More Than Conquerors

More Than Conquerors

Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.

James 1:2-4

We have some friends who have been married more than thirty years. In their midfifties now, they seem to enjoy all the blessings possible for a healthy married couple—a beautiful home, good friends, bright children, and fulfilling careers. But their marriage hasn’t been a walk on easy street. Their second child, a boy, was just four years old when he wandered into a neighbor’s yard and drowned in their swimming pool.

The mother found her son face down in the water and worked frantically to revive him, as did the emergency crew, but his life was lost. Faced with this tragedy and the unbearable grief that followed, this couple could have given up. After all, it is not uncommon for a marriage to dissolve in the face of overwhelming suffering. Strangely, sorrowful partners sometimes retreat to separate and bitter corners of misery. And because misery doesn’t always love company, their circumstances tear them apart instead of bring them together. But not this couple. They chose to call upon the power of love to help them weather their tragedy as partners.

Are you and your spouse cultivating the power of love? We hope you will never be forced to test its strength, but we pray you will always rest in the courage that comes from a healthy Christian marriage. “Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death? . . . No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.” (Romans 8:35, 37).

What a marvelous resource husband and wife can be to one another. For as we cultivate love, we are strengthening our ability to cope with all that life might bring. And when the times of trouble come, we can help one another remember that we are never separated from the love of Christ.

Our strength grows out of our weakness.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson