"And so they lived happily ever after!" What happened to yesterday's fairy tale ending? Today we're living every other "ending," a time when marriage is devalued, minimized, trivialized, even scorned. The commitment to stay married in spite of poverty, sickness, and "worse" things has been replaced with "so long as it works well for me!" Fuses are short, anger long and bitter. Separation and divorce are rampant. Alternatives like "living together" last only a short time. Warring genders seek out their own sex for comfort (homosexuality). Children are major liabilities many prefer to do without.

Why has our culture abandoned marriage? There's a simple answer to this. Our society has rejected marriage because it has rejected the God of truth who created not only the covenant of marriage but also the very genders to enter into the contract. Today these truths and principles of God's eternal Word are rejected, mocked, belittled, or just plain ignored. And we've inherited all the heartache, isolation, regret, guilt, loneliness and hopelessness that accompany the rejection of a personal God. We're alienated first from God and then from each other.

It doesn't have to be this way in your life, beloved. The eternal Word we turned away from is the way out-the path to not just a marriage but also a life without regrets. Jesus said "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through me" (John 14:6).

I took this "way" a long time ago and have never looked back. Following it entails courage to swim upstream, go against the grain, reject status quo. It means taking a stand against a culture that has taken particular aim at God's first two covenants-life and marriage. It means defying majority belief, standing up for absolutes in a relativistic culture.

God promises more than just "no regrets." Jesus said He came so that his sheep "may have life and have it abundantly" (John 10:10). That means abundant marriages too, abundant relationships generally, a new family, a new future, a new you.

If you're married or are planning to marry, I know you want a marriage without regrets, an abundant marriage filled with love, trust, hope and great memories. I have a lot to share with you because I failed miserably the first time around when I was an unbeliever. Jesus changed all that; He raised me out of the living death I was "living." Join me in this study of His Word. Let's renew our hope together!

-Kay

PFL Marriage Without Regrets is a 40-lesson study based on the 40-program "Precepts For Life" series with the same title based on Kay Arthur's Gold Medallion Award winning A Marriage Without Regrets (@2000, Harvest House Publishers).