The Truth About Marriage No One Talks About: Biblical Marriage, Misconceptions & God’s Design for Love

The Truth About Marriage No One Talks About: Biblical Marriage, Misconceptions & God’s Design for Love 

What if everything you thought about marriage… wasn’t the full truth?

In this eye-opening episode of Journey to Loveland, Maronda breaks down the biggest misconceptions about marriage and reveals what biblical marriage is truly meant to be. 

From the belief that marriage is about happiness, romance, or “being completed” by another person… to the deeper truth that marriage is actually a covenant, a calling, and a ministry, this episode challenges everything culture has taught us about love.

Rooted in scripture and real-life growth, Maronda shares:
 ✨ Why marriage won’t fix loneliness or brokenness
 ✨ The difference between a wedding and a covenant
 ✨ What it really means to love like Christ (1 Corinthians 13)
 ✨ Why feelings don’t sustain a marriage—character does
 ✨ The truth about submission, leadership, and mutual honor
 ✨ How to prepare your heart before you say “I do”

Whether you’re single, dating, engaged, or married—this episode will help you reevaluate your expectations, heal your perspective, and align your heart with God’s design for love and partnership.

Because marriage isn’t about finding someone to complete you…
 It’s about two whole people coming together—with God at the center—to build something sacred.

💍 Ask yourself:
 Do you want a wedding… or are you truly ready for a covenant?

Journey to Loveland is part of the Chickology Podcast Collective—where women heal in the open, grow in truth, and walk forward with courage and compassion.

🌸 About Chickology™
Chickology™ is more than a podcast brand — it’s a collective of strong, real women telling real stories. Together, we’re reclaiming our narratives, breaking cycles, and lifting one another up through truth, laughter, and raw conversations. Every show under the Chickology™ umbrella is created by women, for women, with love.

✨ Join the Movement
We’re always looking for bold voices and powerful stories. If you’re a woman ready to share your truth or host your own podcast with us, reach out! One honest truth at a time, we’re helping one isolated woman at a time feel less alone.

📍 Find Us

• Explore all Chickology™ podcasts at [Buzzsprout Podcast Directory link or Chickology website]
• Email us at: ChickologyPodcasts@gmail.com
  
  

