For Worse

1 Corinthians 7:10-11 - To the married I give this charge (not I, but the Lord): the wife should not separate from her husband (but if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband), and the husband should not divorce his wife.

For twenty-two years Robertson McQuilkin served as the president of a thriving Bible college and seminary. Then his wife Muriel began to slip away. Alzheimer's took her memory and abilities one piece at a time, until she grew frightened whenever he left the room. Their home was half a mile from his office, and she would walk there searching for him and then walk home again, as many as ten times in a single day. Sometimes she walked until her feet bled.

Some friends told him it was time to place her in a care facility and continue leading the college he loved. Instead, in 1990, at the height of his career, he resigned. He stood up in front of the whole school and explained why: “I promised, in sickness and in health, till death do us part.” Then he added the line no one expected: “It's not that I have to. It's that I get to.”

That is the difference between a contract and a covenant, and Paul plants his flag firmly on the covenant side. Listen to how he introduces this one: “not I, but the Lord.” Paul is handing us the words of Jesus himself, who said that what God has joined together, no one must separate. So the permanence of marriage was never just an old-fashioned rule. It’s the design of the God who invented marriage. Our whole culture treats marriage like a contract: I will hold up my end as long as you hold up yours, and the day you stop delivering, the deal is off. But a covenant says something almost reckless: I will stay, not because you are keeping me happy, but because I gave my word.

You stood at an altar, if you’re married, and you said words like these: for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health. The worse was always in the vow. So was the poorer. So was the sickness. You weren’t tricked into something you never agreed to; you promised, with your eyes open, to stay through exactly the seasons that make staying hard. That doesn’t always look like it looked for Robertson McQuilkin. Faithfulness wears a hundred faces, and caring well for a suffering spouse can include help, and doctors, and hard decisions made in love. The vow is not a demand to do it all alone. But underneath every faithful form of it beats the same covenant heart: I am not going anywhere.

Now I have to slow down and speak gently, because some of you are carrying a marriage that is genuinely hard right now, the romance long cold, the distance wide, a voice whispering that you would be happier if you just walked away. Covenant love doesn’t mean gritting your teeth alone in the dark. It means refusing to quit in a season and reaching for help, because grace can rebuild what feels dead. And some of you carry a grief even heavier: a marriage that has already ended. If that’s you, please understand that this isn’t a verdict on you, and it’s not a stone for anyone to throw at your history. The blood of Jesus covers your past completely. Let this passage be a door forward, not a weight on your back. God is for you, and there is real grace on the other side of that pain.

And the deepest reason a covenant like that is even possible is because God kept His covenant with us first. He looked at a bride who had broken faith with Him more times than anyone could count, and He refused to walk away. He stayed. He gave himself. He called it love. Every faithful marriage on earth is a small echo of the God who will never leave you.

Today: If you’re married, find your vows (the actual words you said) and read them out loud together tonight. If you can’t find them, look up the traditional ones and read those. Then name, honestly, the one “for worse” you’re living in right now, and commit to fight through it with the grace and empowerment of Jesus. If your marriage is in a genuinely hard place, please don’t carry it in secret; reach out and let us help. Email one of us and take a first step toward getting support.

Prayer: “Father, forgive us for treating our promises like they come with an exit. Thank You that you never once treated yours that way with us. Give us covenant hearts, and be very near to everyone whose marriage aches today, for those forced to end a destructive marriage, and for those who look back in joy and grief on a spouse now at home with You. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”

-PK