Last week I was taking a shower, and thinking about Michelle dying someday and how that would be the most horrible, lonely experience I could ever face.  How I’d need to surround myself with community despite wanting to be in deep isolation.  How I’d have to learn how to cry and mourn and heal.  How I’d have to pick up the pieces and move on with work, relationships, ministry, and life.  I didn’t like the prospects much at all.  I got out of the shower and gave Michelle a huge hug and said, “I don’t want you to ever die.” But the truth is- someday she will.  Or I will.

Just Google or YouTube ‘tribute to my wife’…

That evening, she said something I don’t like very much: “It’s hard to think that, given enough time, either you will outlive your spouse or your spouse will outlive you.  Eventually, someone has to say goodbye.”

I got to thinking about the marriages I know.  Who will be widowed first?  How will it happen?  I know quite a few bad drivers.  How will the surviving member go on?  Then I began to wonder about who would ever recover.  Then I began to ask the hard questions…

Could you live without your spouse?  Or would you cease to live?  Would you be able to carry on?  Or would you kill yourself?  Could you survive the heartbreak of loss?  Or would it break you?

This might be hard for many of you to hear- if you couldn’t live without your spouse, then your spouse has become your god and you need to re-size God and re-position your spouse.

A spouse is a gift from God.  A spouse is a trust from God.  A spouse was created by God, and a spouse will return to God.  He or she is yours, but not really.  Your spouse is God’s.

My advice?  Let go now.  Say goodbye now. Give up now.  Surrender your marriage to Jesus.  Place your spouse back in God’s hands.  Put yourself back in God’s hands.  It’s the only place where you can always be together.

• A Garbage Relationship!