💫 Because when women rise together, we change the world.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey y'all, welcome back to Journey to Loveland. My name is Miranda, and I'm so glad you are here with me as I share my story. Journey to Loveland is a safe space. It's a space for honest conversation about faith, healing, identity, relationships, and becoming all of who God has created us to be. So I am super excited you're here with me on today. If you're new here, I'm so glad you found me. If you've been walking with me through my journey, welcome home. And I am excited to share today's episode because it's about relationships, it's about the misconceptions of marriage. If you haven't been taught about godly marriage, is you have a misconception about what marriage really is about. And I'm going to talk a little bit more about that today. So get your pen and paper because I am going to share some scriptures because the Journey to Loveland podcast, the foundation is built on scripture. It's built on God's word and it's built on faith. So I want you to take some notes, take down some of these scriptures so you can take these scriptures later on down the line and you can meditate on them, you can pray, allow them to just saturate your heart and you know, speak to God through these scriptures. The Bible is God's love letter to his people. And if you're not saved on today, you know, I want to invite you to receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. John 3.16 says, For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. Jesus Christ died for all of us. To accept him as your Lord and Savior. He's giving you a choice. It's not a forceful thing, it's something that you can choose to accept. And I want to invite you today to draw you closer to Christ. If God has led you to this podcast today, maybe he's inviting you to accept him into your heart. So I want you to say this quiet prayer, say it in your heart. You can say it out loud if you're able to, but I want you to say, Lord, I believe that you died on the cross for my sins. And I accept you as my Lord and Savior. I ask you to come in and change my heart, to create in me a clean heart, Lord, and renew a right spirit in me. I am a sinner and I need you. I don't want to do life without you, Lord. And I want you to come and wash over me that your love will saturate me, help me to become the man and the woman that you created me to be. I love you and I receive you in Jesus' name. Amen. I also want to share another scripture with you on today in Romans 2 and 4. It says, or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance. God draws us closer by his kindness, by his love, closer to him because he wants to have a relationship with you. He wants to know you. Even though he created you, he also gave you a choice to accept him or not. He's not gonna force you into a relationship with him. He's a gentleman. He's not gonna beat you over the head, but he gives you opportunities throughout your lifetime to accept him as the Lord and Savior. This is a gift. So I give you that opportunity on here today. So I hope you prayed that prayer with me on today. So before we move any further, I want to share this brief pause with you. Journey to Loveland is proud to be a part of the Chicology Podcast Collective. A community of women sharing real life stories, real faith, and real transformation. So welcome. Thank you all for joining me as I am sharing chapter 8 of my journey, and it's the misconceptions of marriage. The truth about biblical marriage no one talks about. So I want to get into this. I want to ask you a question before we get started. Why do you want to get married? That's the real question. Why do you really want to get married? Is it just because you want a wedding, you want companionship, you're tired of being alone, you want a cuddle buddy, you want a travel partner? But honestly and deeply, why do you really want to be married? Do you understand what marriage is about? You know, marriage is a ministry. According to the Bible, marriage is a ministry. God is asking us to come together as husband and wife, man and woman, to be a representative of his church on this earth, the bride and the groom. He wants us to be a representative of his love through our ministry of marriage and to be able to show his love and unconditional love for man, for humankind. And I'm going to get a little further into that as we go along with this conversation. I know many people, you want the title of being married, but you don't want the responsibility. You want the ceremony, but you don't want the covenant. You want the benefits, but you don't want to make the sacrifice. When you're married and you just make the choice to become married, it's a sacrifice. You're dying to yourself daily because marriage is sacrificing and putting that person above yourself. Not saying that this person is going to walk all over you and mistreat you and mishandle you. But if you're both coming with the right agenda, with the right motive, to love one another, to be there one another, to honor those vows through better or for worse, through thick, through thin, for sickness and in health, you are there for one another. There's no agenda but to love one another, to make one another better, to add to one another's lives. If you're a young couple getting married, you're wanting to have children, you wanted to create a legacy. But if you're marrying again or if you're getting married later on in life, it's about coming together for purpose and for ministry and to be able to build God's kingdom, to add to the kingdom with your gifts and your callings. So marriage is a ministry, and we don't understand a lot of times God's design for marriage because we're thinking about it in this superficial way, this Disneyland princess y way that, oh, I want this big old fancy dress, I want the ceremony, the glamour, all lies on me. But when all that goes away, we have to understand the bigger picture that marriage is a ministry. When we are chasing marriage, we're not creating an atmosphere or a heart to sustain a marriage and what it means to sustain a healthy, godly marriage. So I want to talk about that on today. So the first scripture that I want to share with you is Genesis 2 and 24, where it says, Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. So your marriage is a union between you and your husband and you and your wife in God. You're one. This is not a casual thing. This is not something that you should take lightly. This is something that is serious to God. It's a covenant, it is something that's binding. It is not just a casual, it's a contract. So you're creating a contract with God. Your marriage is leaving your old dependencies on your parents