Marriage isn’t a Snackin Cake®

The wedding cake is a significant element of the whole wedding celebration.  In fact, I’ve never been to a wedding were cutting the cake wasn’t included as part of the day.  I think it’s generally accepted as important because it’s the first task completed as a team.

There’s a rich metaphor found in the next action.  The first bite is eaten simultaneously from one another, rather than feeding self first which demonstrates selfishness.  This offer to feed our spouse first stands against selfishness: “I will put you first.  I will think of you before me.”  Let each of you esteem and look upon and be concerned for not [merely] his own interests, but also each for the interests of others. – Phil 2:4

Over the last few years I’ve developed a real love for making cheesecakes, not just eating them but watching others enjoy every bite.  There are nuances in making a successful cheesecake that are much like success in marriage.

We each bring our own ingredients into the kitchen – ingredients that are very different from each other but necessary.  Also, there are basic rules to follow, you cannot just toss all the ingredients together then throw it in the oven.  Here’s your Snackin Cake^®:  You simply get married via a beautiful wedding, then throw a couple of kids in the mix and then somehow, being married for 25 – 45 years just mystically morphs into happily ever after.  One boxed mix, one pan.  Sounds so simple.

A good cheesecake doesn’t magically happen,

                           and a marriage doesn’t magically make itself.

Check your pantry to see what you have

Ingredients are prepared separately before they are added into the mix.  For the best results the cream cheese and eggs should be brought to room temperature, completely — no chill left in them whatsoever.

Do you know yourself?  Not the person everyone sees or even the person you think you are.  But the person you are as you measure yourself to Christ.  Alone … just you and God with Christ as your mirror.  Do you recognize your own weaknesses apart from your husbands?

Assemble what you need

If you assemble what you need in groups, the process will be easier and there will be less chance of missing an ingredient.  For instance, the ingredients for my crust and filling are set apart from each other so they are on different areas of the counter.  There is a time for them to work together … but it’s not yet.

You are different from your husband so you both have different areas that need to be developed.  Focus on your part only.  God will work on your husband’s heart alone – leave it with Him.  And God will give you the same courtesy as He prepares your heart in privacy.  Now that I’ve seen a weakness, do I own it and keep it separate, or do I use my spouses sin to whitewash my own.

Putting in all that I have

If the recipe calls for 1 cup of graham crumbs to make the crust, I make sure to put the whole cup in.  Not ½ or ¾ of a cup, otherwise the crust won’t have the strength to support the filling.

It’s necessary that each spouse contribute the best of what they have:  all of their ingredients into the mix; and not hold back any part of who they are.  It’s in our weaknesses … our lacking that God steps in.  Alone I don’t have the full measurement of what I need, but if I allow God to step in I can love with all that I have because He loved me first.  With God’s love I can be all in.   Do I give all that I’ve been given, or would God say that I’m withholding His best?

Baking instructions:  Provide heat

Some cheesecakes need a water bath for moisture, some don’t.  But they all need heat.  In it goes and the oven door is closed.  Sealed … bound into the heat.  Marriage.

God is like the oven, He decides the heat and duration that is needed for each of us over a lifetime so that this marriage will develop into its fullest elevation and expression of Himself.

There is so much more effort that’s required to make a cheesecake than a Snackin Cake^®.  If we would put as much effort into marriage as we put into the wedding day – our marriages might just look more like Christ and His church.

Photo Credit

 

 

 

Are you loving – even when you hurt.

I love this picture   I found it while reading at The Time-Warped Wife.  The more I looked at it the more I realized that it beautifully captures a belief of mine.  You can’t hide what’s in your heart, it will always come out in your words or actions!  You can be really, REALLY cheezed-off from offence or sin or whatever … but what is truly in the hidden man (or woman) will always be revealed.

You can see it on this guys face.  Obviously peeved about something – he still seeks to do right ~ because that’s what’s in his heart.  What a great lesson for wives as well.

Have a great day!

(5 sleeps left)

the one in marriage

There is only one relationship in this whole world that can demonstrate Christ and His Church, and that relationship is marriage.

