Every successful, happy marriage is a miracle of love. I know dozens of men and woman who are alive today, who have been rescued from near-certain death by the miraculous power of love. Despite the troubled times we live in, it is still very common to come across people who have succeeded in making their marriage work – ‘silver’ medallists who have completed 25 years, ‘goldies’ who have crossed the 50-year mark. They are a living testimony to the remarkable fact that marital love can grow, endure and triumph against all odds.

There is, there can be no such thing as a trouble-free marriage. Life brings its share of crises, problems and challenges to every one of us. A successful marriage not only survives, but flourishes through them. The secret of this success is the selfless love and commitment that can stand the severest tests – like financial ruin and unexpected illnesses and disease. You have no doubt heard the story of King Midas who was granted the boon of a single wish. You know too, that he asked that all he touched should turn to gold, and the disastrous consequences that followed.

Now let me ask each one of you – if you could have one such boon granted to you, what would you wish for? Health? Wealth? Long life? Happiness? 

Midas thought that the prospect of permanent wealth would ensure happiness. As it happened, he was left all alone, in misery – surrounded by glittering riches, but starving to death. The people who could have given meaning to the gold – the members of his family – had been rendered lifeless by the mere touch of his hands, turned into useless gold. 

What would you wish for? If you wished for long life, you will surely require someone to share it with. If you wished for good health, you will surely need someone to rejoice in your well-being. If, like Midas, you wished for personal riches, you will surely require someone to enjoy your material treasures with you. 

When you have a happy and successful marriage you will be free of the need to wish for anything because you will have someone who is ready to share everything with you! This is what I call the miracle of marriage: two people who do not take each other for granted, but do take it for granted that they will love and cherish each other all their lives, and give that love priority over everything else in their life. Anybody can laugh together, but a loving husband and wife can cry together.

To laugh, to cry, to work, and to love and live together – each for the other – is surely the most remarkable achievement that two human beings can accomplish. Thus a true marriage is a miracle that defies all the vicissitudes of the crass and selfish world we live in today.

“Where has love gone?” tragic poets wail. “Where has the glory fled?” “Where is the love that I felt all those days ago?”

A happily married woman who celebrated her sixtieth wedding anniversary said to a writer who was interviewing her, “Nobody can find love if they go looking for it alone.” 

Love is not out there somewhere. It is with you, within you. You and your partner can make it flourish in your marriage. A miracle marriage is within the grasp of all couples who wish to give and take, understand, love, forgive, care, and share. Your wish for the miracle of lasting love can come true when you enter married life in this spirit. Marriages fail when companionship and understanding are absent in the partners. Therefore, I urge husbands to respect their wives, and wives to respect their husbands. Give one another the freedom to be themselves, to express themselves, and assert their unique identity! When there is complete understanding, respect and affection, all marriages become ‘love-marriages’ in the true sense of the word.

 

Here are the “Vows of A Miracle Marriage” penned by best-selling author Paul Pearsall, Ph.D.:

 

By Dada J. P. Vaswani