I am by no means a great singer. Now, I like to think that I am not quite as tone deaf as some I have heard, but I also know I’m not getting a record deal anytime soon. However, having attended church all of my life and having participated in congregational singing since an early age I have gotten to the point that I can usually sing the bass harmony in songs without embarrassing myself too badly. Usually.
However, last month we had our typical 5thWednesday singing at church and something was wrong. I just couldn’t sing. No, I can’t ever sing, I know that – but this was worse than normal. I couldn’t find the tune in my mind and, note-wise, nothing that came out of my mouth was musically legible. It was aggravating. I enjoy singing, but it is much more enjoyable when you’re doing it well and I just wasn’t. I’m just thankful God doesn’t care what it sounds like or I would have been in big trouble that night!
What was missing? I thought long and hard about what it could have been and I think I found the answer. Kristy wasn’t there. You see, her home congregation nearby was having their Trunk or Treat after their Bible classes that night and so she took Kenadie to church there for the evening. What difference does that make? Outside of the occasional exception I have sat next to Kristy in church for more than ten years now. Song leaders have come and song leaders have gone in my life, but Kristy’s voice has been the one constant with which my limited ability to sing has found harmony. And without her sitting next to me I was simply out of tune.
This in many ways is a metaphor for how marriage is supposed to be. When a man and woman decide to get married the rationale behind that decision is that they cannot envision their lives with anyone else. God created woman to be the helpmeet of man, meaning that she is to complete him (no “Jerry Maguire” jokes please!). She is that essential part that makes him whole (Genesis 2:24).
The problem is that husbands and wives alike have become too independent. They’re married but their lives aren’t really wrapped up in their marriage. They live with them but they could probably live without them. Marriages have become dispensable. It’s nothing anymore for husbands and wives to spend days, weeks, even months apart on a regular basis with no thought to what that kind of separation can do to a relationship. But under those circumstances a life should seem out of tune. We should feel incomplete. We must feel an urgent need to reconnect. And if we don’t then what does that say about the state of our marriage in the first place?
Solomon wrote that “whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the Lord” (Proverbs 18:22). By the way we sometimes treat our marriages I wonder if we really believe that. Like most men, I’m sure that I don’t tell or show my wife nearly enough appreciation for who she is and what she does. But on the occasion she is away it becomes evident immediately. Life gets out of tune, and to be honest I’m glad it does. It means we must be doing something right.
-Andy Brewer