Entries in Life

If your primary occupation on Sunday morning avoids anything to do with church, don't bother to read this column.

If you weary of one more discussion on the importance of defining marriage as a heterosexual experience, stop reading.
If you just want a warm fuzzy tale of family events, take a break and come back next week. This week, I will be sorting my way through a few thoughts I have on marriage as a believer in the eternal, sovereign God.
This week I explore what I think about the covenant which joins two souls in marriage, a decision which modern society has made into a very complex, controversial issue.
Reading through the Old and New Testaments has left me with a deep impression of the repetitive description of God's relationship to His believers. Throughout the Bible, God plays the role of the husband.
Time and again Isaiah refers to Israel as God's bride or wife. "For your Maker is your husband – the LORD Almighty is His name – the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; He is called the God of all the earth." Isaiah 54:5

In Hosea, God tells the prophet to marry a prostitute to represent the way the Jewish nation turned from worshiping God to worshiping idols. When his wife returns to prostitution, Hosea seeks her out in the marketplace, buys her back and takes her home as his wife – just as God sought to redeem and restore His loving relationship with Israel, even after they had prostituted their beliefs to idols.

In the Old Testament the nation of Israel is the bride, the promised and cherished one. In the New Testament the followers of Christ are similarly portrayed as a virgin coming to her bridegroom. For instance in 2 Corinthians 11:2, "I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him." And again in Ephesians 5:25, Paul admonishes, "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself for it."

All the references to the relationship of God with those who believe and follow Him reflect a husband and a wife – a male/female relationship.

There is no portrayal of God as a female or wife; nor is the analogy ever of two entities with essentially interchangeable roles or capabilities. God provides, protects and leads. Believers — whether Israelites or Christ's followers — are those under His protection. We are the loved ones receiving His provision and watchful care.
Believers look to God for leadership, submit to His commands and enjoy the protection of a sovereign, strong God. And, in spite of all that, believers break His commands, follow false gods and walk away from His protection.

For that reason, God has already done what no human can ever do. He came to earth as the ultimate provision — the perfect sacrifice for our lifelong predisposition to trespass over His boundaries. We can never do what God does for us. The roles are not interchangeable.

Today some push for a different understanding. Today some want marriage to be redefined as any two persons choosing to share their lives regardless of their birth gender. Voices ring out loud and clear on both sides from church halls to city halls, from annoying talk radio to trash talk television shows. But putting all the popular yammering aside, the issue comes down to this: As followers of the eternal God we do not exist merely for our personal happiness. Our mandate as believers is to live in every way possible that brings honor and glory to the God of the universe – including within our marriages.

We do not glorify God when we twist His analogies of His love for us by equating the union of a man and woman to the union of two women or two men.
We do not glorify God when we seek personal happiness and embrace a union diametrically opposed to the picture He regularly uses to describe His love for His followers.

We do not glorify God when we shrug our shoulders and say, "times are changing. We need to re-consider what is socially acceptable."
People change. Their viewpoints, their rules and their focal points change but, God does not change.
Because I follow an eternal, unchanging God, I can not consider a redefinition of marriage structured to suit a temporal, social environment. I choose instead to glorify God by adhering to His analogy of marriage demonstrating His unchanging, sacrificial, eternal love for mankind.
(Joan Hershberger is a reporter at the News-Times. E-mail her at joanh@everybody.org)

"My friend thinks she understands what it is like to be a parent because she has pets. She has no idea what it is like," declared my daughter, a relatively new mother.
"With a child, you have to think about the 40, 60, 80-year impact of your decisions. You don't have to do that with a dog or a cat. Most of them won't be around 20 years from now, but my children will, and if I don't make good choices for them now, if I don't train them to be kind, gentle, gracious, responsible, my mistakes will be there for others to deal with for a long time."
Her friend owns a couple dogs and volunteers for a local shelter finding new homes for cats – including my daughter's kid-friendly, black cat Pirate. Conversations have waned between the two in recent months because the animal-loving friend simply does not understand the role and responsibilities of a mother of young children.
"I thought I was stressed when it was just my husband and I, and I taught school. If folks called and wanted us to do something on Saturday morning, we were just too stressed, too busy to do that. Busy! Right! We were busy sleeping in until noon," my daughter shook her head in disbelief at that long, lost luxury now that she has a 3 year-old son and a 9 month-old daughter.
"Try sleeping in any day or leaving a 9 month-old child or even a 3 year-old home alone for a couple hours while you go shopping, out for coffee with a friend or to the mall! You can legally do that with a pet, and no will say anything. You can not do that with a child."
"You can leave a pet outside on the porch all night. You can not do that with a child. If you get tired of a pet, realize its personality does not match yours or that it is simply too big and energetic for your house, you can put an ad in the paper."
"Just try that with a child. Can you see the ad?" she laughed, thinking about her 3-year-old. "Available, one charming 3 year-old. Too energetic for our quiet home. Needs large house, sturdy furniture and back yard with myriad of playground equipment."
"I have had a dog and cats. I had a job teaching school, and I thought I was stressed then. Hah! There is an invisible wall that you go through when you become a parent. A wall that you have no clue exists until you pass through it and realize how much everything has changed. Nothing will ever be the same again," she mused.
"I did not realize all that being a parent involved until I had a child, and now I have two and baby-sit a couple others. It is simply not the same as having a pet. It is not the same living inside the parent world as looking into the parent world from the outside. Everything has changed so much."
She no longer spends hours shopping for clothes. Now she is lucky to grab a few minutes to go grocery shopping at 9 p.m. after the children have gone to bed. And, now she shops thrift shops for bargains.
Before she could tune in to any stations she wanted on the television or radio. Now, she has to consider what her son sees and hears. Her little boy copies and repeats everything he hears and asks about anything he sees and does not understand.
Before leaving the house, she has to plan for the children. Her hands and time are rarely empty and free.
Her husband cared for the children alone several hours one Saturday and caught a glimpse of her life. When she returned he said, "it takes some of the fun out of having children when you have to stay with them all day and find ways to make them happy."
"No one said that having children was easy, but there is a lot of difference between knowing that and experiencing it," she concluded.
As a pet owner she fussed over her withdrawn, depressed, arthritic cat. It responded and improved its mood and looks. That was a walk in the park compared to her daughter's first year and the three years she has already completed to prepare her son for school and adulthood. Having children absorbs her life these days — and she would not change a bit of it – not even for the world's cutest kitten or most lovable puppy.
(Writing with her daughter, Sharon Schulte, Joan Hershberger is a reporter at the News-Times. E-mail her at jhershberger@eldoradonews.com.)