and your family and creating a new covenant bond with your spouse and with God. And Jesus also talks about in Matthew 19, 6, so that they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate. So this is really important because these two scriptures really focus on the two people becoming one and not allowing outsiders to come into that union, that their voices are not important, that it's just you and that person with God building a foundation. You know, it's building a covenant, building an agreement, building a contract between the two parties and upholding the promises that you said in your vows, upholding the promises that God shares in his word about marriage. So it's very important that when you decide you want to make that jump or that leap, as they say, to get married, to take that step into marriage, that is not something that should be taken lightly. I want to start talking about some misconceptions about marriage. One of the misconceptions about marriage is that marriage is just about loving feelings. It's all about the lovey dubby. It's all about these emotions, you know, that can change day and night, right? You know, our emotions don't have brains. Our emotions are all over the place. One minute you can be up, one minute you can be down, one minute you can be happy, one minute you can be sad. Your emotions a lot of times are dictated by your circumstances. You know, if things are going my way today, I'm happy. If things aren't going my way, I'm not happy. You know, marriage is not meant to uh satisfy an ache in your heart, to fulfill a void in your heart. It's not about the butterflies, the chemistry, the attraction, and all those things. A marriage can't survive off of that. That may be some initial reasons why you're drawn to that person because there's some chemistry there. You get along, you have some commonalities there, there's some attraction, of course, you're attracted to that person, you feel good inside when you see them, you know, they bring out certain emotions, but that's not going to be able to sustain a marriage. But scripture talks a little bit deeper about one of the things that it takes to have a happy marriage or a healthy marriage. It's based on the foundation of love. And love is an action word, right? 1 Corinthians 13, 4 through 7 says, love is patient and kind. So let's stop there. When you're loving someone, you have and you're in a marriage, you have to be patient with that person. You're kind to that person. Remember those adjectives: kindness, patience. Love does not envy or boast. So you're not envious of your spouse, you're not jealous of them, you're not thinking that you're better than them, or it says love is not arrogant or rude. You're not rude to that person. You don't talk down to them, you're not demeaning to them. You are respectful of who they are. Love, it says it does not insist on its own way. So you're not insist on getting the last word all the time, like, oh, I have to get my word in. You can't talk. I need to be the only one talking in this conversation. You need to listen to what I say. That's not love. That's not what God says love is. You're not insisting on your own way. There's compromises in marriage, there's conversations in marriage. You're not just trying to get your way, oh, it's my way or the highway. I insist on it going my way, or I'm not gonna love you anymore, I'm not gonna like you anymore, I'm gonna withhold sex, I'm gonna mistreat you, I'm gonna mishandle you. No, there's conversations, there's compromising, there's some adjustments that need to be made, right? Because it's two different people coming together to create a life together. And if you're not able to do that, you're not ready to get married. So it says love is not irritable or resentful. You're not holding on to resentment, you're not holding grudges, you're not easily irritated by that person. You know, they're gonna do some things that you don't like, right? And that's any person, your children, your coworkers, but you're not gonna just always be irritated like when they come in your presence, you just have an attitude. They rub you the wrong way. It says it does not rejoice at wrong joints, but it rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. That is very powerful. It bears all things. So that means you're standing with that person, you're holding them up when they're going through something, you're there, it believes all things. You're not automatically thinking the worst about that person. You're believing the best in that person. But initially, when you're deciding to get married, this is the mindset that you're gonna have coming into the marriage. You're not gonna have this mindset of, oh, I know they're lying, they're a cheater, they're this. No, you're marrying this person because you trust them, you believe them, and then you should have that same attitude. You should be trustworthy. You should be someone that can be approachable and that someone can talk to you. You should be willing to change and to make adjustments, right? So you need to be that same type of person. What you're expecting from them, you should bring that same thing to the table. It hopes all things and endures all things. You're not gonna just give up at the first sign of trouble, right? Feelings may begin love, but character sustains a marriage. You're making a choice every day to love that person, to show up for that person, to be there for that person. You're not just, oh, when everything is going good, I'm gonna love you today, when everything is going my way. No, it's you know what? I'm here for the long haul. We're gonna have our ups and downs, but we're gonna come together as one, like it says in the beginning. We're gonna leave everybody else out of this marriage unless we need some godly counsel. But you know, God is the foundation of this marriage. So we're gonna go to Him in prayer. We're not gonna always need to have somebody from the outside in our marriage, even if it's a pastor. You don't always have to have people on the outside unless you need to get counseling or something's going on. But your first uh line of defense, your first line of contact should be God. You and your partner should be praying individually. You also should be coming together to pray in regard to your marriage and your future and decisions that need to be made, right? Then the next misconception about marriage is it's mostly about romance. We're always gonna have these romantic dinners. We go on dates every week. And sometimes it begins that way. Photos and on Instagram posting, passion, vacations. Romance is beautiful, but romance alone does not carry the covenant of marriage. Yes, these things are amazing, right? You want to have romantic dinners