Frequent prayer together is the actual key to our adjustment. W e pray regularly. In our case, any discord could rarely smoulder more than a few hours; irritations just must end when one faces Christ. W ith us, breakfast and dinner are occasions for a much fuller inter change with the Lord than a simple asking of the blessing. Then, while the Wheatena stops boiling, we ex pose our hopes, ambitions, concern for relatives and friends, as well as whatever trouble m ay be lingering in o u t hearts. And, in the last in stance, when we are thoroughly honest, the healing is invariably immediate. Again at bedtime we meet with our Lord. The problems which took us by surprise at the beginning of mar riage have g r a d u a l ly dissolved. There w ill be new problems to take their place, but we have a basic un derstanding made possible through a prayerful three-way conversation with our Lord. W e have a growing feeling that these very problems, met w ith God’s help, are the bonds of a more nearly perfect marriage. Young people facing marriage or the hope of marriage might take cognizance o f the fact that a mar riage rooted in Christ is certain to better withstand the conflicts of everyday arisals, since two people dedicated to the desire o f serving and honoring their Lord are bound to try harder keeping their mar riage intact and happy. They are not merely trying to please them selves, their relatives and friends; nor are they particularly interested in improving marriage statistics for posterity. Th ey are also concerned with pleasing God. Certainly the harmonious relationship between two people in a discordant world is testimony to the peace and love Christ can instill. Paradoxically, there w ill always be temporary frustrating decisions to be made, very real problems to be faced down and prayed over. But most young couples seeking God’s will would affirm that it is these very problems, met with God’s help, that cement marriage and make a stronger, more perfect union. END.
perfect, flawless association between a man and a woman. W hen m y husband forgets to wash out the bathtub and accidentally empties the sandy cuffs of his levis on the new ly vacuumed living room rug, I don’t even grind m y teeth be cause I know he is essentially very neat, but a very busy man. I know that there w ill come the time when
I w ill ask him irrelevant questions just as he settles his mind on his favorite magazine. There w ill come another time when he w ill call to me from the bathroom and I will answer above the drone of m y m ix- master, “ Come on in here. I can’t understand a word you ’re saying.” This will, as it always has in the past, provoke him to retort, “ You ’re the on ly one who doesn’t under stand what I say. I think you should go to an ear specialist.” W h ich brings m y rather terse reply that I had m y ears tested in the elemen tary school in which I had pre viously taught. M y hearing, I will point out sweetly, was above aver age. He might benefit, however, from a speech class, I add not too subtly. He, in turn, w ill relate the story of the deaf copyreader who works on the copy desk of his news paper and who has no trouble un derstanding him by lip reading. W h ich leaves us nowhere, but we have learned to chuckle over this chronic conversation which seems humorous to us now. There is no bitterness in our remarks. W e have learned to live w ith each other, to laugh with each other and to pray often with each other.
/ am no longer an idealist . . . goes through, but had someone sug gested to me during m y single days that I would be faced w ith these differences, I would have found it difficult to believe what importance they assume in married life. There were moments in which I felt an intolerable loneliness dur ing the long evening hours m y hus band was at work. Thrust suddenly from an environment in which I had been busy almost every night o f the week, surrounded b y friends, working on various projects or be ing entertained, to an environment of strange neighbors, a deadly quiet house, an absence o f others m y own age and sex, was a shock. The mun dane truism that “ The first year is the hardest” has probably been echoed a m illion times and has been met w ith silent assent by most brides and grooms. I am no longer an idealist who believes that marriage must be a
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