Cool poem

Stumbled across this poem in my reading for Youth and Family Ministry. Hope you enjoy!

An Ode to Marriage
"You know, it could happen to us,"
you said to me,
sitting in your favorite chair as we sipped coffee,
digesting the news of the latest couples splitting up.
"No matter how great we think we have it,
if all those people can break up
it could happen to us.
We're humans like them.
It is possible."
I didn't answer for a while.
We were both incredulous at the news.
Men and women of maturity
decades-long marriages
so many have exploded, one after another.
Almost every week, another set of names.
Not him! Not her!
They're too sensible, too solid.
"You're right," I finally admit.
We've never joked about divorce,
never brought it up as an option.
We declared total commitment to each other
and must reaffirm that always.
But maybe realizing it could happen to us
helps us make sure it won't.
How terrible to think of an argument
someday when one of us feels
the need for the ultimate weapon,
"Well, obviously there's no sense staying together.
We're just hurting each other,
just keeping each other trapped."
Those are words mouthed in kitchens
and bedrooms of "mature" Christian homes.
REmember how our love began?
Years ago, I offered you my arm
that September night we first went out.
You reached for it
as we leaped a puddle together.
Then you walked just close enough
to show you liked it.
I glimpsed your face under the streetlight,
excitement splashing gently on it....
No commitment - just beginnings.
My arm pulled you that January eve
right beside me in that car.
Midnight. Time to leave.
"Good night" wasn't quite enough,
and our lips touched gently
in a kiss as light as an angel cake.
"I like you," it said,
but nothing more.
November air had rough-scrubbed our faces.
As we wrestled playfully
in your parent's farmhouse.
That moment I knew
and breathed into your hair,
"I LOVE YOU."
The words exploded around us.
They meant far more than "you're nice."
They meant commitment.
Your words came back to me
in firm, sure sounds:
"I love you too."
And our kiss of celebration
was the beginning of a new creation.
Yes, I chose you.
Out of all the lovely girls I knew.
I chose you.
How marvelous are the women of planet Earth,
hair flaring in the wind
rich browns and golds,
a thousand delicious shapes
girls who laugh saucily
girls who read Browning
girls who play sitars
girls who fix carburetors.
Of all those fascinating possibilities,
I chose you.
Decisively. Permanently.
Is that self-entrapment?
Wasw a commitment made in youth
to bind me a lifetime?
Ah, but it was as strong as birth,
a fresh creation,
soon to be a new flesh,
you and I as one.
We chose each other.
We created something new under the sun.
You to shape me
and I you,
like a Luther Burbank original.
We, our own new creation,
to produce fruit wholly unique,
UNIQUE IN THE UNIVERSE!
Then the wdding,
flying rice and honeymoon
days and nights together.
Two persons
as unalike as birch and cypress
had chosen each other.
The heavens laughed
and the sands of the earth
lay ready for the tender feet
of our newborn self.
Does time change all that?
Were we naive? Now, after we have
loved, argued, laughed, given birth,
what does it mean
when I hold you and say,
"I love you"?
Without the young-love ecstasy,
is it required rote
or reaffirmation of our new creation?
"I love you."
My temples don't pulse as I say it.
My body does not ache for coupling,
not as it did.
Yet the words carry more fact
than ever they did in courtship.
They embrace a million moments shared...
Standing together
atop Cadillac Mountain
and aching to absorb the blue-white-green beauty...
or angrily expounding to each other in the kitchen
about our particular stupidities,
then sharing a kiss ten hours later...
bonding moments, holding us together.
How easily those bonds could be tyrannical.
"You always forget..." "You never think..."
And bitter moments bite into their flesh
with blinding ropes that tie them to the
time and place instead of to each other.
Yet bonds can be a
thousand multicolored strands
of sorrow, joy, embarrasment,
of anger, laughter shared
as we watch God maturing us,
as we gently tell each other
of our joys, our fears,
even of our fantasies.
Rope is rope.
Experiences are much the same:
crabby days,
laughing days,
boring days.
We'll go through them "in love,"
by commitment to each other,
sharing, forgiving,
not blaming, not hurting.
Yet when we do hurt,
we ask forgiveness,
so the ropes will bind us together.
For if they don't
they'll wrap around our throats,
so that each struggle will tighten the noose,
and we'll have to reach for the knife to cut the bonds.
"I love you."
It sounds trite -
but not if it's remembering
the thousands of strands
of loving each other when we don't feel lovely,
of holding each other,
of winking across a room,
of eating peanut butter sandwiches beside the surf.
And of getting up in the morning
thousands of times, together,
and remembering what we created,
the day we first said "I love you,"
Something permanent
and growing
and alive.
~ Harold Myra, 1979~

Paradigm towards matrimony

A friend sent me this, and I thought it was a very interesting perspective / approach. I thought it kind of funny in light of some conversations I've been having recently with several different people. Hope you enjoy. :-)

Finding a wife the Romanian wayThe Convention of Hungarian Baptist Churches comprises approximately 250 churches, mainly in the northern region of Transylvania. These churches experienced revival during the 1960s and consequently they are strong spiritually if not materially, with some village churches having 200-300 members.