with your spouse. You want to go on a, you know, these nice vacations, staycations, you want to have date nights, you want to take pictures together. You want there to be a little some passion, some fire there, of course. But that's not all that marriage is about. It's not always about romance and butterflies. It's gonna be some challenges in your marriage, but you know what? These are some things that are good to have in your marriage. So I'm not saying that you you shouldn't have these things, right? Romance is beautiful, especially in Christian marriages. I'm not sure if you all had this uh growing up in the church in these religious atmospheres where, you know, you see these couples and they seem so stoic and hard and harsh, and you don't see them holding hands. You don't see them like kissing or, you know, even a kiss on the cheek or, you know, holding hands or any type of romance or any type of like, do you all even like each other? You know, you're seeing these couples, right? So it's like, you know, yes, you want to have some love there and some romance, some touching and some appropriate PDA, right? But um it's not just about that. 1 Peter 4 and 8 says, above all things, above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. When you love that person with a godly love and agape love, you're able to say, like, you know what, I have grace for my spouse. I understand they're human. Again, we're not talking about someone who's habitually being a liar, a cheater, doing all these things, right, that are against the marriage vows. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying someone who they might have messed up, or maybe they talked harshly to you uh because they were having a bad day. Okay, they were having a bad day. I excuse that. But if it's a habitual thing and it's happened on a regular basis, that's a conversation that needs to be had, right? But we understand that people have, you know, some rough days, they have some moments. And so when you love that person, you care about that person, you can forgive them, you can have grace, and you can move on, right? Marriage includes romance, but it also includes grace. It includes forgiveness, service, you're serving that person, you want to do kind things for that person, you're patient with them, you're uh there's healthy communication there, there's consistent communication there. Uh, you listen to that person, you're not raising your voice or you're speaking over that person and they can't be heard. No, you're actually having a conversation. It's not, oh, I'm gonna speak and you're not gonna say anything. No, we're communicating with one another. We're choosing to love when things are not going the way we want them to. Even when you don't like that person, I don't like my husband or my wife today, but I love them. I don't like what they've done. I'm disappointed in something that may have happened, but I love them and I'm making a choice to love them and show up for them every day in this marriage. Romance may create moments, but commitment and intentionality builds a life with your spouse. Another misconception about marriage is marriage will complete you. You always hear this, and I hear this all the time, and this is such a misconception that someone in general can complete you. The only person that can complete you is God. God is the only one that can complete you. He is your creator. Why are you looking at someone outside of someone who have created you to complete you? If you're missing something, if there's a void in your life, you have to go to the Father for completion, for fulfillment, for that uh missing piece that's going on because he now he's gonna, you're gonna have to spend some time with him and find out, Lord, what is going on? What do I need to work on? Not that person, yes, you know, in a marriage, you're gonna communicate and say, How can I make our marriage better? What can I do to be of service to you this week? You know, what can I do to help you today? Being of service to him, being a blessing to him, being uh a helpmate to him, supporting him because we are building that foundation. So if he needs something, if if I can support him in any way, I'm there for him, but I know that I can't complete him. He has to go to God. He can't complete me. I have to go to God. So if your purpose for getting married is because you're lonely, you're insecure, or you're feeling that something is missing, marriage is not going to be the end all be all. Yes, marriage is a great thing. It's gonna be an addition to your life, but it shouldn't be, oh, I need this to be happy, I need this to be whole, I need this to have a successful life, I need this. No, it's not a need, it's I desire marriage. Marriage is not meant to replace God's healing. Marriage is not meant to replace God's identity, who you are in Christ Jesus. And again, that's why in the beginning of this conversation, I mentioned salvation and inviting Jesus Christ into your life, because without him, we are nothing. Without him, we're not gonna be complete. We're not gonna be whole. We're not, we're always gonna be grabbing at grasping at straws, looking to other people, looking on the outside for someone to make us whole, to make us happy, to, you know, do something that's going to bring us joy and satisfaction on that day. Again, there's nothing wrong with having happiness and joy in your marriage and saying, you know what, you add to my life. There's nothing wrong with someone adding to your life to make you better. You know, a lot of times in marriages, people come into your life to make you better, to level you up, to help you to level up your game, to help you to uh accomplish goals. There's nothing wrong with that. Two whole people coming together, not two half people coming together, two whole people coming together with God to make a beautiful union and a beautiful marriage. Genesis 2.24 says, Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother, and this is the scripture I mentioned in the beginning, and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one. Not a half and a half making a one, one and one coming together to make one, and you're coming together to have a healthy marriage. Marriage is joining two people in covenant, and it's not to be a substitute for wholeness, and it's not a substitute for them being God in your life. They're your little G. They're your little God. Oh, I need that person to make me feel like I'm somebody. I always uh tease my fiance and I say when he brings me flowers or something, I'm like, oh, you're making me feel like I'm somebody, honey. And he's like, Ronnie, you're already somebody. So, and I say it teasingly, but we can't uh look at people or things to make us somebody. We