Most of you know how much we have been through the past few years. It has seemed that one crisis after another has continued since the beginning os 2019. Throw a pandemic in the middle of it all and it’s just been difficult.

Yet I am an eternal optimist. I see the sunny side of the situation–usually. But this season has taken me to a depth of struggle that this “optimistic Debi” has never known. I have found myself not knowing who I am or even remembering how I would normally respond to situations. I have even tuned people out while they are talking with me. I hope they didn’t notice, because that just isn’t who I am, or was, or whatever…

My point in this post is to bring you in to the raw reality of married life. It’s not always wine and roses. Tom and I were talking yesterday about how long it has been since we’ve had a date.

What? You ask. How can this be? (insert Jim Gaffigan”s creepy alter ego questioning his words).

Yes, we have real struggles in this arena too. Not struggles in wanting to have a date, but struggles in making it happen. Of course we’ve gone out to dinner together, but we are in survival mode, not leaning in to enjoy you more mode.

Here’s the thing, it’s the wine and roses season we’ve practiced that has laid a strong foundation in our marriage of friendship and commitment. This has help us get through seasons (including this one we’re in now) where the roses are wilted and the wine is flat. Even the Bible speaks of where we are to focus in such seasons…

Though the fig tree should not blossom,

nor fruit be on the vines,

the produce of the olive fail

and the fields yield no food,

the flock be cut off from the fold

and there be no herd in the stalls,

yet I will rejoice in the LORD;

I will take joy in the God of my salvation.

GOD, the Lord, is my strength;

he makes my feet like the deer’s;

he makes me tread on my high places.

Habakuk 3:17-19 ESV

Are you facing a similar season? God is our strength and He alone can help us keep plodding forward, even when all we want to do is…nothing.

The time for red roses and good wine may return, but even if it doesn’t our hope isn’t in date nights to make our marriage work. Our hope is in God, the Lord, who alone is our strength for a healthy marriage. It’s all by Him and for Him that we were married in the first place. We never want to communicate that the health of a marriage is dependent on regular date nights. The purpose of date nights is to help us connect in the busyness of life. When life knocks us both down, we must draw closer while on the ground to pray. Then, when we are both able to get back up, God will help us tread the high places again.

Photo by Johanna Huber on Unsplash