This entire week I’ve slept alone.  Not to worry, it’s not because my wife and I have been fighting, because we hate each other, or in any way because we want to.  I’ve been sick and contagious and she can’t afford to catch it, and then pass it on to our two girls.  So she slept on the couch, while I wrestled with the bed.  Don’t be a hater, I’m 6′4 and she’s only about 5′6 so she fits there fine.  Some people would enjoy this mini-separation.  In fact, a little over 5 years ago before I was married, I would have enjoyed it too.

Before I got married I had a king sized bed all to myself, and I used it, the whole thing.  I slept in the very middle, or on any side I felt like sleeping on.  I got all the covers to myself.  All the pillows to myself.  All 800 square feet of the giant bed I had was mine (technically my parents, but you know what I mean).  So I came into marriage somewhat apprehensive about learning to sleep with someone else in the bed.  Would she sleep on my side?  Would she kick me, punch me, elbow me, knee me?  Would she steal the covers while I sleep?  Would she snore (she doesn’t)?

If you noticed, or if not I’ll tell you, all of those apprehensive questions I had revolved around one thing; ME.  In fact, most of my life revolved around me.  All the questions I had about life centered on, you guessed it, me.  My needs.  My desires.  My well-being.  My perceived happiness.  Even God’s will revolved around me.  My former pastor once told me that the thing he looked forward to the most about marriage was now there were two people to make him happy;  Himself and His wife.  That was for all intents and purposes my view too.  As selfish as it sounds, you probably thought that way to some extent too.

Somewhere in the first few months after our wedding, after I’d kicked her, elbowed her nose, stole the covers off of her, slept all over her side of the bed, and gotten a few sinus infections, I began to learn that marriage reveals something about me that I probably knew but didn’t much want to face.  I was selfish.  Very selfish.  World shatteringly selfish.  And little by little God began to break me of that selfishness (He began it, but it won’t be finished until Christ returns, by the way).  He began to teach me about Himself, myself, and my wife.

I learned that a real man and husband is not first concerned with his own needs, desires, and general well-being.  He is first concerned with (after God) his wife’s.  What does she need?  What does she want?  What will give her a sense of well-being?  As a Christian, I saw that I have the mind of Christ, and that having that means I think Christ-like thoughts.  What is one of the biggest traits that characterized the earthly ministry of Jesus?  Self-lessness and humility (See Philippians 2).  He is my model, as well as my empowerer.

If you will let it, outside of raising children, marriage is one of the greatest God-given means for seeing yourself as you really are, and teaching you that the world does not revolve around you.  So how has all this changed me (knowledge without life change is just trivia)?  Many ways, but let’s get back to one minor one.  I sleep differently now.  Having had a King sized bed (not the same one but incidentally given to us by my parents) all to myself for the entire week, I woke up every morning in the same place;  The side of the bed I fell asleep on.  I don’t enjoy sleeping alone anymore.  I miss my wife, even though we stay on “our sides.”  I just miss her being there.  I’m no perfect husband by any stretch of the imagination.  Just ask my wife.  I simply realize I’m fatally flawed and bent towards myself, and am willing to let God change me through my marriage.  If your marriage hasn’t changed you then what are you refusing to see about yourself?

There are few things in this world that teach a person more about self-denial than having children.  I certainly would not say it is the only thing that teaches this.  There are some that are physically unable to have children.  God knows this and will teach you in other ways.  But for those who are able, and have taken the plunge, there is no better way to illustrate what it means to deny yourself on behalf of another.  A baby enters the world physically helpless.  Totally dependent on another, namely the parents.  A man and wife that decide to have children will soon learn that their lives are no longer their own.  Yes a child is an independent person with their own body and soul.  But in the years the child is under your care, they belong to you.  Under God, you’ve been given stewardship of your children and every parent knows that from pregnancy on, nothing remains the same.  I can glibly say that the joy outweighs the pain of your self-denial.  But like every form of self-denial it’s not so automatic.  There are dark days.  Days where you’re unsure whether you’re fit for the job, certain someone else would do much better than you.  Yet you persevere, another fine lesson of parenthood.  You wake up at any and all hours of the night, and if you desire to care for your child you have no choice but to forsake sleep.  And it is relentless, the fatigue.  You change your patterns of living.  You can no longer go where you want, do what you want, and have no one to answer to except you and your similarly mobile spouse.  But a child throws a wrench into all that.  Now every plan revolves around the baby.  When will she sleep?  When will she eat?  Is it not too cold for us, but too cold for them?  Is packing and taking all the things the baby will need worth the effort just to run to the mall?  Or even church?  Many will say no.  It is not worth the effort.  ”I very much like my freedom, and am not ready for a little baby to change all of that.”  Others will say it is more than worth it.  The joy of raising a tiny human far outweighs the pain of self-denial.  But which is correct?  I do not wish to say someone waiting to have children is morally deficient or wrong.  But I question the motives.  Is it really for the sake of the child or for the sake of personal freedom?  I believe it leans towards the latter, personal freedom.  Self-denial hurts.  Giving up you freedom hurts.  Yet without self-denial we cannot know what it means to be Christ’s disciple.  That is again not to say this can’t happen without children.  It is to say children are the most effective way to learn this lesson.  It is a natural byproduct of attempting to be a good steward of parenthood.  No one trying to be a good parent can fail to be taught this lesson.  It “comes with the territory” as they say (who is “they?”).  I would encourage a married couple to go the path of most resistance.  Learn the lessons of self-sacrifice.  Take them as you learn them as a parent and transfer that to your relationships with other people.  The lessons work for most any relationship.  If you’ve read this far and have children, congratulations, I’d like to say keep pushing forward, learn from your mistakes, and be careful to be good stewards of the gifts of children.  If you are married, can have children, yet choose not to, I say examine your motives.  Are they selfish reasons or sacrificial loving reasons?  There is an obvious difference.  You will know if you’re honest with yourself.  Now reexamine your reasons, and ask if not having kids is God glorifying now?  If not, then when will it be?  When is the right time?  There will always be a part of your flesh begging not to have kids.  Begging you to fill yourself with yourself.  And so there will always be excuses.  Sometimes they will be good ones.  Sometimes they won’t.  Do you wish to deny yourself more than you ever imagined you could?  Then married friends and acquaintances, try for children.  The joy will overcome the pain.  The laughter will overcome the tears most often.  It will never be easy.  Nothing worth doing usually is.  But it is infinitely worthy.