‘Til Death Do Us Part

Sometimes I worry about Hollywood. Sure, it’s where everyone goes to make it on the big screen, acting his or her way up the industry’s ladder of fame, but somewhere along the way, I question if they know when the filming is over.

This last August, the hype across California was yet another celebrity union. The media had a field day, as it always does, and informed people that television personality Kim Kardashian and professional basketball player Kris Humphries were getting married. There was a blockbuster two-part TV wedding special that was planned to air on the newlyweds’ special day. When the big day came, an average of 4 million viewers watched from their televisions as the two took their vows and tied the knot.

What seemed to be a happy ending ended up quite differently. It took 72 days for the couple to file for divorce, due to “irreconcilable differences,” and the deed was done.

This fairytale wedding seems to be a running joke, not only among celebrities and ordinary people like you and me, but most importantly to the institution of marriage. It is sad to say that divorce is so common that hardly anyone thinks of it as a tragedy anymore. In today’s society, the idea of permanence has been thrown aside.

Statistics on Divorce Rate Organization, a resource for providing information on the divorce rate in America and around the world, brought to my attention that “50% of all marriages in the America end in divorce.”

The worst part is that the marriage age for those who divorce in America, the highest part of the percentage stated above, is 20 to 24 years old.

The irony in most weddings is that “till death do us part” is still a part of the ceremonies, but we wonder if the two people truly take these meaningful words seriously.

Since we attend a Christian university, it is assumed that the sanctity of marriage has been instilled in our minds from the beginning. We can read in the Bible that God possesses such a high view of marriage. Marriage is supposed to be a lifetime plan, not a convenience that can be disposed of in a lawyer’s office 72 days later.

The media portrays marriage as an event rather than a whole union between a man and a woman. Its purpose is to be a joining together of two individuals vowing to become one, not a vow that one can just run from.

That’s an issue in today’s society; our first reaction is to run when the going gets tough and we forget the commitment we should be fighting to uphold. A key word in that sentence: commitment. Marriage is all about commitment and hard work. No one said it would be easy. It’s frustrating to see it taken so lightly. That is not how God designed it to be.

God designed the union of a man and a woman to be a deeper hint of his relationship with us. It is meant to be a promise that we make to another person to be there for him or her, to love and support him or her, for better or for worse.

The media challenges this traditional belief by exposing to society examples of tons of celebrities that get married and have a grand old wedding, get rich while doing it, then call it quits after no time at all.

With all that said, our generation needs to wake up and realize that marriage is no joke. It’s not an event that we can throw out, be with the person we marry until the going gets tough, and then leave.

As Christians, we need to help challenge society’s lax view of marriage by being examples. We must not be hypocritical and give the illusion that marriage is easy. We need to be examples by living it out, by living accordingly to how God wants us to live and by reaching out to him in tough times.

There needs to be honesty among Christians that marriage is indeed hard. There should not be a facade that says just because you’re a Christian, your marriage is perfect.

Like all things in life, there are highs and lows, and the strong in Christ will almost always prevail. To take those vows with the one you love is sacred union and something to be honored . . . an everlasting bond.