are already somebody. Yes, what he does for me makes me feel special and makes me feel great and all those things, but I am my own person and I can't look to him to make me the woman that God has created me to be. Another misconception about marriage is that it's about control or roles without love. Because you always hear people say, I'm not gonna submit to no man, I'm not gonna submit to him. Who is he? Sometimes the culture, society misuses scripture, right? So um the misuse of biblical roles, you know, when it comes to submission, the uh uh power imbalance, being silenced, like I'm gonna silence you, I'm gonna take advantage of you, and I'm gonna mistreat you, I'm gonna misuse you. And this can happen for men and for women, not just for women. So I want to read Ephesians 5, 25 through 30, and it says, Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle, as such thing that she might be holy and without blemish. So, as the husband, you know, you're representing Christ, you know, in this marriage, you're the head of the marriage, you know, the bride is like the church. So you're wanting, you know, you're loving on your wife, you're you're there for her, you know, making sure that she is the best. You're leading her toward salvation, leading her in salvation. You're the head of the household, so you're going to church, you're praying, you're initiating things that of the Lord in your home. You're representing Christ by loving her, by covering her, by being there for her, right? And making sure that she be holy and without blemish. And in the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own body. So you're loving on her, you're loving your wife. He who loves his wife loves himself. So when you're loving your wife, you love yourself. For no one ever hated his own flesh but nourishes and cherishes it just as Christ does the church. So, as the husband, you're loving on your wife as Christ loves the church. Again, marriage is that representation of Christ's love for his people. For those in the body of Christ Jesus. So this is a very important role for husbands. So it's not to be taken lightly. You are to love on her. You are to cover her. You are to make sure that she has everything that she needs. You're providing for her. You're taking care of her like Christ does us. So you want to make sure when you're deciding to be a husband, that you're taking your role seriously. And Colossians 3, 18, 19 talks about the wife saying, What's wife, submit to your husband as fitting in the Lord. So listen to this. You know, we always hear people say, I'm not submitting to my husband, you know, thinking that that's talking about domination or imbalance of power. But you're submitting to your husband as fitting in the Lord. Your husband should be, again, as in Ephesians talked about, a representative of Christ. So when you're submitting to your husband, you're submitting unto God, you're submitting unto the authority of your husband as the head of your household. You're respecting his role. And he should be also representing that role as well. And sometimes, even if a husband is not fully there, that's something that as a wife, you should be praying for him. Like, Lord, I pray that as I am his wife, I can submit to him and honor him as his wife. And it says in 19 husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them. So again, the Bible is consistently giving the husband uh directions on how to treat his wife. But again, we are to submit to our husbands and to love them and to be under their authority. And if you're having a struggle with that, that's something that you need to be praying about. That's something that you need to be going to God about and you need to be praying for your husband. You, this again, this should be something that should have been already discussed. And you, the character of this man, you should be able to see prior to the marriage. You should be ready to be a wife that can submit and to support and to be a helpmate to her husband. And if you feel like you're not there yet and that's not what you're looking for, then you may really want to consider whether you're ready to be married because this is what the word is saying. So biblical marriage is not control, it's a mutual honor, responsibility, and a Christ-like love. Responsibility on both parts. It's not just on him and it's not just on you, it's on both parts. And it's a Christ-like love that comes together where God, where the world, again, because it's ministry, is able to see your children, are able to see your neighbors, your colleagues, your co-workers are able to see, wow, that is a godly marriage. I love that couple. And it's not just for show. This is who you are as a people. I see them holding hands. I see him loving on her. I see them kissing a soft peck on the lips or a kiss on the cheek. I see how she honors him and she doesn't talk down about him. She doesn't uh talk about him to her friends and, you know, talk about him on social media. He's not disrespecting his wife by out here cheating on her or having these emotional affairs and vice versa. You know, we're honored. I see him honoring her. I know there's women out here flirting with him all over the place, but guess what? He's honoring his wife. He comes home every night and he tells these women, I'm married. Thank you for the compliment. I appreciate that, but I'm married. And the wife does the same. You know what? Thank you for the compliment. But I'm a happily married woman. Even when you're going through things, your first line of defense should be the Lord. You shouldn't be venting to colleagues, to co-workers, to people. Their motives may not be where they need to be. And so they will take advantage of your vulnerability. And now here you've opened the door to things that should not be happening in a marriage, right? To um fornication and lust. So really be mindful of these things when you're deciding to go into marriage because it's very important. Another misconception, marriage means that I'll never have any problems. And we know that this is so not true because in the word says, in this life, we will have problems. We will have some problems, we will have some issues, but guess what? You know, God is with us in those trials in those problems, and he is there to help us through it. So if you're a believing that by getting married, it's automatically going to remove loneliness or hardship or conflicts, or you're getting married because you think it's gonna be your sugar daddy or your ATM or somebody's gonna pay all your bills and do all these things, and you might have a husband that will take care of you financially, and you can just stay at home with the kids. That's an added blessing, but that's not the main