And God said, "You shall become one"

I always heard growing up how much work marriage is, "it's hard...it takes lots of communication...lots of patience...lots of sacrifice". But there is one challenge of marriage that far outweighs anything else that no one ever emphasized to me.

The hardest part about being married is loving someone so much that you know deep down in your soul how heartbreaking it would be to ever lose that person. No one ever told me that when you say "I do" it's one of the riskiest leaps of faith to take, not because of the commitment or even the loss of independence. But when you become "one" with your spouse the inevitable is that one day (even if that day is years to come) someone will be left a "half" person. Not that one cannot be made whole again through the help of Christ, but the healing that comes from the death of a spouse is a long and difficult road for anyone at any age to endure.

So, for now, I would say that marriage is one of the most challenging things in life, but not because of the frequent marital "hardships" that we normally hear and read about. You see, to willingly give half of your heart away to someone else you also have to be willing to lose it.