Sometimes a love story is beautiful, but AWFULLY risky!
I asked on my Facebook Page recently: what elements of your love story shouldn’t have worked but did? And I got some great stories! (Seriously, I’ve been asking a lot of questions on Facebook lately for posts I want to write, and getting the best stuff. If you haven’t liked that Page yet, you should!).
Does your love story have any parts that shouldn't have worked, but did? For instance, in today's post one person…
Posted by To Love, Honor and Vacuum on Monday, July 16, 2018
What I love is that God works differently in all of our lives, and very individually, too. And sometimes things work that really shouldn’t have worked, largely through grace, or a bigger plan. I picked ten of those stories to feature today, but you can read the rest here. And then I want us to look more closely at some of these love stories:
1. When you don’t have your family’s blessing
1. Our families were involved what could be called a two-generation feud. We found out about it while dating, but didn’t realise the extent of the bitterness or hurt. Our marriage is actually the tool God used to heal that wound and allow older generations to “bury the hatchet.”
2. Kept apart by my family and given an ultimatum about staying together. 
🤷🏻♀️ We’ll celebrate 10 years this fall. 
🙌🏻
2. A huge age difference (added to getting married young!)
1. 17 year age difference reporting in! 
🙋It was especially unorthodox because I was 19 at the time, and he was deploying (Army) that summer. We were then long distance for two years and the longest time we had spent together consecutively was only 8 days… but I moved halfway across the country to live with him anyway. We got married a year later 
💞
2. We met on a blind date and have a 13 year age difference. He was a straight as an arrow, stick up his butt military officer, I was a single mom, just having fun with no goals 22 year old when we met, and we’ve been very happily married for 38 years. I think we balanced each other out.
3. A big blended family
We are a blended family with a total of 6 kids. All odds were against us, but it actually made us stronger!
4. A super short engagement
1. We met in a bar when I was 18, got married 6 weeks later and are still happily married 23 years later!
2. I moved to Ethiopia to be a missionary, had a connection with my translator and two months after we decided to get married. We were married six months after my arrival. Four months after that we adopted two children and four years later had a biological daughter!! Sounds crazy to some but best decision(s) of my life! 
❤️
3. Engaged on our first date, married 4 months later and will be married 20 years in February and still very happy and in love. Everyone said it wouldn’t last.
5. An initially “unequally yoked” marriage
I wasn’t a Christian when I met him and we survived me going away to college then moving out of state for a job. 7 years of dating before we got married. We are total opposites I’m book smart and he’s street smart. He helped lead me to Christ. Married 17 years with 4 kids
When it comes to relationship “rules” we need to realize that the exception should not make the rule, but we also need to leave room for some exceptions.
6. Surviving an “affair”
Well when I was pregnant after 13 years of marriage my husband had an “affair??”with his ex girlfriend in Oregon. But we are still married after 33 years and our daughter is 20.
7. Pregnant when You Married/Baby Before Marriage
1. We got pregnant 7 months into the relationship (while in college!) and got married before we had been dating even a year. It’s been 6 years since we got married and we have 3 kids and are super in love.
2. We started dating when I was 14. Had our first baby when I was 16. I graduated high school and we got married at 18. I graduated college pregnant with our 3rd child. I have a degree yet I stay home with our now 6 babies (11yo-6mo] while the Lord provides an incredible income through my husband’s hard working hands. We make 10 years married August 8th and I’m so blessed daily by this life we’ve built against the odds!!
8. Married Someone with a Past
He’s been married before, had a child. We’re 9 years apart. He was a Christian, I was not. And during my second pregnancy his mother moved in with us. Happily married 19 years and still have Mom with us!
9. Very, Very Young Marriage!
We got engaged while he was still in high school, and got married right after he graduated. I was a Christian, he wasn’t. That didn’t happen til about seven years into our marriage. We’ve been married 15 years now. I think it’s safe to say most people didn’t think we’d make it, but God knows our story.
10. A Long-Distance Engagement
1. We dated in person for 5 months, and then we were stationed apart for military service for 18 months. We only saw each other every 6 months (including for our wedding!) The military is hard on relationships and conventional wisdom would predict us breaking up, but with lots of Skype, love, and God caring for us, we made it through and we’ve been married 4 years!
2. I met my husband at 16, we lived in separate states (MI and IN) dated long distance for four years. I still can’t believe that we as teenagers pulled it off! 
😄
Wow! There were also people who wrote about circumstances that shouldn’t have worked, but did. Lots of crises in first few years of marriage, or illnesses and cancer. One even had a deaf/hearing marriage combination!
Reading all of these stories, what can we conclude?
I think there are two different mistakes we can make when it comes to understanding God’s grace when it comes to choosing a marriage partner: the first is believing the exception makes the rule; the second is not leaving room for any exceptions at all.
Just because something worked for one person does not mean that it will work all the time–we still need to be wise!
These stories of people getting married after super-short engagements, or when they were really young, or when they had never really spent much time in the same city–they make me smile likely just as much as they make you smile.
However, we still need to be wise. Marriage is a huge step. While things that would normally never be recommended can end up working for people, that doesn’t mean that the recommendations themselves are irrelevant.
