Jesus calmed the storm of the sea. He can calm the storms in your marriage.
Storms can be scary! We know the Gospel story where, “He got into a boat and His disciples followed Him. Suddenly a violent storm came up on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by waves. But He was asleep. They came and woke him, saying, ‘Lord, save us! We are perishing!’ He said to them, ‘Why are you terrified, O you of little faith?.’ Then he got up, rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was great calm. The men were amazed and said, ‘What sort of man is this, whom even the winds and the sea obey?’” Matthew 8:23-27.
It is amazing to see how short stories in the Gospel are. With just a few lines Matthew, who was present at this event, describes Christ calming the storm in the sea. It must have been completely terrifying to be in that boat. Probably the boat was small, a little fishing vessel, with oars to row it. Jesus was likely traveling a short distance after a sermon, resting His eyes, while His disciples rowed. I wonder how long they waited to wake Him. How long did they try to maneuver the rough waves before the wind and rain came? What was probably a longer struggle amounted to one line in a short story: suddenly a violent storm came up.
We tend to tell stories in light of our current selves and relationships. Marriage counselors like to ask couples in first sessions, how did your relationship start? Hearing a couple either romanticize or criticize their story together speaks volumes of their current state. Reading this brief passage of the Gospel, we can gather two details. (1) The Disciples feared for their lives. (2) Matthew’s fear was a distant memory, a faded idea that he hardly remembered.
The storms of our marriage can be that way too.
When we marry as a sacrament in the Catholic Church, we bring God into our marriage. Our marriage is a boat we are trying to row together, and Jesus is in it. Just because Christ is present does not mean the storm will not come. It means after we’re done trying to do it ourselves, we can wake Jesus. Even if we struggle so long that we start to think we’ll drown, we can wake Jesus. No matter how tumultuous the storm gets, how torn apart our boat becomes, we can wake Jesus. He can calm the storm and repair our boat. Our storm that we thought would kill us can become a distant memory. It can become a few lines in our story, instead of the ending.
The last thing my father said to me before I got married was when he hugged me at the altar. He put his arm around Joshua and held me close and said, “take care of each other and be happy.” I didn’t think about it too hard at the moment, but I understand it now. If you take care of each other, all you can be is happy. When husband and wife live for each other, prioritize each other, love each other as God loves us, we’re happy. If we turn our eyes and marriage to God, we will learn how to love and love to last forever.