purpose of you getting married. That is not the reason why they're gonna fulfill my sexual desire. So I need to get married, and I really don't want to get married. I don't want to do everything else, but I just want to be able to have sex in a legitimate legal marriage or not feel guilty about it by having sex with all these different people. There's gonna be some challenges in our marriage, but the word says in Ecclesiastes 4, 9 through 10 that two are better than one because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one can lift the other up. So when you're married to someone, there's that support there that you're not in life alone. Yes, even you know, with God and your signal singleness, you're not alone. God created us for relationships, for communion. He created us to be in fellowship with others, with our community, with our church, with our families. He didn't create you to be on an island all alone. Marriage is not for everybody. Everybody is not called to marriage. So there will be some people that are single and they enjoy their singleness, they love it, they appreciate it, they flourish in it and they're about God's business and they're doing their thing. But you know, the word says, he that findeth a wife findeth a good thing and find favor with God. You know, it says even in the word that a man will find favor with the Lord when he finds a wife. So there's favor there, there's blessings there, there's an added security in Christ when you are married, but that doesn't mean that if you're single, you're not gonna be blessed because God does bless all of us, right? All of his children, he does, he blesses and he takes care of us no matter if we're single or married. So, you know, I want you to remember that marriage does not erase your struggles, but it gives you a partner to walk through them with. You know, you have somebody to walk with, you have somebody that's gonna be on your side, and that's such a blessing. That's such a beautiful thing, right? Another misconception is marriage is about me being happy all of the time. And I think I mentioned this a little bit before that marriage is not meant to make you happy. You have to come to the marriage happy. You have to be a happy person, period, right? You're enjoying life, you're enjoying what you do, you're enjoying your family, your friends, and your hobbies, everything that you got going on. Marriage can refine us and to make us better. Like I said, to be an added blessing. It's not meant to make us happy. And we're not gonna be happy all the time in a marriage. There's gonna be some troubles. There will be some struggles, there will be some trials, there will be some sickness, there might be a loss of a job, there might be some infidelity, there might be some bad financial choices, there might be some illnesses and some sicknesses, there may be some uh disagreements, some arguments and some things going on, but it's not meant to make you happy. That is not the foundation of your happiness. Ephesians 4, 26 and 27 says, be angry, be angry and do not sin. Being angry is a normal emotion, but it says do not sin. So you could be angry with your spouse, but that doesn't mean you cuss them out. That doesn't mean you disrespect them. That doesn't mean you go out and talk about them to your friends or blast your business on social media. It doesn't mean that you withhold sex, it doesn't mean that you uh go against them and go spend money that they asked you not to do. It says do not let the sun go down on your anger. So that means you might have to take an hour away from each other. You might have to take a timeout, but that doesn't it, but it means you still need to come back and talk about this. We're not gonna go to bed angry. We're not going to allow this to fester. We're not gonna even let this go on for a day. Oh, well, give me 24 hours, no, ma'am, no, sir. We're not gonna have no 24 hours, no out, give me 30 minutes or an hour, go pray, come back together and talk about it. Because the end of this verse says in 27, it says, and give no opportunity to the to the devil. When you allow your anger to turn into sin and to fester, and so now you're creating your own story about it, your own narrative, you're not getting clarity. This is allowing the enemy to come into your marriage and create lies, create false narratives about your spouse. They don't love you, they don't even like you. They're out here doing something they ain't got no business, you know, they don't respect you. You know, all these lies start coming up, all these scenarios start coming up in your head, and now you're starting to believe it. So now it's gonna be even harder to come together, or when you come together, you're still angry to the point where you can't even have a healthy conversation. You can be angry, but you can also pray about it, let go of the anger, allow that anger to turn into grace and forgiveness, and have a healthy conversation. And Ephesians 4, 31 through 32 says, Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. So all these negative adjectives you hear, clamor, slander, be put away from you. Let them go away from you. Give it over to God and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you. God has given us a mandate here to forgive, to be kind. Allow that kindness to uh wash away all of that wrath and clamor and slander and anger, that bitterness. Let it wash over that. Be tenderhearted. Look at your spouse with love and through the eyes of Christ, forgiving that person, forgiving one another, just as Christ forgave you, right? Marriage can bring joy, but it also calls for us to grow. It calls us to grow up, to check ourselves, it calls us to be humble, to serve one another, and to have a sense of maturity and grownness about this. Marriage is not for kids, it's for grown people. You have to be ready to be a married person, to be a married man, a married woman. You have to be mature about this, and it's gonna challenge you. You're gonna have some challenges. You're gonna have some good days, some bad days. You might have some seasons of rough and some rough patches, but you know what with Christ, you can get through those times. It's not your spouse's responsibility to make you happy because happiness is circumstantial. I didn't get that promotion, so I'm angry, and my spouse needs to make me happy. What if they had a bad day? So now both of y'all are gonna be home acting up? No, you would want your spouse to be like, hey, babe, I know you had a bad day today. I know you didn't get that promotion. You know, I'm gonna make you some dinner. Let me run you a bubble bath. Yes, those are gonna be some things that you would want your spouse to do, but what if they don't do it that day? What if they