It’s 7am on September 11’th 2001, Jane wakes up to the sound of the alarm clock her best friend from elementary school gave her as a wedding present. Jane and her husband Brian have been married for 5 years now, almost to the day. As Jane heads downstairs to prepare the morning pot of coffee, as usual, Brian is still yawning his way out of bed. Jane works part time as a child care worker, she loves her husband with all her heart, and God has always been a significant influence in her life. As Brian finally stumbles into the kitchen, he reaches for his cup of coffee as Jane embraces him with a morning hug. It’s now 7:45am, Brian is running around the house frantically looking for his briefcase, of course, his wife comes to the rescue gripping the handle of the case in her hand reaching it outwards towards him. He releases a breath of relief and gives her a hug before he heads out the door. Brian’s commute to work is about an hour on a good day, he works in lower Manhattan in the north tower of the World Trade Center. Brian’s drive to the Lincoln tunnel from Paramus can be long in the morning rush hour traffic. Back home Jane is getting the house cleaned for their up coming anniversary evening together. She decides to fold the laundry while watching her favorite morning news talk show, Good morning America. About 45 minutes pass by and Jane has finished folding laundry when time suddenly stops as she drops the laundry basket to the floor and freezes in the spot she has sat in for the past hour. On the screen is a news break, reports tell of a jet airplane crashing into the north tower of the world trade center, and the images that enforce this are surreal to her. A mix of emotions pass through her as she contemplates the thoughts of never seeing the person she loves the most again. She frantically reaches for the phone pressing the buttons that correspond to Brian’s cell phone number, her hands shaking in fear of not knowing what’s next. Ring…….Ring….. Ring….

“Hello?”(the sound of her husbands voice from the bed of his “girlfriend”)

“Oh my God you’re OK” (Cries Jane)

“Of Course I’m Ok, I’m sitting at my desk in my office, what’s wrong with you?”….. (Apparently he didn’t know of what had happened)

…..Click……

This is not an uncommon turn of events in the world we live in today, the lack of foundation in relationships and marriages are often times overlooked or de-valued by the numerous doctrines of television and radio. The teachings that we incoherently learn from that drill into the minds of young men that women are nothing more than sexual devices for them to manipulate and later abandon in a puddle of deep sorrow and feeling lack of value. The teachings women incoherently learn from that they must act this way to be “loved” by a man. Marriage in the world today has been twisted in a way that it’s historical context is no longer relevant to most people, other than possibly the tradition of standing in front of a man in a suit and saying “I do” to a couple promises one might not take seriously anyway. Some people would argue that television and radio don’t teach people fundamentals or lack thereof in relationships, that people do what they do by their own choice. I would agree to an extent, but I would also say that commercials teach people to buy Oreos. In the same way, turn on the television, the sight of girls jumping up and down on trampolines in bathing suites teach men over time that this is something normal to expect, and it teaches women that this is something normal to practice. “It’s just the world we live in” some would say while rolling their eyes. How do we prevent ourselves from taking these things so lightly? How do we work towards preventing these things from happening in our own lives? How do we understand the historical context of marriage outside of just a man in a suit? Well, if you have a desire to build a house with your own two hands where do you go? To the book that teaches you how to build a house of course. The Bible teaches us beginning in chapter 2 of genesis that “It is not good for a man to be alone”, we see this in the 21’st century when we turn on the TV and left to our own devices desire women on trampolines. That’s why it’s not good for us to be alone. If we are mature and have been humbled enough as men we recognize that the book of redemption even teaches us why we need to be redeemed even in marriage. Christ says in Matthew 5 beginning in verse 28 that if a man were to so much look at a woman with lust for her he has already committed adultery with her in his heart. He goes on to teach that these things that make us stumble we are to cut off and throw from us because it would be better to live life without them then to burn because of them. Keeping this in remembrance helps us to turn off the TV with ease when we see things that teach us to stumble into the bed of another woman for which we haven’t made a covenant commitment to. Being grounded in such things brings consistency and discipline in our lives as men, women and even children. Everywhere we go in our daily lives someone is attempting to purchase us, weather it’s through cigarette ads, television commercials or a friend telling us that it’s ok because “everyone is doing it”. Being grounded in what is right helps build integrity, humility and strength as we go about our short time on earth. Christ in his life as a man gave up everything so that His people may be brought into a place without wickedness teaching us how to break the hearts of those that love us the most, our responsibility as Christian people is to be disciplined enough to practice the things He taught with humility and fear for what is right while still being here on earth. So I ask myself and the person reading this right now; Where will you be on that morning your Jane calls, scared, heartbroken and devastated? Will you be in the bed of the adulteress in chapter 5 of proverbs? Or running home to the woman in the 31’st chapter of proverbs, the woman you committed yourself to through a covenant before God? This is the historical context of Marriage.

By: Michael Louviere