Grief Bites: Finding Treasure In HardshipsНамуна

Getting married is a dream come true for some. For others, what started out as a dream is now a daily draining nightmare...a bad marriage is a heavy burden.

There are many people who live in a "dead" marriage or who feel neglected, unloved, and uncared about by their spouse.

Maybe it's been like that since the first week they were married...maybe it slowly happened after normal day-to-day problems wore the couple out...maybe it happened after the couple faced a major loss and they just couldn't recover and find their way back to each other.
It could have been one "big" event (such as adultery) that tore the couple apart...or maybe it was 1,000 little events that put a wedge in between them.

No matter the situation, any marriage that is hurting breaks the hearts of the two people who are struggling in the marriage...and God's big heart breaks for the hurting couple too.

Marriage is so important to God...it was designed to be an image of His relationship with His bride, the church.

Marriage has the capacity to make a couple more like Christ...but there can be intense problems and struggles when that does not happen.

Although God's heart truly hurts for the couple who is struggling, God ultimately is more concerned about the character of the couple than the comfort of the couple so if He sees greater value in building the character of the couple...to weed out bad character traits from their hearts...He sometimes will allow problems to surface to accomplish that.

Marriage exposes, purifies, and refines all of a couple's flaws like no other relationship can...and God designed marriage to make both people holy instead of happy. No wonder marriage can be tough!

Being in a bad marriage makes one weary, hopeless, and frustrated...and it is worse if it has negatively affected and impacted the children.

The blame game can go on and on and on.
The arguments can go on and on and on.
The hurt and heartache can go on and on and on.

There is hope though.

God definitely wants for a couple to have love, happiness, loyalty, and joy in their marriage...and this can be a reality when both people seek God's heart and each other's hearts.

If you are going through a tough time in your marriage, I encourage you to pour your heart out to God and ask Him for His healing, help, and favor for your marriage.

I love this 5 part marriage series from LifeChurch. Praying it helps and heals marriages everywhere~ Go to www.LifeChurch.tv and search for "From This Day Forward".