The Greatest Blessing Of Marriage

A few weeks ago I was given the courage to write about the hard places of marriage, and the surprises of those first few days and weeks and months of being newly wedded as husband and wife.

The surprises were just a few things I wasn’t prepared for and kind of blind to in the early days of being a wife. And now I also know I was blind to the greatest blessing of marriage. It has taken almost a decade for me to recognize this great blessing as we grow and gray together, raising children up and living this life that God has given us to glorify Him.

Creating a new family heritage is the greatest blessing of marriage.

Yes. My husband is my best friend. Yes. He is my true love. Yes. We have four beautiful and unique children together. These are all wonderful blessings. But for me, the greatest blessing is creating a new heritage with my best friend as we walk in parenting and life together; side by side as we strive towards honoring the Lord.

A heritage is what a family gives and passes on from generation to generation. When two become one flesh in marriage, God says, ” a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife.”

Back in the times of the Bible it was common for women to leave their families. It was radical for a man to leave his family and go be with his wife. Really. Radical. The whole inspired truth from Genesis when we first see the picture of marriage is radical: that man AND wife would leave their family and their traditions and their heritages and cleave to one another.

Cleave. To cleave to your spouse means to become strongly and emotionally attached to them. To leave your old familial heritage and cleave to, or become strongly established, in making a new heritage with your wife.

The greatest blessing of marriage is found in the first few pages of scripture.

Leaving all the old heritages and creating new ones.

You get to do that in marriage. God says it.

This means new traditions for you, your husband and your children based on your uniqueness in Christ and the words from scripture.

This means you and your husband can decide how you want to honor the Lord when you are building your own heritage at Christmas.

This means when it is time to decide what to do about Santa, or advent, or stockings, or presents. God says, you shall leave your past and cling to a new present with your husband.

You get to decide together. You get to choose what you pass on to your children.

This means, as long as you are honoring your parents, you get to decide where you children will wake up on Christmas morning.

This means, as a married couple you get to choose your heritage. You get to decide the traditions your children will look forward to each Christmas, birthday, Easter and Thanksgiving.

The heritage is yours to pass on.

My prayer is that as husbands and as wives we would with courage, be able to leave the old traditions and build new ones; honoring our past heritages and the Lord. I pray our children would grow up to be a great nation, seeing Jesus in their new heritage and as they marry, I pray they would pass on a greater heritage for our grandchildren, honoring the Lord.

Traditions are important. You and your husband get to build and refine your heritage. You get to choose.

This is the greatest blessing in marriage. Build a strong heritage for your children.

A new heritage. Just you together. Pass on the truth of Jesus, make His name great.