UPS AND DOWNS

By, Joni Eareckson Tada

“But those who marry will face many troubles in this life.”

1 Corinthians 7:28

The other night I fell into bed with a miserable cold. Mind you, I am not able to blow my nose because I can’t use my hands, and I can’t really cough because I have no chest muscles. I knew I was going to face a rough night. But not as rough as Ken.

I woke up at 3:00 A.M. and groaned, “Ken, please get up. Help me sit up so I can cough.” The poor guy threw back the covers, stumbled out of bed, and sat me up to pound on my back. He held a tissue to my nose as I coughed and sputtered.

An hour-and-a-half later, we repeated the routine. We were both dead tired and somewhere in between him squeezing my ribs and reaching for another tissue, he moaned, “Did our wedding vows include this stuff?”

I sniffed and reminded him, “Remember that part about ‘for better or for worse’? Well, this is the worst part. And remember when we said we’d love each other through thick and thin?

“I know, I know,” Ken sighed. “This is the thin part.”

Every couple agrees that marriage has its ups and downs. The up times are when love is as plain as day and fully visible. The down times are when love goes undercover and incognito. So commonplace are the ups and downs that one wonders why they aren’t written into the wedding vows. But they are. When a husband and wife vow to love for better or for worse, it includes the full extent of the ups and downs.

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Marriage will always ask you to prove love. To be married is not to be taken off the front lines of love but to be plunged into the thick and thin of the ups and downs.