Third Time’s the Charm

I’m on my third marriage–a fact that I don’t normally mention in the presence of newly married couples. I’m grateful for my first two marriages because they resulted in several beautiful children, my most precious treasures, but for me the third time has been charmed.

When my second marriage ended, I thought that was it, that I was now a single mother and would have to just do the best I could from then on. I was soured on the marriage experience and didn’t expect there to ever be another man in my life, but I was wrong.

Every day I see the love of God for me in my dear husband’s eyes. He not only fell in love with and married me, but he also legally adopted five of my children, who were minors at the time. This happened over ten years ago, and we are still very happily married today.

What makes our marriage even more unconventional is that he was also married twice before. We don’t understand all the reasons why our lives turned out this way, and truth be told, it is humbling for us to have to admit that we have four failed marriages between us. But if God can love and accept us with all our flaws, weaknesses, and mistakes, isn’t it awesome that He can also send along someone in a flesh-and-blood body who can love and accept us too?

Because of our similar pasts, we can better understand each other and share our hearts and thoughts very intimately. We laugh together, cry together, and experience life together so beautifully. At the very beginning of our relationship we determined to keep God at the center of our lives, and we have helped each other stick to that commitment. Daily, we read God’s Word together, pray together, and discuss the various lessons God is teaching us as a couple and individually. We continue to learn from each other, which helps us respect each other deeply. Ours has become a very spiritually satisfying relationship.

My advice to newly married couples, as well as those going through a rough time in their marriage or recovering from a broken one is this: God’s love is the genuine “charm” in any marriage. Whether it is discovered the first time around or, as in our case, later, it’s all God’s love, which never disappoints.

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1 Corinthians 13:8 ESV / Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.

Hebrews 13:4 ESV / Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.

1 Corinthians 7:39 ESV / A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord.