I had another Help Meet post all sweetly written up to encourage you to empower your husband to be better. But that one is going to have to wait.

You know why? Because there are marriages all around me that are hurting and falling apart. If I hear of one more marriage break up from people that I love and care about, I’m just going to scream! Right now I’m mad. I’m mad and I’m sad and my heart is broken. I’m mad at Satan for destroying marriages and I’m mad at couples for letting Satan do what he loves and is so good at doing. Christians and non-Christians alike are letting Satan win. Stop it. Stop it!!! Stop it!!!!!

If your marriage is less than wonderful…you don’t get to cop out. You DON’T! You don’t get to say, “Laura, I know what the Bible says…but you just don’t know what I’ve been through in my marriage.”

You know what I keep hearing from couples who are deciding to split up? “We’ve had trouble for years.” “There have been issues in our marriage for years.” “We’ve always had really difficult things to work through in our marriage.” 

Oh, really? You’ve had trouble for years? How shocking! Name one married couple that hasn’t “had trouble for years”! Everyone always thinks their troubles are harder to work through than anyone else’s troubles. And so…working through them just doesn’t seem like an option.

You want to know why your marriage is difficult?  It’s because marriage is difficult!  It’s because two sinners married each other and have to try to figure out how to live together in harmony with God in the center. Satan hates what you’re trying to do and he’s going to do everything he can to destroy you. It’s a spiritual battle. So yes, THAT is difficult.

If your marriage is in ANY kind of trouble…PLEASE GET HELP! Before it’s too late. Too many couples are ashamed or embarrassed or too full of pride to ask for help. Then they are divorced before anyone who loves them has a chance to help. Please, please don’t do that. I beg you.

Asking for help is hard. Asking for help means you may face the opportunity to be convicted of your own sin. Or be asked to offer forgiveness to your spouse. Or to let go of bitterness. Or to change something difficult about the way you are living. Those things are going to be gut-wrenchingly difficult. Awful. Painful.

But who are you living for?  If you’re living for yourself, then by all means go right ahead and give up on your marriage. If you’re living for yourself, it won’t matter to you how much you hurt your children, your friends, your family, your church and your spouse. As long as you feel like you are going to be “better off”, then go ahead and do whatever you want to do.

But if you are truly striving to live for Jesus, I’m going to beg you to please let go of yourself and all the fears you have about forgiveness and change…and please humbly accept help.

I’ve watched some of my friends walk through extremely difficult marital issues…and they survived! Their marriages have been in the trenches…and with God’s incredible strength…they have dug themselves out and come out on the other side with a new marriage to each other! It’s been beautiful to watch! They wanted to quit. They wanted to leave. But they worked and they fought and they sweated and they cried and they learned how to let go of the bondage that was keeping them from the kind of joy God purposes for a marriage. They did it and so can you!!

Please let God help heal your marriage. Your children deserve your hard work and so do you. 

Disclaimers and some of the “Yeah Buts”:  Please know that I’m not writing to condemn anyone. I know some of you  have been through tremendous trials in your marriage. I know some of you are divorced. Some of you have endured physical abuse. Some of you had spouses who refused to stay married to you no matter how hard you tried or what you did to make it work. Some of you needed to get out of a marriage because your children were being sexually abused. I really am writing this post because while those are legitimate reasons to split, those reasons are VERY FEW, and the issues I’ve heard of recently are SO VERY FIXABLE!!! And that is why my heart cried out in this post.

And now, I’m going to go hug and appreciate my precious husband. If we’ve learned anything by watching friends and loved ones break up and divorce, it has been that we MUST go to great lengths to protect and nurture our marriage together. My husband and I are prayerfully clinging to one another right now…and I’d like to encourage you and your spouse to do the same. Your marriage depends on it.