How to Avoid Marrying a Jerk...

When I step through my local library doors...I feel a sense of mystery...enticement...a similar rush to when I have money to go shopping...and also a tinsy bit of guilt as I know the library staff can sniff it on my clothes that I have heavy pending fines...but in a library, there are books ABOUT EVERYTHING...yet you rarely find exactly what you want...

The "how to in relationships" books are an interesting section. They were conveniently bracketed between the section about cheesecakes and raising children...obviously the dewy-decimal system senses that women who are in need of relationship advice are also in need of a sugar hit and their relationship breakdown could very well be blamed on their growing family. Sad, but most probably true. Clever library mafia...

But then my eyes wondered aimlessly over this fascinating title..."How to Avoid Marrying a Jerk"...written by a man whom I can only assume is, how do I say it... a jerk. Now, even though this title is clearly wrong on so many levels, it makes me a little disappointed to reflect on what society has become and how it treats marriage. Some questions that flitted through my mind when I read this title was, when did the man that you married stop being the man that you fell in love with, and turn into a "jerk". Maybe the title should be, "How to stop YOURSELF being a Jerk" . I find it ironic that in a society that is so selfish and inward-thinking, people fail to diagnose their own shortcomings, but can see every single fault in someone else. I am not saying that people don't change, or that people enter into relationships with rose-coloured glasses, but I guess thats what makes being a Christian and marriage such a compatible combination; whenever the couple becomes in-compatible because someone is simply in a bad mood, faith in Christ allows room to forgive each other for being jerks...because I guess, who isn't a jerk anyway, at least sometime of the time?

Anyway, I scoffed and smirked when I saw this book, but then it made me think of how lucky I was to have a relationship not built simply on the foundation of loving feelings, but on the foundation of God who equals 'real eternal love' to catch us after all our mistakes, and to fill our hearts with the Holy Spirit when we can't possible be kind and loving on our own...