are running late? What if they have their own bad day? What if they are going through some other family challenges like with a parent or something like that? Are you gonna be angry with them because something they didn't meet your need that day? No, you're gonna need to continue to move forward and forgive, show some grace, let go of those expectations and be able to continue to move forward and go from there and ask God to give you peace that day, ask God to love on you that day because again, your spouse may be out of town, something might be going on, and your spouse may not understand that that's what you need. And that's a conversation you can have because sometimes your spouse may not know that's what you need in those moments. Like, you know, I really needed you to really listen to me or hug me or to just sit with me as I talked about or vented about this situation. That's where the maturity comes in, that's where the growth comes in, that's where the humility comes in, when you're able to have those types of conversations. That's where the good communication comes in, where you're able to communicate your needs, your concerns, your feelings with your partner, and them to be able to hear that and put those things into action and say, next time I understand, I'm learning how to love my spouse, I'm learning how to service my spouse, I'm learning how to be there for my spouse, right? And another misconception, marriage is easy to enter and easy to exit. You know, culture often treats marriage casually, right? Like, oh, if I'm mad this day, I'm over it, you didn't, you don't make enough money, you got laid off, you can't do what I think you should do. I want to divorce you. Marriage is sacred. Marriage is about two grown-ups, mature people coming together with the right agendas, the right mindset, the right heart, knowing that it's gonna be hard. It's gonna be some challenges, but you honor your vows. You honor the covenant, and you know what it takes. You're gonna stick it out through sickness and the health, through death do us part. Divorce should not even be on the table. It shouldn't even be a conversation, it shouldn't even be a word that's brought up in your household. People think your feelings are gonna override the covenant. That shouldn't even be something that you should even be considering. Selfishness over sacrificing, right? Laziness over love. So you rather be lazy and not put in the work because marriage is not easy. It's hard work. It's not gonna be rainbow and butterflies all the time. Yes, when you get a little older and you you've been married before, maybe, and you're marrying again, you've learned some things, right? You've been there, you've done that. So it's like, okay, I know what I need to do this time around. I know how to handle certain situations and certain challenges that may come up. So I can handle this better now. I'm more mature now. I know who I am, I'm confident in who I am, I know who I am in Christ. God is on my side. So you understand that, but marriage is not about being selfish. It's a sacrifice. You're dying to self, you're dying daily to your expectations, to what you thought it was supposed to be. You're letting go of these things and you're putting this other person above yourself. You're putting your husband, you're putting your wife above yourself. It's not lazy love, it's an intentional everyday choice that you must make. And you have to put your covenant over your feelings because feelings, again, change every day. One minute you're mad, one minute you're happy. You up and down, you all over the place. But a covenant is lasting, it's solid. It's not going to change tomorrow and uh change next year. It's solid. It is what it is. It's what the word says and what you believe with God. Martin 10, 6 through 9 says, but from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and holds fast to his wife. That means you're holding on to this marriage, you're you're willing to do whatever it takes. Do or die, here we go. I'm not gonna walk away from this. This is not something that I take flippantly. I take my covenant with my wife, my spouse seriously, and the two shall become one again. So they no longer are two but one, one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate. So don't allow your feelings, your flesh, your emotions to cause you to walk away from a marriage that God has put together. As long as you're safe, that person is honoring their vows, um, there's no violence there, you're safe. You should be able to work through anything. Again, I'm not saying it's gonna be easy because I've been married before, I've been divorced, so I know the selfishness of my ways. I know what I did wrong the first time. And I'm I was able to grow through that season of singleness and mature as a person. So now I know what it takes and I understand what it takes to be married. So when the opportunity comes again, I am ready for it. I'm engaged. So I'm super excited about being married again, being able to be the wife that God has created me to be and to represent myself as a woman in the Bible to honor my husband, to honor the marriage vows, to be that support, that helpmate, to know what the what marriage is really about. It's not about having uh a sex partner, it's not about having someone pay my bills, it's not about having a travel buddy, but it's about having a husband who honors God, who loves the Lord, who represents God, who is a leader, who is kind, caring, patient, and loving. And I can be the respectful, supporting wife that will undergird and need to support my husband to help him to be all that God has created him to be, and for us to be a representative of Christ in our marriage. And Matthew 19, 8 says, he said to them, Because of your hardness of heart, Moses allows you to divorce your wives. And that's a heart issue there. Because of the hardness of your heart, you don't want to work things out, and you know, and you decide to leave that marriage, if that if your spouse decides to leave, you can't make them stay. Then God allows that divorce to come. A sexual immorality, God is allowing that divorce. So you want to make sure that you're not just divorcing, oh, well, I can just easily get out get out of this. No, it's serious. Marriage is serious, it's sacred, and it should be entered with prayer, wisdom, and readiness. You should be ready to be married. I want you to know that marriage is serious. It is not something that should be taken lightly. And as I share the various misconceptions of marriage, I want you to meditate on those things. If you're considering getting married, or even if you're married right now, I want you to reevaluate, do an inventory on your marriage. You know, many people dream about