A Walk in the Clouds or a Marathon Run?

Ken Esau

A Walk in the Clouds was among the top ten money-earning movies for a few weeks last year. I have been told that the movie is about a married man who, in the midst of his own troubled marriage, falls in love with a young woman pregnant by another man. After only a few days of knowing each other, they discover they are "right" for each other. The story ends with the two of them embracing while her family's vineyard burns in the background. The viewer is supposed to feel that even in the midst of this big disaster, everything is going to be fine since the two of them have found each other.

It was a fairly easy decision for me not to see this particular film since I was worried about being physically sickened by another syrupy portrayal of love and romance as a simple walk in the clouds. This view of marriage seems to be portrayed everywhere from television and music to movies--and sometines even in sermons at weddings. It is taught to children at a young age especially through Disney movies. My three-year-old daughter watched the video Snow White a few times and for months has been singing "Someday my prince will come."

But how can anyone who has spent more than ten minutes interviewing husbands and wives actually buy into this myth that being married and raising children is similar to a walk in the clouds? Christians often exert great energy opposing such issues as the teaching of evolutionary theory in our schools, for example, but many accept with open arms the myth of marriage as a casual stroll.

One of my brothers ran his first marathon this past year. This 26.2-mile run involves, according to a Nike billboard I saw recently, over 46,112 steps. As I talked to my brother about the experience, I came to realize that marriage and family life for most people are much more like a marathon run than they are like a walk in the clouds.

The walk-in-the-clouds view of marriage and the marathon view differ at many points.

1. Goals

The walk-in-the-clouds view seeks first of all to find the right person. It assumes that there is a prince or princess somewhere out there waiting for each of us. Our biggest challenge is to find the person and then take whatever steps are necessary to attract that person to us. Television and movie plots are full of eyes meeting across crowded rooms, sparks igniting, and people who are right for each other defying all odds to be together and sail off into the sunset.

The marathon view of marriage is quite different. The goal is not first of all to find the right marathon course. For most of us, we could travel the entire world and we would be unable to find the right course. No run of 26.2 miles is right for us if we get tired just running to answer the telephone. The goal is to be the right person--to be prepared to run the marathon. Once you or I are prepared to run 26.2 miles, we can then find the most suitable course for us.

2. Expectations

Each year, first-year students in my marriage and family classes write an assignment which includes a description of what they would expect if they were to get married and have a family. It is fascinating to read about the hopes and aspirations of these students. Most, following the pervasive walk-in-the-clouds view, expect that once the right person has been found, married life will indeed be a leisurely stroll.

Marathon runners do not expect a stroll. They recognize that 26.2 miles is 26.2 miles. There are no "easy" marathons. Runners experience the sense of exhilaration that goes along with the "runner's high", but the marathon is still 46,112 steps. All runners look tired at the end of a marathon. Rosie Ruiz was the first woman across the finish line in the 1980 Boston Marathon. She was presented with various medals and wreaths on the podium, but observers noticed that she hardly looked tired. After investigating the checkpoints, they discovered that actually she had cheated and taken a shortcut, running only a few of the 26.2 miles. She was suspected of cheating because it looked as if she had gone for a walk rather than run a marathon. Marriage and family life for most people seem much closer to a marathon run than to a casual walk.

3. Response to Marital Difficulty

All marriages that last beyond a few months experience some level of difficulty. A walk-in-the-clouds view of marriage typically encourages two possible responses.

On the one hand, it suggests that the couple needs to try to return to the exhilarating and romantic days of the honeymoon. Many couples experiencing difficulty desperately try to recapture old feelings by flying to Hawaii for a second, third or fourth honeymoon, going on expensive dates or spending money extravagantly on each other as they did before they were married. While each of these actions may have a place, the desire to go backwards seems far from healthy. We would certainly not encourage a 35-year-old experiencing a depression to re-enter high school again because that was a particularly exhilarating time in his or her life.

