Overcoming the Odds: Learning to Serve

"Marriage calls us to become servants of each other’s welfare. And that's not why you got married. In fact, you got married for the opposite reason. If we told people that's what marriage was all about, I think less people would get married. When I got married, it was because I thought she was going to bring some good stuff to my life. I got married because I thought that she was going to bring value to my life … that she was going to do good things for me. It wasn't about what I was bringing to her. Oftentimes that's the way we see it. And when we realize how selfish the other person is, we quit. Oftentimes we step into marriage with these selfish reasons because our motivations for getting married are selfish. It's all about what we think we can get. That's not what service is. Marriage calls us to become servants of others each other 's welfare. And service costs you something. Service costs you something and benefits someone else. If it doesn't cost me something, if someone else doesn't gain something, then it isn’t service. Sacrifice isn't sacrifice until it costs something, right? If it hasn't cost me something, if I haven't had to pay something for it, then it really isn't sacrifice. Same with service."