We can show the fruit of our growth and how mature in Christ we are in other relationships; like friend to friend, sibling to sibling, parent to child, people we work with, or any other of the many relationships that we find here on earth. But marriage is the only one that demonstrates Jesus Christ, against the backdrop of a fused relationship. By a fused relationship I mean two things:

First, two personalities actually amalgamating into a one (flesh) being. It is very hard to understand and that’s why Paul calls it a mystery. It is reflective of our triune God; three separate and distinct personalities so aware and in tune with each other that they are able to function as though they are fused together to be the One; and second, this ‘fusing’ is done by our own choosing and is a process that is demonstrated by an event. Its called a wedding and it’s a place were we publicly declare this ‘fusing’. There is no other relationship that gets a ceremony to join two people together.

Paul compares the equality of this mysterious fusing to be like Christ and His Church. Did you notice that he doesn’t call it just a mystery, but a, huge mystery.

In the Greek, the word huge has been translated from the word, megas and it means, things which overstep the province of a created being.

In other words, this mystery is unfathomable by a finite mind. And really when you think about it, Paul called it exactly right; two people becoming one person? How, exactly, does this happen?

Since this mystery is impossible for us to understand in natural terms, then the only way to view it, and maybe get a fraction of understanding, would be through supernatural eyes … with the help of the Holy Spirit.

I believe that Nietzsche was more right than he knew when he said, Marriage: I call the will of two to create the one who is more than those who created it. The marriage itself is greater than either Darrell or Robyn. I am not more important than this one called marriage that I am helping to create.

If the marriage is “a” one, then couldn’t that very “one” be an entity? I purpose that it is. Could that be the mystery that Paul is referring to? It’s hard for us to wrap our natural minds around it because we cannot see the very “one” that Paul is referring to, the one we are creating. But that doesn’t make it any less real. There are many examples of things that we cannot see yet they are truth: we don’t see oxygen or gravity yet we know of their reality; we don’t see sorrow but when a loved one dies, our pain of that loss is very real. Conversely when we have a baby that joy we feel is just as tangible, yet it is unseen. Wisdom is another example of this reality and has even been personified, Don’t turn your back on wisdom, for she will protect you. Love her, and she will guard you.^2. We know that wisdom is real, we can see evidence of her reality in the consequences of our lives.

So it is with marriage, it is a real thing. It is conceived in the church by God when we say our vows, this starts the fusing … the becoming one. And it is born on the wedding night when the vows are consummated and this is when the fusing is completed; the two are now … one.

This marriage that we give life to on our wedding night is grown up in the life of the relationship between a husband and a wife. Interestingly, the Greek word for one is mia and can also be translated first. I think God was trying to tell us something by using this word, mia. Perhaps that, “I, Robyn” am no longer the one or first, but now my marriage takes precedence. When I consummated my marriage, I chose to take the role of second; not to my husband, but to our marriage. Did you know that the word consummate on its own refers to the idea of bringing something to completion; the dictionary says, to bring to a state of perfection; fulfill. This is what Jesus meant when He said, it is finished. Its over and done, not ‘ended’ … but completed.

It seems like Jesus is saying, “I am completeness and I am actually alive in marriage.” Every time a man and woman get married they give birth to this living demonstration of a unity, a unity that God wants the world to see. Just as surely as God has demonstrated His invisible nature, attributes, power and divinity to be intelligible and clearly discernible through what we see here on the created earth; Christ also uses this same pattern for the invisible Church to be clearly discernable through the unity of marriage.

Holding Fast … on purpose

What type of unity is my marriage demonstrating?  And Does the walk of my marriage reflect the talk of my mouth?

What does the ‘witness’ of my marriage say?  And is it the witness of Christ and His Church?

Is my marriage marked with mercy and forgiveness, or is it (was it) a picture fractured by accusation, blame and unforgiveness.

These are the tough questions that God placed on my heart and in answering them I learned that marriage is not a fairytale; it is very real; and its unity is a very real threat to satan.  Marriage takes work and it always will.  Most importantly, its not about me and Darrell; its about me and God.