Some time ago, I attended a wedding. The service was beautiful, the couple was charming. At the reception, the newlyweds shared their first dance together.
The person standing next to me said, “Don’t they look so sweet? So much in love!”
I replied, “Yes. They don’t even realize that they are dancing on the railroad tracks and, somewhere down the line, a train is coming. They don’t see the lights and they don’t hear the whistle blowing.”
The person just looked at me as though I were the world’s biggest cynic. But I’m not. I am, however, a realist.
What I said was the truth. Every couple, who is getting married for the first time, really doesn’t know what’s coming. No amount of marriage preparation courses, no amount of pre-marital counseling will prepare them for the challenges ahead. Somewhere, sometime, trouble will hit them head on. That is a fact. The train is coming.
About half of all marriages end in divorce. Almost every single one had a “first dance” on the day of the wedding. None of them expected anything other than to grow old together. But all of them were dancing on the railroad tracks.
On the TV reality show, “Life Below Zero,” set in Alaska, one wife, after 10 years of marriage, said, “I love this place. I love this life. I love my husband. There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”
That was in 2013. By the time 2015 rolled around, she was gone. She was off the show, out of the cabin, and away from her husband. What happened?
The train hit them, whatever the train was. Their marriage, which had survived 10 years of subsistence living in Alaska, did not survive whatever happened that caused them to go apart.
The train hits everyone. It slams into every couple at some point. It may hit several times. One cannot prevent the train from coming. But the good news is, the train is survivable.
Half of all marriages survive the train wrecks. Couples get mowed down by life and get up again together. Often they emerge stronger as a result of the crisis.
A few weeks ago, Mrs. Blanche Faulkner passed away at the age of 90. She is survived by her husband, John. He is 94. A few months ago, they celebrated their 74th wedding anniversary. Their story is a beautiful one of commitment, caring, persistence, and success.
Except for the time spent by Mr. Faulkner in the Army during World War II and a few nights on a scout trip with his sons, they never spent a night apart. Last year, Mrs. Faulkner was hospitalized for several weeks. He was there, at her bedside, 24 hours a day, never leaving until he could take her home. People tried to get him to go home and rest. He politely declined and kept her company.
Couples, single people too, need to know that life will be hard at times. Not “can be,” but “will be.” We are always dancing on the tracks. Sometimes we can get out of the way; often we can avoid the crash. But not always. Sometimes, however hard we try, we still get hit.
But down does not mean out and setbacks do not mean defeat. Getting hit need not result in being destroyed. Life is hard but life is good, too.
What really defeats us is not the train. What really defeats us is that we lose the will to try, to survive, to prevail. Choosing to quit is what causes defeat.
[David Epps is the pastor of the Cathedral of Christ the King, Sharpsburg, GA (www.ctkcec.org). He is the bishop of the Mid-South Diocese which consists of Georgia and Tennessee (www.midsouthdiocese.org) and the Associate Endorser for the Department of the Armed Forces, U. S. Military Chaplains, ICCEC. He may contacted at frepps@ctkcec.org.
