This is not Hawaii, for the record Still beautiful, though!

As I was driving in the car one night, listening to the radio, I heard Chuck Swindoll giving a talk on marriage. He made a great analogy that I thought I would share with you today: “Marriage is Like Planning a Trip to Hawaii.”

Imagine that you are planning a trip to Hawaii. You have all of your suitcases packed full of funny-looking Hawaiian shirts, flip-flops, sunscreen, and big hats. You step onto the plane and you are in a great mood – you’re going to Hawaii, after all! You imagine the sunshine, the birds singing, the fresh pineapple, and the beautiful beachside villa that will be your home for the vacation.

Suddenly, the plane veers off course and instead of landing in Hawaii, you have landed in the Swiss Alps. The weather is snowy and cold, and instead of staying in a beachside villa, your accommodations will be be a small, drafty chalet. You have no clothes for the Alps, not to mention shoes, and you are standing in the snow, shivering.

You now have a choice to make: You can either decide to go on with your vacation as if you were in Hawaii, walking around in your flip-flops and crazy Hawaiian shirts, or you can change course. You can decide to buy heavier clothes and appropriate shoes, and you can even fix up that drafty old chalet so that it becomes quite a lovely home. If you make the latter choice, you might find that your vacation, while unexpected, has become quite a wonderful adventure. Your time in the Swiss Alps will be even more amazing than you could have ever imagined your trip to Hawaii would be, if you choose to adapt.

Marriage is like planning a trip to Hawaii and ending up in the Swiss Alps (or vice versa!). The Swiss Alps are lovely, but they are very different from Hawaii. There are many unexpected conditions and events in a marriage, and if we stick to our initial expectations, we will be sorely disappointed and uncomfortable. However, if we are able to adapt and change our plans, marriage can become a beautiful adventure.

Perhaps this Lent would be a good time for us, who have been blessed with the particular vocation of marriage to our spouse, to reflect on the areas in which we might make some personal changes. The three pillars of Lent – fasting, prayer, and acts of service – might be a helpful guide in this exercise. I’m going to ask Our Lord to open my heart to the changes that I might make in my life, so that I may more fully engage in my relationship with my husband – will you join me this Lent?

One of our dear friends is getting married today, and many of the Builders are gathered in Washington for the special event.  Weddings are amazing; your friends and family fly in from all over the world to celebrate your commitment and your relationship is imbued with new, sacramental strength.

If FT were there, he would tell you a few things, we have heard them many times from him at weddings, but they deserve to be repeated.  First, don’t run away.  Marriage is worth the effort, but it does take a surprising amount of effort, and humility and charity, more than many people are able to give to one another.  Keep at it, because as you grow in these things you will be closer to God and one another.  Second, ask for forgiveness and forgive.  Over and over again.  Big things and little things.  Third, the community present at your wedding is there to promise to support you in your marriage, go to them when you are in trouble.

One of the most important things about my relationship with these women over the years has been the ways that they have supported my marriage.  These girls know how you get when you are exhausted, that there is fire behind your often quiet, joyful attitude, they know when you need space and how to reconcile with you after a fight.  There is a sisterhood there.  The blessing of this sisterhood is that these women believe deeply in the sacramentality of your marriage, and they will pray for you and support you through difficult times, rather then bashing your husband or encouraging you to stay angry.  When you get crazy, they will listen long after he can’t stand to talk about it anymore.  There will be stages in your marriage when this support is priceless, so don’t be afraid to show vulnerability by asking for it.

Many people ask us how we do it, and while we all have different styles, I think we would agree that the foundation of each of our cathedrals is our faith in God and our amazing husbands.  They keep food on our tables with their daily labor, and two have put their lives on the line for the freedom of all of our families.  They lead our families in prayer, but they know the healthy limits of wifely submission.  They make us laugh.  They motivate us and help us juggle when we overcommit.  They have held our hands through 26 labors.  They are our best friends.

We wish you a marriage in which you grow closer to God through one another each day, firm in the knowledge that you are one another’s path to sanctity.