Pal Borzasi is a young man in his mid-20s, who is in his final year at the Hungarian Baptist Seminary in Cluj-Napoca. Pal spent a year in England in 1996-97 studying at the European Missionary Fellowship's School of Evangelism at Welwyn.

Pal got married in the summer to Anna Kiraly. What is unusual about that? When it comes to Christian courtship and marriage, there is a great difference between Romania and Britain.

The marriage prayer list
Marriage in the Baptist churches in Romania is NOT the culmination of a series of broken relationships. This unbiblical approach is unknown to Romanian Christians. In Romania, young men and women do not normally date or form romantic attachments of any kind before marriage. How then do they find suitable marriage partners?

When a Christian young man wants to get married in Romania, he does not tell anyone of his intention, but sets himself to pray for the Lord's guidance to the right young woman. Often, as in the case of Pal, he may have a list of women whom he would consider possible candidates for marriage. This then forms his prayer list which will be used over the next months. He will trust the Lord to direct him by overruling providence to the woman who will be his choice.

Anna Kiraly
Throughout this initial phase, the young woman knows nothing about this process; in fact, for young Christian women to make known their romantic interest in any young man is forbidden and seen as very worldly. If she does have a liking for any man, then she must leave it with the Lord and wait upon his will. 'But how will you ever find a husband if you are not actively looking for one?' someone asked Anna Kiraly last Christmas. Her reply was: 'I am not looking for a husband. The Lord knows who is best for me and he will bring that husband to me if I wait for his timing and his choice.' To Western ears, sadly, this sounds very strange but perhaps it shows how far from the Lord's ways we have strayed.

When the man is sure that the woman in mind is the wife of his and the Lord's choosing, then - and only then - will he privately approach her and make known to her his thinking. Following this, she has up to three months to pray about the proposed marriage. During this time, the matter is kept secret from all others so that should she refuse him, no disgrace is brought to them or the name of the Lord's people. If she refuses his offer, then no one need ever know about it, and the whole process begins again. So how did Paul and Anna get together?

Last Christmas, Anna, who is studying at EMF, came to stay with us as a family for the holidays. Pal, who was over here for the Carey Ministers' Conference in early January, visited us at Ramsey with his ulterior motive, of which she was blissfully unaware, of proposing marriage to Anna. On December 29, Pal made known his feelings to Anna, who was so shocked she could not eat properly for the next few days but spent the time praying and thinking about whether to accept Pal's proposal. She later confided that in her heart of hearts, Pal had been the one young man that she had wanted as a husband but had considered him to be beyond her expectations. He, on the other hand, confessed that he loved Anna so much that he could not imagine what he would do if she refused him. On New Year's Eve, she accepted his invitation to become his wife. After watching the television pictures of the millennium fireworks on the River Thames, they made the joyous announcement to myself and my wife.

The lessons?
What can we as Christians learn about courtship and marriage from the Hungarian Baptists of Romania?

First, dating as we know it in this country, especially among teenagers, is unbiblical and runs the great risk of encouraging emotional attachments which are too close and very painful to break, and which can spoil fellowship between God's people. It is often the case that men and women have left their churches for another because it is too painful to stay because of the presence of a former sweetheart who is perhaps married to someone else. Socialising and sharing fellowship in groups is a much better way for young men and women to get to know each other, without getting too close, until they are ready to consider marriage. Surely it is not the will of the Lord, who 'hates divorce' (Malachi 2.16), to see his children hurting one another in this deepest of all human relationships, the love of one man for one woman? Note that in Bible times, engagement was seen by the Jews as tantamount to marriage (Matt. 1.18-19).

Secondly, for a Christian man to say to a woman: 'I love you', it must be understood as a proposal of marriage from him. He is saying in effect: 'I love you before the Lord and I want you to be my wife.' A profession of love must always be a proposal of marriage and any man therefore who is not in a position to get married or who is not willing to marry the subject of his affections should restrain himself. Christian young men and women, if you are too young to get married, you are too young to have romantic partners!

Thirdly, as believers, we trust the Lord to overrule in all our circumstances for our good and for his glory. Therefore we should trust him to overrule in this most important of matters, namely, whom we are to marry. If we pray and look to him, then he will direct us to the right person at the right time. So until we are ready to get married, we should certainly be aware of potential wives and husbands but wait upon the Lord's timing and choice. We should not make and break relationships, trampling upon each other's hearts until we find the right person; this is not the way of Christ for his people: 'I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or by the does of the field, do not stir up love nor awaken love until it pleases.' (Song of Songs 2.7).

Mike Daly, the writer of this article, is the pastor of Great Whyte Baptist Church, Ramsey, Cambridgeshire. Reprinted with permission from Evangelical Magazine of Wales, August/ September 2000.

P.S. Pal and Anna were married in Romania on July 15.

© Evangelicals Now - December 2000