Mike Mason - The Mystery of Marriage 20th Anniversary Edition: Meditations on the Miracle

THE MYSTERY OF MARRIAGE
published by Multnomah Books

Published in association with the literary agency of Alive Communications, Inc., 7680
Goddard Street, Suite 200, Colorado Springs, CO 80920
1985, 2005 by Mike Mason
eISBN: 978-0-307-76953-4

Scripture quotations have been adapted by the author from The Holy Bible,
New International Version 1973, 1984 by International Bible Society,
used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House.

Published in the United States by WaterBrook Multnomah,
an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group,
a division of Random House Inc., New York.

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v3.1

For (who else?) Karen

Many women do noble things,
but you surpass them all.

P ROVERBS 31:29

Foreword

If any recently married student of mine at Regent College who wanted to be a writer had consulted me about making marriage the theme of his first book, I should have told him as pontifically as I could that however natural the thought in light of his own present condition, it was a no-no, and he must put it out of his mind. I should have explained that marriage, being the most delicate and demanding of human relationships, as well as potentially the most delightful, is a terribly difficult topic on which to write wisely and well. I should have pointed out that the Christian world is already full of bad books on marriage, books written, it seems, by extrovert Pharisees for readers like themselves who want to reduce life to routines of role-play, and that he could hardly hope to escape the influence of these well-meant but dreadful models. I should have observed that it takes married folk years and years to get their togetherness into perspective, and that young authors rarely write with any depth about relationships anyway. And so on, and so forth. I should have discouraged him every way I could and been sure that thereby I was doing him a service.

Fortunately for the world, and for me as well, as it now turns out, Mike Mason, having sat thoughtfully through some classes of mine, did not consult me about what he planned to do, but went right ahead and did it, with the result that is now before youthis outstanding achievement, of which I would have deprived you if Mike had asked and taken my advice. For better, for worse (I may appropriately borrow that phrase, I think), I write a lot of forewords these days: Packers nilhil obstat is prized by some. Rarely, however, has a new book roused in me so much enthusiasm as has the combination of wisdom, depth, dignity, and glowI dont know what else to call itthat I find in these chapters. To introduce them is not a chore but an excitement.

Christians, read thembut slowly! Their tone quality, resonating as it does off the Bible as its sounding board, is richer than we are used to. Couples, read them together! Your awe and joy at what you have got into will be mightily fed. Multnomah Publishers, commission some more books from Mike Mason!for this one is a crackerjack. And readers, please excuse my own slight giddiness; Mikes pages have just made me aware again that I too am a man in love. For the freshness and force with which he spells out the magnificence of marriage in Gods plan I am deeply grateful, and I predict that the same will soon be true of many more.

James Packer

Preface

There are many ways of measuring the success of a book. I measure the success of this one by the friends it has given me.

From the beginning it is a book that has made friends. One of my favorites is Laurie Hills of Manistee, Michigan. About a year after The Mystery of Marriage appeared, she wrote to say that she was driving around the country teaching at various seminars, and wherever she went she kept a box of my books in her car and was handing them out left and right. By that point my book had received some fine reviews, and my publisher was most enthusiastic. But the day I heard from Laurie Hills, I knew I had written a good book.

Over the years many other friends have written letters, or phoned, or appeared in the most unexpected settings to tell me how much this book has meant to them. Many people have read it two or three times, many have bought one copy and given away six. Most heartwarming of all are those countless couples who tell me they have read the book aloud to each other. This still amazes and delights me whenever I hear it. Its one thing for parents to read aloud to children. But when adults take time to read aloud to each other, it seems to me some fantastic good must be afoot in the world. Ill bet the angels gather to listen, and I think the earth must shift a little on its axis.

People like those mentioned above have taught me that, as I write the words of this new preface, Im not writing to a blank page, but to a great gathered company of my friends. This thought is like a warm fire that illumines the four walls of my study. It has brought tremendous life to my writing. For friends, when all is said and done, are what a writer wants. Writing can be a lonely life. Certainly it is a solitary one, or has been for me. Its not just the writing itself that must be done all alone in a room; it means a relatively solitary lifestyle too. I dont know any way of writing well without spending a good deal of time reading, thinking, and praying. Especially praying. In fact the recipe for me has always been about three hours of prayer for every hour of writing. Thats a lot of time spent alone in the closet!

How I thank God, then, that from the start He has given me a loving wife to be my best friend of all. She is (as the poem at the end of the book suggests) my monastery. For having set out in the Christian life to become a monk, I found myself instead falling in love with a woman. At first I worried intensely that Id made a huge mistake, fallen prey to a terrible temptation. But what a surprise it was to discover, over the years, that as a married man (and a father too) I have become more and more a true monk than I ever could have been within the walls of a monastery. How is this? Its because love, true love, sets people free to be whoever they are.

Many times I have told Karen that she is the best wife in the world, and I really believe it. Also that she is the most beautiful and wonderful of all women, and I believe that too. She is like Eve to me, the only woman on earth. Of course she is a sinner as I am. But when, like God, we choose to look past this in each other, we enter the paradise of love.

When I wrote The Mystery of Marriage