with me.  (Granted, they involve a lot of miles, but I’ll take them.)  I was so moved that I went over to where he was lying on the couch, laid next to him, put my arms around him, kissed him, and told him, “I love you.”

He assumed this meant that Little Rock in 2015 is a go.  It SO is.  Anywhere he wants to go — I’m right there, too.

So thankful for grace even in this and for a man who loves and wants to honor Him in everything, most especially in our marriage.  Thankful for the reminders to be thankful because life doesn’t always work out like we hope it will…