Over Forty Years of Marriage….to the Same Person?!
-By Randi and Howard Bass-
Oh yes, we applaud those long marriages and look admiringly at the faces that are reflecting, hopefully, some wisdom of life and living as well as love. “What is it?”, some ask. “What is your secret? What has kept you together all these years in a world so fraught with going your own way when the going gets tough? Is it just because you like each other and the going wasn’t that terribly, unbearably tough for you?” If one could peer into my inner-soul closet, they would find a well-read newspaper article, entitled “Marriage Survives Due to Death in the Family”. The date of that article would change every day, always indicating today’s date.
I will share a little background. When we got married, neither of us was actually a “believer”. (Well, we believed that there must be a God). Surprisingly, entering the new life in the Lord happened rather soon after our wedding, following a series of undeniable God-directions, pushing, and prodding that led to revelation, all of which quickly led to us to a safe crash-landing in Israel. New marriage, new country, new language, new people, and finally a church? Well, at that time it was a sort of a house-group of dear people but each very different from the other! It was amusing and alarming all at the same time! We had to have an abiding faith without fear to go forward in our life, in our beginning marriage, and know that we had immigrated into the “Kingdom of God”, not just the country of Israel. So, imagine a paragraph, in that “article” I mentioned, all about living in a new place called the Kingdom of God, and to do that with any semblance of order you must die to yourself so that you can live fruitfully with God and your spouse in marriage, so he/she won’t run away!
This truth is in the verse,
“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).
There are many other places in the New Testament that reiterate this truth.
As my husband writes, “Love is not necessarily a rational thing, but marriage is a definite choice to be made. Not in all cultures is that choice made freely by the two primary persons involved, but in every case, love is a definite choice. Something “clicks” when two people sense that, “Ahhh, I have met the right person!”, even if there may be a few question marks. Knowing in advance all about the other person, or how they will react in a certain situation, with us or without us, especially in a crisis, is just not possible. Nonetheless, in God’s wisdom, marriage is meant to be a covenant, an agreement in which both parties fully commit to the other for life, however long that might be.
We both knew that a marriage covenant was something that, even as unbelievers, we believed in. We took our vows seriously. No, we didn’t have any premarital counseling, but we do recommend that route. We soon discovered that it takes the “fear of God” (accountability to Him) to persevere and not break that covenant. In other words, far more is necessary than that beginning “love” to keep going in love, trust, and respect, no matter how wonderful Mr. Wonderful appeared in his marriage suit. Oh, there’s that headline again about dying to survive and to thrive. Two people becoming a union, a male and female walking together in marriage, does not happen on its own. It’s not about just being nice or not getting into arguments or even having common goals! A wise man receives instruction and even likes to be corrected—yes, this is part of dying yet surviving. Hearing from the Lord, walking in the Spirit, and persevering in godliness leads to the slow process of surely, maturely dying to self to avoid a lot of misery!
What’s love got to do with it? My expressive husband writes: “Love is faithful. Giving up of oneself so that the other feels safe, secure, respected, and loved is what happens in a godly marriage. Ideally, there is affection and devotion and a gladness for being one another’s. This is what the lover of our souls, the Lord Yeshua the Messiah, desires from us because that is who He is to each of us. He is the ONLY one who does not need to be forgiven. Forgiveness is something that may not always be spoken and cannot be demanded, but it must become an integral part of our being.”
God is so practical, so true to Himself, in instructing us to forgive. We can be so irritated or so very hurt, so right, before we pursue asking for forgiveness and giving forgiveness. So, communicate, discuss, and argue (without being argumentative) with your mate, but in the end, forgive.
We are very thankful that as over thirty-somethings, we were able to have and raise four children. This is where knowing that “these are God’s children and you are in the Kingdom with them not just in your own family” is sobering, inspiring, and tiring! You don’t have to even be parents to know how this period of raising kids can just sort of drive you crazy year after year, even in model families (that we looked at in awe)! Only with our third child did we finally have a car.
Let the driving begin: driving them, driving others, paying for this new “member” of our family (the car), hauling stuff for children’s Shabbat classes, being employed, hosting guests, hosting hostile grandfather (asking, ‘Why do you live in Israel, anyway?”), music lessons, money pressure, always seeming to be late picking up everyone, forgetting to put on shoes going to car….what day is it?...get out of my way!
This is where taking time to sit together as a family is so fruitful. Daddy leading a Bible time calms the week. Listening to our children did not always come naturally. It is helpful to try to read about and try to understand stages of child and teen development. Being a parent is being present, knowing what rules are for and what they are not for. Admitting a few faults to your children helps them to ponder their own character.
Catching your criticalness is just as important as making sure they have chores to do. Praising them for specific actions or achievements (not just for “being a good boy”) leads them to be more conscious (which is good for the comatose teen years). Let your children realize that they are called to be in His Kingdom for themselves. Your believing guests are in His Kingdom; they learn how big His world is, how different His people are from each other yet held together by faith in the One. We live by faith in His Kingdom with the fear of God, humility, enthusiasm, and hope, and they experience (without realizing it until later) that their parents are dying to themselves. Yeshua died so that we can have life, and we have life through repentance and faith, forgiveness of sins, knowing and believing that He overcame death. We don’t impart religion to our children; we impart the life of the Messiah Yeshua.
Again, dear husband shares,
“Love and marriage is a commitment of absolute trust towards one another to help each other through to the end where we receive the inheritance of eternal life together with the Lord, (even though the marriage relationship with our spouse, as we know it now, will no longer be).”
Yes, we are in this together, and God our Father, planned that we, created in His image, are to become one. As we pursue Him, it happens. But paradoxically, it happens, rather naturally, as we give up our own territory and believe and pursue His purposes for us. And so, we say together:
“This is love and marriage: to help each one be, not only what God created us for, but more so, whom He redeemed us to be.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Married in April 1980 in Richmond, Virginia, Howard and Randi came to Israel in September of 1981 without knowing a soul in Israel and without any congregation or organization behind them. It was just a “call” they responded to immediately after salvation experience. By February 1982 they settled into an immigration center in Beer Sheva and have remained in Beer Sheva until present. Howard studied Political Science at Emory University in Atlanta but ended up working for two Israeli industrial engineering companies for 17 years. Randi has an MVA from Virginia Commonwealth University and taught papermaking and then English in the Israeli school system and teacher’s college. Their four children, now all married, grew up in Beer Sheva and survived the local school system, plus IDF, pretty well. The “tribe” has now increased to include five grandchildren. Without any plan of becoming a pastor, Howard now pastors, since year 2000, the local Nachalat Yeshua (Yeshua’s Inheritance) Kehila (congregation) which meets in the Old City section of Beer Sheva.