There’s a reason that marriages tend to be more successful if you really know each other first; if you have similar backgrounds; if your friends and family like your significant other; if you both follow Jesus. It’s hard to blend two lives. It’s much easier if you truly understand what you’re getting yourself into, and if there are fewer surprises afterwards.
Just because your parents got married after only 3 months of courtship, or just because your best friend got married after only knowing him long distance does not mean that you should disregard all the good advice you’ve been given!
- How to Prepare for Marriage, not just the wedding
- A round-up of posts on choosing a good husband
- How to recognize a guy with good character
Do you have a hard time asking for what you want?
You can change the dynamic in your marriage and make talking about your own needs easier!
If your marriage is in a communication rut, it’s time for some change.
If your love story doesn’t fit the mold, that doesn’t mean it’s doomed, either
The second mistake we can make, though, is to write off a potential love story because it doesn’t check all the right boxes. Like I said in my post about preferring “debt free virgins without tattoos“, the really important thing is not that someone meets your checklist of criteria. It’s that they know and follow Jesus, and that the fruit is evident in their life.
I know a wonderful Christian man with a great sense of humour, a great job, and an awesome extended family who is still single at 44 because he absolutely refuses to date anyone with any kind of baggage or any kind of past. Maybe he’s right and he’d actually prefer to be single, but I get saddened by people like that, because I know so many amazing women in their 30s and 40s who have been left by horrible husbands. These wonderful Christian women would make amazing wives, but here this guy is saying that he won’t take anyone with baggage. I think about what a wonderful step-father he would have made.
Some people, if you were to look only at their life story, would seem to be horrible marriage partners. But when you see what God is really doing in their life, you see how amazing they might be. I think of Rahab, the prostitute who helped the Israelite spies, as told in Joshua 2. She had quite the baggage! She wasn’t an Israelite. She belonged to a completely different people group that worshipped different gods. She had been a prostitute. But she chose to ally herself with God, and her name is found in Jesus’ genealogy.
She broke all the rules–but she was good enough for Jesus.
The big conclusion I’d make, then, is that it always comes back to being able to discern God’s voice.
Stay in close contact with God. Desire the things of God. Seek first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness. When you do this, you’ll be able to see when a love story really isn’t a good one. And you’ll also be able to see whether someone is genuinely following God or not, and whether they’d be a good match for you.
Your best love story comes when you listen to God. It doesn’t have to tick all the boxes. But it does have to please Him.
Here are some other series for you to read:
Did your love story break the mold? Tell me about it! What’s the best advice you’d give about how to know if they’re marriage material? Let’s talk in the comments!
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Sheila Wray Gregoire has been married for 29 years and happily married for 24! She loves traveling around North America with her hubby in their RV, giving her signature "Girl Talk" about sex and marriage. And she's written 7 books. About sex and marriage. See a theme here? Plus she knits. Even in line at the grocery store.
We briefly “liked” each other at 14. I went on to date his brother 😔 seriously for a few years. He went in the army. I was a junior in college and he was home on leave and we reconnected at a bar one night. We “hung out” for about a month. I found out I was pregnant and two weeks later we were married! That was almost 16 years ago and 7 kids later! GOD DOES HAVE PLANS WE CANNOT UNDERSTAND! I’m so glad HE is in control and not me! I would not choose ANYONE else to love or be loved by than my husband ❤️.
Wow, now that’s a story! Amazing how God has so woven your lives together and you’ve become so perfect for each other. That’s lovely.
While these stories are not ones that should be copied I view these stories as God’s divine interevntion with the work of his people. Example. Several of the stories mention the spouse was not a Christian. If it wasnt for the work of the couple and the joining of them by God the results may have been different. In my case there were so many similarities between Grace and I there was no doubt ever she was the one for me. However, I was throwing away God’s gift to me (Marriage to my wonderful wife Grace) until I took the opportunity given to me to change my heart. Together (God and me -my work and change if heart) made our love story what it is today. Total gratittude for sure.
Beautifully said, Phil! It is about God’s divine intervention, and when we surrender to God, amazing things can happen. At the same time, I do think we need to teach our children to be wise and choose well. And when we truly endeavour to know God, then He will guide us.
Definitey Sheila – thats what Grace and I are doing thanks in part to your help from this blog. Truly grateful that maybe my kids challenges within their marriages and their lives in general are much easier because they learned God’s word and followed his teachings and do His will.
Oh my gosh, you used my story! I’m so excited! We definitely had a long distance engagement, but we loved each other and the Lord brought us together [and apart] at exactly the right time. He’s my favorite person <3
Thanks for letting me share, Sheila!
Thank you for your story, Rebecca! 🙂 I love it when people share on Facebook, too. It gives me a chance to highlight more of my readers. 🙂
We broke several Christian rules and have a wonderful marriage. I would NOT recommend this to 99% of Christians, especially not young Christians.
I married a non-Christian whom I met through work. He was brought up in a fantastic loving family. Years ago, he’d gone a bit crazy after an impulsive marriage/divorce, but had turned over a new leaf. He had “repented” many years before we met.
