The Single Story and Christian Marriage

Years ago I heard a lady speak of a time when she and her husband were going through marriage problems. When she went for counseling, the pastoral staff told her that she needed to go back and submit and that would somehow solve the problem.

So she did. But things didn't get better.

Then she prayed, which she should have done in the first place. When she prayed, she felt an impression concerning the problem which she had not thought of which led to a different solution. When she applied the solution, it worked.

The lady telling the story had no issue with submission, she didn't even have an attitude toward the pastoral staff and their single Story Solution. She was simply expressing the importance of going to God rather than men when looking for help because men can't see the whole story but God can.

Just the other day I was on a blog talking about something anonymously, mentioning difficulty in an area of my marriage. Some guy who knew that I leaned egal felt the need to tell me the reason for our issues. He suggest that the reason there was difficulty in my marriage was because I had 'wrestled' my husband's rightful position of 'authority' away from him in the family order which set all thing askew and topsy turvy. He recommended that I needed to set aside my egal views and submit as the Bible prescribed so that all things would re-align and come into a proper and divine order.

Her again is the Single Story cropping up where it doesn't belong.

Marriage is complicated and has many stories. Yet some people reduce it down to hierarchy, order, and a certain structure and make it all about who is the boss. They miss the fact that perhaps the advice they give may be wrong because it has nothing to do with the original problem. And they cannot even fathom that the advice they give may actually make a bad situation worse. The reason they cannot see it is because they cannot see pass the Single Story they have written or have been taught that marriage is.

And herein lies the danger of the Single Story. People and relationships cannot be reduced down to roles and rules, yet this is what is done in many Christian circles.

They reduce marriage and all the problems in marriage to different versions of the Single Story. And since it is the men who traditionally have been in power over scripture, translation, and dividing the Word, these men have written a certain story that that best suits them. If something is wrong in a marriage it must somehow be the woman's fault. Once she has tried everything to be perfect to the satisfaction of the men in power, then perhaps they might consider that submission isn't the solution.

And this is why women need to wise up and go directly to the Source concerning their story. God is the Author and Finisher of our faith, not men. Men don't see the many stories involved. They focus in on the one they like or is most important to them. Their view is finite. God's is infinite and He sees the end from the beginning and all the stories involved in the person of you.