Status Updates From Still Here: Life Together o...

"Your word is a lamp for my feet and a light on my path" (Ps. 119:105). Notice the brilliant metaphor the psalmist uses—"a lamp for my feet." The image he paints is more like a handheld lantern, not the high-intensity spotlight we might wish it was.

The facts are the facts. We get that. The reasons are always around us for making different decisions now than we did then, for putting new conditions on our old vows. But the truth is the truth: We live in an environment that coddles us in our facts and then reasons us into selfishness.

It's not hard to find a counselor, even among the ones who advertise themselves as "Christian" counselors, to encourage you right out of your marriage. Out of the decision you once made-both of you-to live your promise through to the end.

Your marriage is a battle, against a real enemy who is constantly whispering to you and making accu-sations—things about you, but more likely things about your wife or your husband. And he is never happier than when youre fighting and blaming each other with those same accusations.

"Put first things first and we get second things thrown in: put second things first and we lose both first and second things." C.S.Lewis

Everyone stands to lose things, important things, when they give up on each other—things they may not ever get back. But of all the things weve done unwell in life and in marriage-and, sadly, there's a big book-length volume of them to choose from the grace of God that's kept us together is the one trophy in this house that means the most to us.

How do we do this? This marriage? This schedule? Even this day? The nonstop challenge of living this complicated life of ours. Both the expected and the unexpected. How do we navigate it? How do we manage it in a way that makes it even remotely manageable?