He became a good man. That’s what attracted me. His ethics in business were very high. He thought about what was pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy, and wouldn’t even joke around about anything off-color (unlike me). Phil. 4:8.
To quote C.S. Lewis (Mere Christianity):
“The world does not consist of 100 per cent Christians and 100 per cent non-Christians. There are people (a great many of them) who are slowly ceasing to be Christians but who still call themselves by that name: some of them are clergymen.
“There are other people who are slowly becoming Christians though they do not yet call themselves so.
“There are people who do not accept the full Christian doctrine about Christ but who are so strongly attracted by Him that they are His in a much deeper sense than they themselves understand.
“There are people in other religions who are being led by God’s secret influence to concentrate on those parts of their religion which are in agreement with Christianity, and who thus belong to Christ without knowing it.”
All this is to say, I love this man and he loves me. He treats me very well. I leave it in God’s hands, and don’t worry.
Anonymous, I’ve heard it explained that the direction someone is moving in is almost more important than where they are now, and I think that’s a take off of what Lewis was saying. Someone who is moving towards God but hasn’t fully made the commitment yet is likely in a safer place than someone who did make a commitment, but is moving away from Him.
I’d never recommend marrying someone who didn’t know God! But I do think sometimes we think in terms of binaries too much–he’s either in or he’s out. And we don’t look enough at what is really going on in someone’s heart. There are lots who claim to know Jesus who act nothing like Him.
Thank you for sharing this quote, and thank you to Sheila for the article.
Our marriage is non-traditional, in that I am a Christian and he is not. But we are very good for each other and have a good marriage and a peaceful home. I pray for his salvation, and I am thankful he comes to church with me. He even plays bass sometimes at church. I love that he is included and welcomed and hears the gospel.
One of the hardest things was basically losing all my Christian girlfriends when we decided to get married. I wouldn’t recommend this type of marriage, as I realize it could be risky. But I am much more sensitive to being graceful to other people with their decisions because of how I was treated. I do believe God has a purpose in bringing us together. My husband is such a blessing in my life.
Such amazing stories 😆😆. And I love your emphasis too about not throwing caution to the wind based on someone else’s experience.
Our love story didn’t meet peoples expectations. It’s funny how you think you are on the same page with others until you attempt to color a little outside the box! But we (they and ourselves!) grew up from the experience.
Some of the best advice to identify “the one” – What is God saying (if He’s quiet He’s saying something). What are your mentors saying. How does he treat others. How does he treat you.
I love your wrap up message of stay close to God (and of course close to each other). Such an important thing to remember when going through hard times. As for us, it would have been easy to call it quits a few times. But we wanted to be married to each other more than divorced from each other.
I love to share our story. God is amazing! God is good, so good. I’m a native Floridian, He’s from Ontario Canada. We first met when I was 7, he was 4. Both our families were visiting Galilee Bible Camp in Ontario. He stuck his tongue out at me, several times. We met again in my Dad’s shoe repair shop, I was 15, he was 12. He looked miserable, my heart was touched. At 16 I began to pray, giving God control of the chioice of my husband. We met a third time, at the same Bible camp, he was 15, I was 18. We spied each other, I was in a car, he was moving tables. And we both sensed that this was the one. But we didn’t get together till the next summer. I was really trying not to go home with a boyfriend 1200 miles away. We were secretly engaged 15 months later and married 16 months and $5000 in phone calls and postage later. We were 18 & 21. Our parents didn’t like it. In fact nobody liked it, only his best friend thought it was a good idea. But we are here, soul mates, he calls us, 32 years side by side. Grandparents times 3! Our God is a good God!
I think what makes someone marriage material is personal to each one of us. For my husband and I, we each saw something we needed in the other one. He was a willing helper, I’m no powerhouse of energy, I needed a worker. I was the steady onward he so needed in his life. I think the give / get is what locks us together. All the other good qualities like kindness, thoughfulness, like good manners, just make it easier to live with someone, they don’t really bind us together. The stick-to-it-ness is helped by needing one another.
That’s wonderful! Do you live in Ontario now or in Florida? I think I know where Galilee Bible Camp is!
We live in the great state of Florida!
We got married at what’s considered a young age around us (21) and there were major issues with my mom and him (that have since gotten so much better!) which meant her side of the family (particularly my grandmother) had issues with him. We are complete opposites (he’s majorly introverted, I’m slightly extroverted – although according to MBTI I tend to blend in with whomever I’m around) and shouldn’t have dated as long as we did (6 years) let alone gotten married but we did and are so happy together. It’s been 2 years and we now have a 3 month old and he has a broken ankle and we’re moving but we’re still going! Here’s to many more years together.
We met, married and had a baby all in our senior year in high school
He was 17 I was 18. We knew we loved each other. But I wasn’t prepared for the most difficult years in my life! After 10 years of marriage we almost divorced…. But God!
Here we are 38 years, 5 adult kids and 10 grandkids later.
To God be the glory!
Older post but I feel like I have to comment… we met on an Erasmus exchange, I was 19 and he was 22. We spent 5 years long distance then I moved to his country to be closer to him. We’ve now been together 13 years and are happily married!