After praying several years for a wife, I was married this past summer. Being newly married (almost 6 months now!) I am always eager to learn everything I can to become the best husband I can be. This usually comes in the form of devouring books, listening to different speakers teach on the topic, and learning from older married couples. More recently though, I have found value in marriage retreats.

My wife, Veronia, and I just returned from our first marriage retreat last weekend. To be honest, I was expecting something entirely different than what it ended up being. It was far from a romantic weekend away, but I wouldn’t trade what I learned for anything. In the same way the retreat was not what I imagined, the lessons I learned weren’t earth shatteringly profound either. However, it has been my experience that many times the ordinary can be extraordinary if you let it; many times the simplest truths are the ones that are the most insightful if you are willing to spend the time to look closely enough. After all, Jesus spoke in simple stories.

Throughout all of the talks there was a recurring theme: choosing how to respond to your spouse. We all think and act in different ways and this will inevitably cause tension when two people share their lives together. When communicating with your spouse, whether generally or when there’s a disagreement, you only have three options: turning away from, turning against, or turning towards your spouse.

Turning Away

This is when you don’t want to deal with the issue. It has surfaced a couple of times but every time it does you just want to avoid it so that there’s peace, or at least a counterfeit form of it. You choose not to confront the problem, and repress your emotions instead. You are tired of the disagreements and the bickering so you keep quiet on the topic and try to move on.

Turning away from your spouse is dangerous because of the two negative responses, this one seems permissible. It seems ok. At least I’m keeping the peace, you think. At least we don’t have to fight.

Sure you’re not fighting externally, but the internal struggle within yourself is fierce. Bitterness builds up. Unkind words left unspoken are thought against the other instead… until you turn against your spouse.

Turning Against

We all can picture the scene in our heads. It involves shouting and possibly actions done in anger: slamming doors, throwing things, and even physical abuse. It doesn’t always manifest in a fit of rage though; it can be sarcastic comments that wound the other deeply or disrespectful criticisms uttered to make a spouse feel small.

Turning against your spouse usually happens after a prolonged period of turning away and letting the poison of unforgiveness linger. When one person turns against the other it’s not long before the other feels the need to defend themselves, until they too succumb to attacking the person they vowed to love.

When we turn against one another we forget how our weaknesses are complemented by our spouses strengths. We wound the other and our relationship. If left on this path, two people who were initially committed to the other will feel that there’s nothing left but to leave the relationship they had a hand in destroying.

Turning Towards

This, of course, is the desired response. We need to learn to respond to our spouse by turning towards them.

Instead of neglecting the problem out of fear, you face it with courage.

Instead of talking in a harsh way wanting to be heard, you speak tenderly with love wanting to hear what’s on the other person’s heart.

This doesn’t have to involve words. The language of touch is a powerful tool. A hand placed tenderly on a knee or a gentle touch on the back can sometimes do things that many words can’t. A small gift thoughtfully placed or a small act of kindness for the other can also communicate a loving message without using words.

Turning towards the other is the hardest of the three choices because it requires humility and selflessness. You have to think of the other person’s needs and desires before your own. You have to be willing to sacrifice for the good of the other. You have to really push yourself to serve the other. It is not easy.

Thankfully, we have our entire lives together to practice and get it right.

These concepts are especially true of marriage as it is the most intimate relationship we will experience with another person, but it’s true of all our relationships: with our children, parents, siblings, friends, and even the beggar on the street.

What will you decide to do? Turn away, against, or towards?

(photo courtesy of Gable Denims)

As I read the stories of the saints who had received unfading crowns and unimaginable glory I was spurred on all the more.

I remember being so enthralled by the account of the cry of the martyrs as the fifth seal was opened in the Book of Revelation:

When He opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held. And they cried with a loud voice, saying, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” Then a white robe was given to each of them; and it was said to them that they should rest a little while longer, until both the number of their fellow servants and their brethren, who would be killed as they were, was completed. (Revelation 6: 9-12)

Didn’t Jesus Christ Himself say,

Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. (John 15:13)

If there was a way to show God how much I loved Him it needed to be a grand gesture, and giving my life for His name fit the bill. After all, I thought, He died for me. Isn’t the only way to respond to something like that to do it in return?

My mind was made up. When I got older I would become a martyr! In the meantime, I was going to ask what things I needed to do to prepare. In so doing, however, I was told that because I lived in America and because this was not the era of emperor Diocletian (who’s made a hobby out of killing Christians) the chance that my dream would be realized was slim. There had to be a way I thought (considering various options like going on a mission trip to a hostile country).

However, as I grew, I learned that there is more than one way to become a martyr. The following is taken from an Irish homily of the seventh century:

Now there are three kinds of martyrdom which are accounted as a Cross to a man, white martyrdom, green martyrdom, and red martyrdom. White martyrdom consists in a man’s abandoning everything he loves for God’s sake… Green martyrdom consists in this, that by means of fasting and labour he frees himself from his evil desires, or suffers toil in penance and repentance. Red martyrdom consists in the endurance of a Cross or death for Christ’s sake.

White Martyrdom

These are the men and woman who forsake the world for the love of God. They include monks, nuns, and those who renounce everything the world has to offer them so that they can focus their attention on their Beloved. The Bible talks about them as those who “wander in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth” because of their great love for Christ the King.

Those who are white martyrs die daily as they consistently choose to live each day for God alone.

Green Martyrdom

These are those people who are constantly striving to “crucify the flesh with its passions and desires.” They “discipline the body and bring it into subjection” knowing that the body is a good servant but a bad master.

Green martyrs bear fruits worthy of repentance and struggle alongside God’s grace to grow into the likeness of our Lord Jesus Christ by taking off the old man and putting on the new man. These are the men and woman who take the Lord’s charge to be perfect seriously.

Red Martyrdom

Now we’ve already touched on this one when I told you about my desire as a young boy. Red martyrdom, as the color implies, is to shed your blood or endure a Cross for the sake of Christ.

However, there is another form of red martyrdom.

Ephesians 5:25 instructs husbands to “love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and >gave Himself for her.” Christ died for His bride, the Church, so that we might have an example and lay down our lives for our wives.

In the early Church, crowns were a symbol of martyrdom, and during the Orthodox Wedding there is a crowning ceremony where the priest crowns the bride and the groom. This is not only to symbolize participating in Christ’s Kingship as we are united to Him, but it is also to symbolize becoming martyrs.

The word “martyr” is translated “witness” and so the bride and groom have the responsibility to bear witness to Christ in their relationship and in their life together. As new martyrs, the husband and wife die to themselves and their own will so that they can give of their life completely to the other, and through the other, to Christ.

I will leave you with the powerful testimony of a Muslim who converted to Christianity after seeking the True God. He recounts that in the Islam religion dying for the name of Allah is the greatest honor, and so when Christ revealed Himself to him in a vision, he cried out, “My Lord, my Lord, I will live and die for You”

Christ responded, “Do not die for Me – I died for you so that you may live”