In my current grad school class, I'm studying the genre of "graphic novels." Sometimes that means the comics on which my daughter draws on Sunday mornings; other times that means books with words and images; and other times, like this past week, it means looking at texts that are complete stories told only in images. One of the "texts" was a bunch of wood carvings that some French dude put together to tell stories. Basically, it was just a bunch of naked women. I know I'm supposed to find the symbolism in it; but really, let's call a spade a spade - this guy just liked to carve naked women into wood, over and over and over.
The other text I "read" this week, however, was quite good. It's called The Arrival, and it depicts the immigrant experience. It shows a fictitious account of a man who leaves his home (and his wife and child) to go to a completely foreign land to create a place for his family to live. It does a great job of humanizing the struggles and the fears that immigrants and refugees face.
One image in particular really stood out to me:
This picture is early in the text and depicts the morning that the man is leaving for the new country. This, to me, is one of the most realistic portrayals of strong marriage I’ve seen (or read). Hand-on-hand, their faces stoic and uncertain, they know that they face challenges; however, they are together in this. They know what must be done; they know this will be difficult; and most importantly, they know they’re in it together and have total faith in the other. This text reveals the enormous amount of faith required in this marriage: his faith in her to raise their daughter and be strong without him, her faith in him to overcome an unfamiliar world and prepare a life for them. This picture displays that faith magnificently.
One concept the professor of this course has tried to get across is that some images say so much more than words. I can't agree more in this case. I think of all the books on doing marriage well that are out there. None of them, I would guess, have better advice than this picture. Difficult times will arise. Tough choices will have to be made, and those choices will bring about challenges. While these two aren't smiling at the challenge they face, they are in it together.
I talked to a friend who got married recently, and he was telling me about the marriage "counseling" sessions that he and his wife attended as part of the process of being married in their church. He told me that one of the things they told him was that the first year of marriage is the best - that it's a yearlong honeymoon. What a bunch of horse manure. I'm lucky my wife didn't kill me in my sleep during that first year. I likely would have deserved it. Instead of offering advice like this and trying to talk this guy and his wife through what marriage would be like, they should have just showed them this picture and said, "Do this, and you will be great."
This picture represents every difficult task that a strong married couple will face. Very few are going to experience this immigrant experience, but it's not always going to be something that big. I talked to another friend this weekend who's now working two jobs and he has two young children (one of whom isn't sleeping well). His wife also works. I imagine that every morning when the day starts, when they're trying to find energy to be good at work and parenting, they have to look at each other as the husband and wife in this picture do.
I don't like to offer marriage advice, as I don't believe that anyone really has it figured out. I think there's terrific biblical guidelines that would make so many more couples happier than they are now. But if I have any advice to offer, it is this: look at this image, and be this image. If you show this kind of faith and commitment in difficult times, you will be strong.
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