'Til death do us part

I've have many encounters over the last week with different married couples. One of them has been long, fruitful, and happy, and it is nearing the end as one spouse is in the process of dying. I've sat with this couple and heard stories told and watched these years together culminate in a quiet waiting and watching, a being with until the very end. In one sense it is utterly heartbreaking to be with this man as he waits with his life-long sweetheart as she dies, and in another sense it is beautiful and natural even in its sadness. "I have absolutely no regrets" he told me at one point. "Every good thing that has ever happened to me has been because of her." I wonder how many people can say that and mean it like I see that he does?

Today I spent some time with my aunt and uncle who have also been married a while (longer than I've been alive). As they deal with my uncle's fight with cancer, it is again heartbreaking and holy to witness all the years of marriage that they bring with them to this point and to see how those holy moments together have formed and shaped them to walk this part of the journey together.

I've also spent time in counseling with a couple who's marriage is in trouble and with another couple in pre-marital counseling, talking about a marriage that is only beginning. There's a prayer that I pray with all couples in premarital counseling that asks God to help them "be worthy of each others' best and tender with each other's dreams". And I see that the common denominator in these long-lived, happy marriages has been an awareness that each one holds the other's heart in his or her hand and he or she is careful with that honor.

Now, I'm the first to recognize how challenging that can be to live into on a daily basis: when there are groceries to be bought, meals to be prepared, children to be cared for, laundry to be done. In the midst of the chaos of life, sometimes it's all we can do just to keep our heads above water. And yet, that's just not enough. To thrive in this fearful, holy, amazing, and life-giving journey of being married, of holding another's heart in one's hands, two people must be careful of the other at all times, and they must be aware of the honor that it is.

May God give all married people the grace and the ability to live out our common lives together and as the end of our time on this earth draws near to be able to say, "I have absolutely no regrets."