I’ve been studying marriage for as long as I can remember. I watched every marriage I could find intently. My heart searched for evidence that love could last, that two people could stay together forever. Whenever I ran into two people in love, I would search for a ring on their finger and if I found one, I’d ask the miracle couple their secret. Their answers were always different, but one of my favorites is still one so simple, “the only way to stay married is just to stay married.”
I’ve never seen a fight quite like the way life tries to break two people apart. I’ve never seen anything as vicious as the storms that come to destroy the most beautiful thing in life.
These days I’ve stopped asking couples for their best marriage advice. I’ve stopped looking for the magic key because I’ve realized no one actually has any idea what their doing.
Instead, I ask them for their story. I ask to hear their trials and their victories. I hope they’ll be brave enough to tell me both their beautiful and their ugly.
I do this because I now look for miracles, not happy endings. I look for hope in the darkest places. I look for broken shards transformed and mosaic’d masterpieces.
I no longer want to know your principles, advice, or secrets. But tell me how you held on. Tell me how you loved when everything was falling apart. Tell me how when you didn’t have the strength, something bigger than you held your heart.
Tell me the worst things you’ve ever done and horrible things you said. Tell me how when you broke their heart, they found the strength to give it to you again. Don’t tell me your perfect and leave out your hell. Don’t show me your sunshine and hide your dark clouds.
I want to know it all. Please tell me again. Talk to me about the divorce that wasn’t your end. Sit with me. Show me your shadows. Let me in. Are the fractures in love worth the mending? And what about broken love? Is it worth preserving?
Much of what I’ve learned of love, I’ve learned from my friends. They didn’t choose me because of my looks, my shining potential, my calling, or my gifts. But they did choose me. And they choose me again and again.
I don’t know why they chose me exactly, but I‘ve felt how they have. I’ve felt them stir a hope in me that real love can last.
Because beyond all our differences, distance, and pain, they’ve given me the greatest gift, they’ve chosen to stay.
I wish I could give you the secret to make love work, but I’m not sure it exists.
Instead I’ll tell you this, love deeply, remain soft, feel the pain, and if at all possible,
choose to stay.
