There's a very interesting cover story in TIME magazine this week titled, Unfaithfully Yours, by Caitlin Flanagan. I was struck by many of Ms. Flanagan's points, including this one; "...marriage, a lasting covenant between a man and a woman can be a vehicle for the nurture and protection of each other...or it can be a matchless tool for the infliction of suffering on the people you supposedly love above all others, most of all on your children." I thought this was a sobering statement in light of the recent media attention on Jon and Kate Gosselin and Mark and Jenny Sanford's troubled marriages.

Let's take a closer look at some of the other points made in this TIME magazine article:

1. "Children who grow up in a household with only one biological parent are worse off, on average, than children who grow up in a household with both of their biological parents, regardless of the parents' race or educational background." (Princeton psychologist, Sara McLanahan)
2. "It's dismissive of the human experience to suggest that kids don't suffer, extraordinarily, from divorce." (President of the Institute for American Values, David Blankenhorn)
3. "The middle class has spent the past two and a half decades - during which the divorce culture became a fact of life - turning weddings into overwrought exercises in consumer spending, as if by just plunking down enough cash ...we can somehow improve our chance of going the distance."

As followers of Christ, we know why the marriage relationship between husband and wife is so important.  And we also know it takes hard work and a continual dying to ourselves to maintain a lasting and loving marriage. While these quotes from the article are poignant, they are a good reminder of why our marriage matters.