There’s No Such Thing As Happily Ever After

There’s No Such Thing as Happily Ever After

We all know how the story goes in fairy tales: “…and they lived happily ever after.”

And a lot of people (especially young women) go into marriage believing that once they’re married everything will work out just like that. No more loneliness, no more lovelessness, no more deep struggles and pain, no more major fights because after all, you’ve pledged your lives to each other in an endless love before God and family, right?

Along the way, all marriages eventually deal with disappointment, missed expectations, and hurt. But most don’t sign up thinking that will be what happens, believing more in the promises of “happily ever after”.

Yet the story of Jeff and Heather on today’s show reveals that true love is better than a fairy tale ending. This is the story of a couple who committed to love each other in the midst of a serious and life threatening illness that would take every ounce of their will and faith to endure and remain together.

Their story is one of love as a decision. Love as putting another ahead of yourself. Love as a 5 hour wait to see a doctor in a hospital waiting room. Love as praying and longing and disappointment and hope and pursuit and communication and endurance and suffering and joy.

Theirs is a story of a marriage built on faithfulness to each other and to God’s sovereign plan for their family.

There’s no such thing as Happily Ever After- but there is such a thing as JOYFULLY Ever After.

Happiness is based on a situation and a feeling being good, but joy is based on the knowledge that God is good and his love endures forever. We can choose joy in our relationships no matter the circumstances.

After all, as C.S. Lewis said, “JOY is the serious business of Heaven”.