Unfortunately, returning to the past rarely works. The honeymoon was special precisely because it was not everyday life. But when difficulties reappear even after the third honeymoon, there is a crisis. If the difficulties are not simply because we had forgotten to celebrate our anniversary right, or because we were not "dating" as we once did, then the only other conclusion is the second typical walk-in-the-clouds response to difficulty--that we were not "right" for each other all along. This realization can, of course, be devastating. Since the walk-in-the-clouds view allows for no other conclusion, the disgruntled spouses must either resign themselves to an unhappy life or find a way out of the marriage so that they can locate the "right" person before it is too late.

The marathon view of marriage, on the other hand, makes no attempt to go back. When difficulties and challenges arise at the ten or fifteen-mile point in a marathon, no runner wants an air-conditioned limousine ride back to mile three. While mile three may have included a nice downhill stretch with impressive scenery, no runner would want to go back there. A marathon view of marriage faces the challenge of difficulties by moving forward rather than turning around.

The marathon view would also see no benefit in changing courses in mid-race. It would be extremely difficult for you to convince runners at the ten or fifteen-mile point in a marathon to leave that race so they could start at mile one on a different course that you claimed was more right for them.

4. Preparation required

A walk-in-the-clouds view suggests that limited preparation is needed for marriage. The only real preparation involved is to place yourself in situations where you can find and attract the "right" person. Preparation of one's physical appearance is considered essential, but, once the couple is together, there is little other preparation required. Few couples even see the need for premarital counselling. In the United States, for example, fewer than 20 percent of couples getting married have any marriage counselling.

It is extremely rare for any runner to complete a marathon with no training. Most marathon runners follow a careful training schedule including not only running but also sleep times and diet. The best prediction of success in a marathon is not the course but the runner. A well prepared runner can run almost any course. A person well prepared for marriage has a high probability of success even if we do not know the person whom he or she will marry.

Preparation for the marathon run of marriage involves, among other things, an honest examination of one's family background. No one with a broken ankle or torn knee cartilage would enter a marathon before first allowing time for healing. For all of us, our childhood and growing up years have provided us with some strengths but also left us with some "sore or stiff muscles". We need to look back and stretch those areas that are sore or stiff and appreciate those areas of strength.

Their family experiences have left some people with emotional "broken bones" and open wounds that clearly will hinder them in the marathon of marriage. Examining your family background and working on allowing God to heal the brokenness is part of preparation for marriage.

In addition, it is important to make an assessment of one's training readiness. Runners must assess their own preparation for the run. Have they trained enough? Have they eaten the right foods? Have they consumed enough liquids prior to the race?

Those running the marathon of marriage must also take a long look at themselves. But what are they to look for? There seem to be no more important qualities for marriage than those which God works in each Christian through His Holy Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit includes the qualities of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). Certainly anyone entering marriage strongly endowed with these characteristics is well prepared for the run.

When you ask marathon runners about a marathon, they often use words such as challenge, exhilarating, gruelling, exhausting, incredible and fantastic to describe the journey. These words seem perfect to describe the phenomenal journey that is marriage and family. The exhilaration of that moment when you promised to each other that you would be husband and wife for as long as you both shall live is coupled with the challenge of maintaining spiritual, emotional and physical intimacy when your lives can easily go in two different directions. The incredible and fantastic moment when you hear the first cry of that beautiful child given to you by God is coupled with all those gruelling and exhausting moments that make up the life of parents.

I don't expect that the marathon view of marriage will soon be the theme of any movies, especially any of those produced by Disney (which specializes in fantasy, of course). But I do hope that the girls and boys who are growing up in our Sunday schools and the young adults who are attending our Bible colleges will be prepared for what marriage and family is really about. I pray that if they enter it, they will run with the same dogged determination and the same glint in their eyes that I see in my brother when he talks about his next marathon.

Ken Esau teaches Old Testament and marriage courses at Columbia Bible College in Abbotsford, B.C.

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