Ch. 1: The Greatest Challenge In the World

I've recently begun reading "Sacred Marriage" by Gary Thomas. So far it's pretty good, so I'd like to journal my thoughts after each chapter. And if I'm going to spend all that time journaling, why not use it as a blog post? So here we are with chapter 1! I'll just bullet point the thoughts that meant the most to me. (All quotes are from the book unless stated otherwise).

• The overarching question or challenge in the book is this, "What if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy?" (Umm, thanks for ruining my honeymoon phase). In all seriousness, though, Adam and I tried to be honest about this reality before we walked down the aisle - we will not always be happy in our marriage. When Adam asked me to marry him, both sets of our parents were having marital problems... Through watching our sets of parents struggle, we learned that there will be days when the marriage covenant is all you have left. And on those days, that covenant has to be enough.
• "Romantic love... can never be stretched; it simply shatters. Mature love... must stretch, as the sinful human condition is such that all of us bear conflicting emotions." I know that Adam and I haven't been "tested" yet in mature love. I know that we're still in our honeymoon phase and that we experience romantic love much more often than mature love. But that's okay. When the testing does come, I believe our love will stretch.
• Thomas writes about 1 Corinthians 7:2 when Paul says, "It is good for a man not to marry, but since there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband." Yes, the Greek is referring to sexual relations and the "immorality" is mainly lust, but Thomas suggests that marriage confronts more immorality that just lust, not the least of which being our human selfishness!
• Thomas' final words in this chapter deal with not expecting too much from a marriage. Marriage will never completely satisfy or fulfill someone - it was never intended to do so. Marriage will not remove my insecurity issues or magically make me a perfect wife - it was never intended to do so. My husband can't be God to me and I can't be God to him.