Today is my 20th wedding anniversary.

I married at a beautiful 21 year old girl when I was just 19 and we are still married today. In Hollywood years, we're the equivalent of Methuselah. I've spent more than half my life hitched.

As I look back and reflect, I realize how incredibly blessed I am. I dated a lot of girls and had a completely different version of the "girl I'm going to marry" in my imagination at that time. I think I was aiming for combination of Julie Andrews and the girl from that "Cherry Pie" video...but in a Christian version.

What I wound up with was surprising and beyond my wildest imagination.

I married a girl who twenty years later still surprises and interests me. I married someone with whom we don't need kids or context to talk.  (We know everything there is to know about the other person, and still enjoy each other's company). I married a beautiful girl who loves me. She's gives me unparalleled support, encouragement, and patience.

Seven years ago, my wife and I were struggling. Things were dark and getting darker. The dance we had created during the first ten years of our relationship was no longer working.

            Things were magnified by the fact that we had just begun our life as missionaries in Australia. Ministry was thriving. Everyone was counting on us. That was part of the problem.

            That's when my wife hit me with one of the hardest, yet most life giving statements I have ever heard. It is in large part what saved our marriage. Karie said this, “You are my soul mate. You are the man I have committed my life to, I’m just not sure I can live with you.” And with that, Karie began to pack her and Lily our two-year-old for home.

It’s almost June, the month where Bridal magazines fly off the shelf and thousands will show up on our shores, a few friends in tow to have their long dreamed of wedding on the beach in.

I could make a lot of money just by performing wedding ceremonies for these people. After all, I live near the major tourist destination on Kauai and the inherent romantic beauty of the place begs to be enfolded into vows.

In fact, in the twenty years I have been performing weddings (that, I ask no fee for I might add) I have only done two inside of a church building, all the rest were on the beach or in some lush outside location.

To get into the economic gush all I would need to do is to make sure that I was on the list of the hotels and wedding planners, set a “price of paradise” going rate and ba-boom! my kid’s college tuitions would be paid for.

Anna and I have been reading John Piper’s recent book on marriage, entitled This Momentary Marriage.  The premise of the book is simple:  that marriage is the doing of God and is meant to be the display of God.

Piper looks to two amazing descriptions of marriage in the Scriptures to develop this thesis.  The first is in Matthew 19, where Jesus reaches back to quote and explain the first statement about marriage in Genesis 2.

“[Jesus] answered, ‘Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh?’  So they are no longer two but one flesh.  What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate’” (Matthew 19:4-6, emphasis added).

Even that hideous ogre in Shrek finds love. With no instruction manual except for a donkey-as-therapist and the twists of fate, the guy still manages to create his own fairytale.

Some Christians aren’t so lucky.

Like many children’s picture books, our American marriage myths are often more about pretty illustrations than straight talk. Christian marriages take the folklore even further, promising mythical wedding-night pay-offs in exchange for chastity, or automatic monogamy that comes free with pastor’s signature on the marriage license. But the tales of love often betray us, leaving authentic followers of Christ with a cynicism they weren’t expecting.

The real question is not whether marriages are in trouble (they are). The more important question is whether the Bible’s principles are trustworthy enough to still hold up under the cynical weight of all those broken, banged-up, and unfixable fairytales.  The best answer is not the easy one that we learned at Junior High Camp (God said it, I believe it, that settles it), but the answer that still holds true when the prince has left the story. 

In church a few weeks ago, my pastor talked about what happens when a person dies within a Jewish community.  The friends and family of those left behind travel to the grieving’s house and simply sit with them.  They don’t make pat comments, they don’t swoop in and try to fix everything, and they don’t come in armed with an array of distractions.  They respect their grief and just sit in silence.  

Earlier today, I was watching the movie “Sunshine Cleaning” - a story about two sisters that form a bio-hazard clean up business, cleaning up the messes often left behind when people die.  In one poignant scene, they arrive at a house and find the frazzled widow waiting to give them the house keys.  Amy Adams’ character senses the grief of this old stranger and offers to simply sit with her. She reaches over and clasps the old woman’s hand - just as I imagine occurs in those grieving Jewish homes.  

Step 1:  Trust God.

Immediately, I fell on my knees, sought Him, and went back to church.  My sense of failure sent me there -- love, forgiveness, and restoration kept me there.

Step 2:  Find community.

Family support was key, as was friend support.  Stepping into community with fierce protectors, of me and my marriage, kept me strong.  And fighting.

Step 3:  Remain hopeful.  

I remained hopeful, first for our reconciliation.  Then, for my own restoration.

Step 4:  Be honest.

There was a period of time early on where I couldn’t share what was going on at home.  But hiding that anguish never felt healthy.  I needed to discuss how I felt to get to a new level of honesty about me, about us.

Love is for losers.

Losers fail to recognize the needs of their significant other.

Losers avoid confrontation and bury the problem.

Losers have high expectations that do not match reality.

Losers cut themselves off and figure the relationship out alone.

Love is for losers.

Losers sacrifice their needs for their significant other, placing their needs above their own.

Losers willingly tackle confrontation, even if they may be wrong.

Losers are willing to let go of their expectations, settling instead for the beauty of reality.

Losers are humble enough to seek wise council from the community around them.

Everyone is a loser when it comes to love.  You are either losing the relationship or losing yourself in the relationship.  I don’t know about you, but I identify with both sets of losers.  The first set of losers explains how my marriage died.  The second set of losers paints a picture of what my next relationship will be.  Either I’m seeing my wife through my own personal needs, or I am setting those needs aside to humbly meet her needs authentically.  

I am no longer a believer.  I haven’t been for quite a while, actually.  I think it started when I was going through my divorce.  So much I had understood about God prior to my divorce was completely turned upside down, and I didn’t know what to make of it. I lived a good life, I went to Church, I prayed, I did all the things young Christians are supposed to do - and yet, when I got married my life fell apart.  I believed that God would reward me for my good behavior.  I believed that because I trusted Him, everything would be all right.

What I believed was wrong.  But He wasn’t the problem - it was me.  I succumbed to the typical American brand of Christianity.  In the United States, our consumerist culture wired me to expect God to behave like a vending machine.