Chapter 16—A Happy, Successful Partnership
The Real Union Is a Lifelong Experience—To gain a proper
understanding of the marriage relation is the work of a lifetime. Those
who marry enter a school from which they are never in this life to be
graduated
However carefully and wisely marriage may have been entered
into, few couples are completely united when the marriage ceremony
is performed. The real union of the two in wedlock is the work of the
afteryears
As life with its burden of perplexity and care meets the newly
wedded pair, the romance with which imagination so often invests
marriage disappears. Husband and wife learn each other’s character
as it was impossible to learn it in their previous association. This is a
most critical period in their experience. The happiness and usefulness
of their whole future life depend upon their taking a right course
now. Often they discern in each other unsuspected weaknesses and
defects; but the hearts that love has united will discern excellencies
also heretofore unknown. Let all seek to discover the excellencies
rather than the defects. Often it is our own attitude, the atmosphere
that surrounds ourselves, which determines what will be revealed to
us in another
Love Must Be Tested and Tried—Affection may be as clear as
crystal and beauteous in its purity, yet it may be shallow because it
has not been tested and tried. Make Christ first and last and best in
everything. Constantly behold Him, and your love for Him will daily
become deeper and stronger as it is submitted to the test of trial. And
[106]
as your love for Him increases, your love for each other will grow
deeper and stronger
1
Testimonies For The Church 7, 45
.
2
The Ministry of Healing, 359, 360
.
3
Ibid., 360
.
4
Testimonies For The Church 7, 46
.
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