There are some strong characteristics I’ve noticed about myself as a woman. I have also seen it in other women around me at times, and therefore, I think it is reasonable to assume that it is true for many.
We as women are relational creatures. We are relational in how we interact with the world around us, and we are relational in how we live our relationship with the Lord. Being relational is a core part of our being. It is something we must operate upon or wither within. We can’t imagine our lives without the people we love, and even the people we haven’t met yet. Sometimes though, it can also render extreme pain and heartache, causing us to wrestle with this core component of our being and wonder why we have to need people.
I see two ways we as women, often go about our lives in the aspect of being relational.
1: We either try to be vulnerable in the way God has called us to be in community; or,
2: we try to guard our heart closely and keep it for the Lord.
Regardless of which way we try to go, we usually end up going more toward the extreme on one end: trusting the people around us fully with ourselves and not guarding our heart at all; or being so guarded that no healthy relationship or trust can enter with others. We also swing the pendulum. We go from times of extreme vulnerability to times of being extremely guarded. The struggle for the middle ground proves difficult.
Marriage is showing me more depth in how I operate relationally than I have ever really seen before.
Prior to marriage, we as women look to Lord for many things: intimacy, security, self-worth, unconditional love, companionship, faithfulness, commitment, and more. Before marriage, these things may be found in the friendships and relationships around us, but usually only a couple of things are found in each, and they are usually not consistent. In this living of life in this world, there are a lot of times in which we are disappointed and broken and we come running to the Lord. We know Him; we know He provides and we know who He is. Again, we realize He is the only One to whom we can truly cling. We know that we are only truly safe with Him.
Prior to marriage in a dating relationship, even one centered around the Lord, there can still be a bit of a strain. We attempt to be vulnerable with the other, but it is hard to be in the middle ground in that where we should be. We either give ourselves away too fully or remain so guarded that developing intimacy proves difficult. We either place our trust fully in the man that is in front of us or fully in the Lord, instead of the “middle ground,” which is trusting the Lord in how He has placed the man in our life and how He will use him. It is really hard to do all of this without a firm commitment, usually coming with engagement, and a commitment that certainly comes with marriage.
Marriage is such a drastic change from anything ever experienced before. For the first time in one’s life, the things previously looked for in both this world and the Lord, only found satisfied in the Lord, are now found satisfied through another, outlined in some of the following ways:
Intimacy: there is no question of not having this, as every aspect of oneself is revealed…the emotional, spiritual, mental, and now physical. There is no more room to hide.
Security: one has this in a way never had before. There is now a man with her practically 24/7. In the place where a woman most longs for security, at night in her own bed, marriage brings that as a reality.
Self-worth: as our society idolizes marriage and weddings, newlyweds can easily have a higher value of self-worth because there are now no questions about the dating relationship or when one is getting married…one now is. One has now entered something a lot of people dream about.
Unconditional love: in a way, one has it more concretely. It must be said that in marriage, there is no escaping the fact that there are two sinners living together and their need of You is prevalent. But at the same time, marriage shows grace given in a way that is seldom seen before. No one else, other than the Lord, has ever seen one as transparent as the new husband does. He sees all the good and all the bad. Yet at the end of the day, he is still married and committed to his bride, loving her and giving grace.
Companionship: this is certainly given. One is now living life day-to-day, moment in and moment out, with her beloved. He is with her in the morning as she wakes up and when she lays her head down at night. There is continuity in this companionship that was not experienced before.
Faithfulness and Commitment: the marriage vows call for this and compel one to abide by it. At the end of the day, one just can’t break up or call a time off simply because things aren’t going too well. Each are in it for the long haul, the good times and bad.
All of these things just outlined were previously found quite empty in the world and its people before marriage. Due to the lack, it drives us women to a need and hunger for the Lord’s companionship. There is a burning desire for intimacy and to be known, accepted, and loved by the Lord, because it certainly is not fulfilled by the world, even in the closest of friends and family. And so, in our hearts, our minds and our life, we are married to Him.
With a man the Lord has put in our lives, there is that desire to experience fullness in a way that we never have before with another human being. In this, we aim to remember that we know the Lord, we trust His provision of the man before us, and know He loves marriage. There is therefore, a longing hard to express in words to be married to a man also. And so as women, we wait eagerly for the wedding day, when there will finally no longer be any barriers or holding back. On that day, just as we are fully known by Him, we finally have the chance to be fully known by another…
And so after the wedding day, when it is just the new bride and groom, there is this recognition that they have entered something that was previously impenetrable. They have been plunged into the depths of another human being, now being woven into one flesh, one entity. Husband and wife. It is unlike anything ever previously experienced before in this world and will be unlike anything else…
We women now understand that somehow, our lives will never be the same again. We women have now entered into a human relationship that satisfies so much of what was previously only looked to the Lord for.
With marriage, sometimes it feels like there is no longer a need-love for God. We are not driven to Him in the same way we once were. He is no longer the only person to whom we can cry out to and with.
What was once empty in the relationships found in the world is now brimming full.
And what was once incredibly full in the sole relationship found with the Lord is in danger of becoming empty.
In his book The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis describes “need-love” as a kind of love “that will not last longer than the need. This does not, fortunately, mean that all affections which begin in need love are transitory. The need itself may be permanent or recurrent…but where need-love is left unaided, we can hardly expect it not to die on us once the need is no more. That is why the world rings with the complaints of mothers whose grown-up children neglect them, and of forsaken mistresses whose lovers’ love was pure need—which they have satisfied. Our need love for God is in a different position because need of Him can never end in this world or in any other. But our awareness of it can, and then the need-love dies too.”
Oh, God uses marriage, yes He does. He uses it as a refining tool unlike any other. The truths that we have known and somewhat have come to understood with our relationship with the Lord become a stark reality in marriage. Our sinfulness. Our selfishness. Our need for grace. God empowers those who know Him in marriage to be convicted of such things, and to learn how to bestow mercy and grace. To give love and forgiveness. We easily and often are incredibly humbled by how the Lord loves us in spite of our shortcomings. We are humbled by the beautiful picture He gives in marriage of our relationship with Him.
However, it’s so easy to look to the marriage relationship to fill our relationship with the Lord. In this, we neglect an important truth: marriage is not intended to replace. It is intended to enrich and supplement our relationship with Him.
It is harder to understand the need-love for God, because we are now satisfied in so many respects by marriage. But, marriage cannot, and never can be, our Savior from ourselves.
We need to remember the middle ground we had to learn before and while dating: to look to the Lord first and to trust the Lord in how he is using marriage in our lives so we first and foremost, may know and serve Him.
We need to come back to the core of who we are to understand our need for the Lord in a new way. While He gives intimacy, love, companionship, and more, we shouldn’t look to Him to only satisfy those needs. There are greater ones too, ones He reminds us of in marriage. That is, we are fallen. We are sinful. We are selfish. We are broken. We forever need refining. And while man and marriage may be an instrument in redeeming these things, it and he can never be the Master. There is only One who is unchanging, and it is not human. He is the One who redeems.
Regardless of our needs (and there are so many), “our need of Him can never end in this world or in any other.” Soberly, may we always remember that "our awareness of it can, and then the need-love [of God can die] too.” Yet finally, may we praise Him that we as women are created as relational creatures, and are always in need of Him.
