Your Marriage's Role in the Story of Salvation
/CORINNE GANNOTTI
What story is your life telling? What story is your marriage telling?
PHOTOGRAPHY: PIXELMUSICA WEDDINGS
These questions are meaningful, even if they may seem to us at first a little self-important. They are the questions of purpose and value. They are the 'why does it matter?' that we can return to in the moments when we may be tempted to believe it doesn't anymore, or when things are really difficult and desolate. They undergird the times when we feel the goodness of God flourishing in our relationship in blossoms of evident grace.
It’s worth it for us to take time to ponder these questions because the implications of how we answer them touch everything that we do and are. They speak deeply into the scope of how we see ourselves in the greater world in which we live. And so, we do not have to fear pride when we take the time to reflect on them. Nor do we have to believe the lie that we aren't important enough to need to answer them. And above all, we do not have to fear that we do not know the answer to them. Because God has given us the answer in Christ.
The truth is that our story is bound up in a much bigger one. Our lives, and in turn our marriages, have a place in the fullness of the story of Salvation History - unfolding in real time, in beauty and mess and detail, under the providence of God.
It’s a story that began at the very beginning and hasn’t stopped since. Through periods of enslavement and wandering and the unfolding of His law. Into ages of prophets and kings and the rising up of a great nation. Into the fullness of time, when He took on flesh and taught and healed and consummated it all on the cross. From His rising to His anointing of those to whom He left his Church and His mission. Into the years of that Church drawing close to Him through His sacraments. All pointing ahead to life fully redeemed with Him and in Him.
The story of your own family fits nestled right in its appointed place in this unfolding tale of God’s love. These historic, Biblical, covenantal moments can be traced through the timeline of our world all leading up to this moment now – the one you’re living. They all lead up and into the reality of your life story and fill it with meaning and scope.
If we mistakenly think that our marriages are only about us, or even more tragically that they are not really meaningful at all, we may miss the most important truth of all. The love that you and your spouse offer each other in fidelity through your lives is part of the way God has chosen to reveal His mystery to the world. It is a part of the greatest and most important story there is. And because of that, your marriage has cosmic level significance. The way you live – the unfolding story of your life, matters immensely.
Far from being meaningless or only about you, your life, vocation deeply included, is drawn up into the story of God's divine love. Henri Nouwen, a favorite spiritual writer and kind of spiritual father to me, once wrote in his book Bread for the Journey:
"We have to trust that our stories deserve to be told. We may discover that the better we tell our stories the better we will want to live them."
The more we come to see our place in the greater story of God’s love for humanity, the better we can comprehend the real importance and dignity of our own life. The more, like Henri would encourage us, we can then trust that our story deserves to be told and shared and lived well.
Because our story matters, and it is not just our own.
Our marriages matter deeply to God. And when we can sense our personal significance to Him, life becomes better. We may then find ourselves capable of living more fully in every respect, which is really all God wants for us.
So maybe the real question of importance then becomes, “How do I see my marriage within the story of God's plan of love?”
Meditating upon that question and finding we can answer it well, can free us from the fear that we do not matter. God wants us to trust that the unfolding stories of our marriages rest in His arms, us confidently knowing the depth of their value.
About the Author: Corinne studied Theology and Catechetics at Franciscan University where she met her husband, Sam. They were married in 2016 and now live in Pennsylvania with their two children, Michael and Vera, and where she continues to work in the ministry field. She especially enjoys reading stories with her 3 year old, running, and crossing things off her to-do list. She desires to live a life marked by joy, and is grateful to have a family who makes that effort much easier by helping her take herself less seriously.