the dress and the venue, the photos, the first dance, the honeymoon, and all these amazing things that come with getting married, the applause. This is an amazing, beautiful, spectacular, dream filled day, right? But marriage is not just built on that one day. Marriage is built on ordinary days that follow. So what happens after the marriage? What happens after you get back from the honeymoon? That first argument in the car or on the plane back coming home, what happens after that? The wedding is an event. The covenant is a lifestyle. A marriage built on God's word, built on integrity. That's your lifestyle. So every day after the wedding, after the beauty and the glamour of it all and these beautiful pictures, after all that, that's where the real work happens. You know, the wedding may last an hour, two, 30 minutes if you're getting married doing a, what do they call it, a micro wedding, or you're enoping. But, you know, a covenant with your spouse is daily love, daily patience, forgiveness, humility, communication, and a commitment. A commitment to do the work, a commitment to do what it takes. Everybody wants to be chosen, but are you prepared to choose someone consistently? So, yes, choose me, but am I choosing them? Everybody wants the vows spoken at the altar and all those things, but are you prepared to live those vows when things get hard? These are questions I'm asking because these are questions I had to ask myself. You know, everybody wants a partnership and a celebration, but are we prepared for partnership and grief and stress and disappointment and sacrifice and growth when things are changing all around us, when life happens? Because a covenant and the ministry of marriage is asked us to go deeper. It's asking us to ask deeper questions. When the wedding is over, will you say I do? Will you continue to say I do to that person? So I want to ask you these questions, and I want you to ask yourself these questions. Can you love when it's inconvenient? Can you stay honest when it's uncomfortable? Can you communicate when shutting down feels easier? Can you remain faithful when seasons shift? Or can you serve instead of always being served? Because you know everybody wants to be served, but do you want to serve? Do you want to be humble? The wedding is a public display of love and matrimony and celebration, but your covenant is private, it's sacred, it should be covered, it should be not be put on display for everybody to put their finger on and to have their say. People may witness the ceremony, but only two people live with the commitment of marriage. So before asking God for a spouse, ask God to prepare your heart to be married. Ask God to prepare you to be the man or the woman that you need to be to be a covenant partner. Because the wedding is beautiful and you can plan it for months and months and months and years even. But a healthy marriage takes work and will continue to evolve over time. So a marriage is for the rest of your life till death do us part. So I want you to really sit with those questions. I want you to sit with the uh, you know, what I've shared because I've had to sit with myself with these things. And I want to ask you one other question. Do you want marriage for covenant or do you want marriage for comfort, validation, romance, and status? Don't just pray for a wedding. Pray for the character to sustain a covenant. So I hope that this episode blessed you. I want to pray before I let you go. Father God, thank you for being the author of love and the designer of covenant. Thank you for showing us that marriage is more than a title, more than a ceremony, and more than a temporary feeling. Thank you for revealing that true love is rooted in sacrifice, honor, patience, grace, and commitment. Lord, heal every listener who has been disappointed by counterfeit love, unhealthy relationship, broken promises, and unrealistic expectations about marriage. For the woman listening who desires marriage, purify her desires. Help her want what you want for her, Lord God. Teach us, Lord God, how to value covenant over culture, character over chemistry, purpose over pressure, and peace over performance. Prepare our hearts, Lord, before you prepare for the partnership, Lord God. For the person listening who is already married, strengthen their union, Lord God, restore communication, Lord God, renew tenderness in their marriage, Lord. Bring healing where there is hurt, Lord God, bring wisdom where there has been confusion and bring love where there has been distance. Help us remember that love is not just something we feel, it's something that we choose every day, and something that we nurture, protect, and store. And above all, draw us closer to you, Lord, because when we know your love deeply, Lord God, we're able to learn how to love others as well. Thank you, Father God. Your word. Thank you for your covenant of marriage, and we hold it deeply. In Jesus' name, amen. So I hope this really blessed you. I hope that you consider subscribing and following. Share this with someone who's engaged or wanting to be married or someone who maybe is married so they can do an inventory on their own marriage. If this spoke to you, please feel free to put down in the comments what really stood out to you about this episode. And remember, ask yourself, why do I really want to get married? Is it because I'm feeling pressure from my family? I'm lonely. Is it because of an image? I'll look better to society if I'm a husband or a wife to someone. I just want you to know that there's no shame in your answer. There's no shame in what you say. You know, this is between you and God. I hope that by you asking this question, that it brings clarity and it brings healing, it brings growth. And I hope that this episode really blessed you because I had the wrong idea about marriage. I had the wrong perspective about marriage. And I believe that's why in my first marriage, you know, I did a lot of things that was very immature, that was not becoming of God and what he created marriage for. But now that I have a clear understanding of what marriage is, I know that this is going to be the best union that God has put together. And I know that we're going to have a blessed life together. So I'm super excited about your future. I'm super excited about mine. So I am praying that this blessed you. Please subscribe, leave a review, let everybody know about this podcast. And I love you. I'm praying for you. And until the next time, I look forward to seeing you in the next episode. Be encouraged and have an amazing day. Journey to Loveland is part of the Chicology Podcast Collective where women come together to heal in the open, grow in truth, and walk forward with courage and compassion.