What's a resounding gong?

I know a man who thinks that God created marriage to teach us about sacrificial love.
I would agree with him now that I'm married.
I know a woman that once said, "Men, you can't live with 'em, you can't shoot 'em.", now that I'm married I also agree with her.

As if Christ's death wasn't enough for us; we needed yet another example of what love looks like.

After our blissful wedding, David and I began to have some pretty serious problems; they started two days after we arrived in Mexico for our honeymoon. (Ha, I bet you thought I was going to say something like a year or two into our marriage!)

Unlike most people who get married (slather on the sarcasm) we came into our marriage with a ton of baggage.
David was from a divorced home and I was trying to get over things that had happened so many years ago. Neither one of us was successful at taking care of those issues before marriage, so we brought them into our new life together. Horrible things were said and done; there was lots of crying, someone threw a shoe at someone else while they were driving away after an argument (ahem David), and words that you can NEVER take back were said. My heart was broken. My parents had been married forever and here we were at a month and then two months trying to hang on to absolute crap.

I didn't know what to do so I went to God's Word. I knew 1 Corinthians 13, all Christians do, just like all British people know Beatles songs. This is it:

"1 Corinthians 13

Love

If I speak in the tongues[a] of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."

After I looked this up and wrote it down, I dug further into God's word, writing down each and every verse that spoke to me about love. I made up my mind that no matter what, I was going to stay in my marriage. That proved harder some days than others. However, when it was all said and done, we stayed together further burying our problems; both pre-marriage and the ones we created together.

Once we got pregnant with our first child, things didn't get better, in fact they almost got worse. I think I hated David. I was only going to stay married because I had to, I had made a promise and that was it. I couldn't and wouldn't forgive him for what had been done and said in our marriage. Isabella Grace was born 3 months early and spent 57 days in Bronson Methodist Hospital. The journey that we went on, the way that Christ stepped in and showed himself to us. how he worked though that pain to save our marriage, was amazing.

Let that sink in. In the middle of absolute fear and anguish Christ was there, steady as the rock that He is, offering me peace, clarity and help.