Reality Appears - The One Year Women's Friendship Devotional

Reality Appears

Whatever is good and perfect comes down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens. He never changes or casts a shifting shadow. James 1:17

At the altar, most brides and grooms smile, convinced their marriage will be better than any others they’ve witnessed. They repeat the vows the minister offers or pledge their love from their own hearts, and they mean every word. They open gifts and look forward to using them in a home filled with joy and peace. Then, full of confidence, they’re off on their honeymoon.

Bless their hearts. Often they have no idea the real work is about to begin. And all too soon, one or both of them will have this fleeting thought: Nobody told me it would be like this! If they don’t know this sentiment crosses everyone’s mind at one time or another, they may be tempted to bail out.

Remember how the fairy tales of our childhood ended with “and they lived happily ever after”? The stories featured a handsome prince and a beautiful lady who conquered problems threatening to keep them apart, as if the main struggle came before the marriage and not during the marriage itself. As children, we believed once the couple had overcome all the obstacles—Snow White’s poison-apple sleep or Cinderella’s wicked stepsisters, for example—the major battles were won, and the young lovers would live out the rest of their lives in sweet harmony.

But one bright morning, even Snow White must have awakened early, stared at the slack jaw of her snoring prince, and thought, Who is this man? And when Cinderella was pregnant with Prince Charming’s baby, Charming undoubtedly stared at her swollen feet and wondered what had happened to those once-perfect appendages that had sent him scouring the countryside for her. But once we understand swollen feet and snoring are normal parts of living “happily ever after,” we can build a solid marriage based on reality and not on a fairy-tale fantasy.

—SANDRA

Lord, help us to see those around us as people who have the same sensitive hearts as we do. Help us to surround our relationships with love rather than demands. May we ask for your direction before we speak or act.

A successful marriage is an edifice that must be rebuilt every day.

—ANDRÉ MAUROIS (PSEUDONYM FOR ÉMILE-SALOMON-WILHELM HERZOG, 1885–1967), FRENCH WRITER