Marriage

A precious sister in Christ asked the question - what is marriage?  Here is my response under the Lord's direction.
As God designed it -

Marriage is a union between a man and a woman which reflects these truths -
As Christ loved the Church and gave His life for her, so husbands are to love their wives (quite sobering). This is done to make her holy, to cleanse her by the washing with water through the Word, and to present Her to Himself as a radiant Church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.
Wives are to submit to their husbands as unto the Lord Himself (also quite sobering), because the husband is the head of the wife just like Jesus Christ is the head of the Church, His body, of which He is the Savior. As the Church submits to Christ, so a wife is to submit to her husband in everything.
Further on in Ephesians 5 - In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the Church - for we are members of His body. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.
Marriage is a union that God oversees, establishes, and seals.
From Ephesians again - This is a profound mystery - but I am talking about Christ and the Church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself and the wife must respect her husband.
He wants our Christian marriages to be an example to the world of the way He loves His Bride, the Church.
While I hear your question, and it is a good one, we tend to answer questions from a human perspective. I believe we can no longer do that. The "truth" of humanism will not stand until the end and will give no testimony of Jesus Christ to the world - that is evidenced by the rampant divorce of marriages, even in the Church!
We must instead preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ THROUGH marriage as one tool and avenue which God has provided us.
Therefore, I submit to you that, marriage is about Jesus Christ and His image in the earth. Marriage is about the foreshadowing of a greater glory yet to come - the glory of Jesus Christ being united with His Bride - the Bride He paid a dear price for. The reason He paid the price? It was not for us... It was SO THAT HE would receive all glory and honor and power and praise for all of eternity.
I tell you - Marriage is about bringing God maximum glory. That is the mystery of marriage.
Therefore, we dare not, under the fear of the LORD, enter lightly into marriage. And we dare not continue in our marriages flippantly. We must, in the fear of the LORD, seek to honor our husbands just as we honor Jesus Christ, because in doing so we have the awesome privilege of bringing Glory to God through our marriages! This is both sobering and incredibly exciting!

Psalm 126

When the LORD brought back the captives to Zion, we were like men who dreamed. 
Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy. 
Then it was said among the nations, "The LORD has done great things for them." 
The LORD has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy. 
Restore our fortunes, O LORD, like streams in the Negev. 
Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy. 
He who goes out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with him. 

This is the testimony of our family in this season.  The first line of this chapter in Psalms has been rolling around in my heart all week.  I looked up the rest of it today and found a word in season for my family!  And I couldn't be happier.  The Lord has told our family that this long, difficult season is over.  And as is true of so many spiritual things, the spiritual was "true" before the reality showed up in the natural. 
Our son has returned home, and not only to our home, but his heart is opening to the Lord again.  I know he'll read this, so I hope he won't mind me sharing this.  We are REJOICING in the Lord over Matthew's return.  That is my main and greatest joy, but there are so many more!
The Lord has delivered my husband from death.
He is intervening in our finances.
He is expanding our hearts toward Him and toward our family (both natural and spiritual - the Lord has given us spiritual children). 
We are sensing the Lord telling us to gather everyone near - both natural and spiritual children. So we are doing what we can to do that. 
I sense a greater blessing coming near.  There are some in our extended spiritual family who still need a relationship with Jesus.  These are our "sheaves" which we will be carrying in with rejoicing very soon. 
The Lord has already told me that the work He is doing is both done by and sustained by HIM.  HE is going to both save and keep all that concerns my family. 
We are standing on the very edge of even greater spiritual blessing, and I'm breathless at the anticipation of seeing His Salvation! 
I've always prayed that I would do anything to see His Salvation in my family - it is my greatest treasure. 

Thanks be to God!

How is it that one begins to be good? Upon what fulcrum rests the knife-edge of change? As indistinguishable is the moment in which the turn takes place, equally perplexing to keenest investigation is the part of the being in which the renovation begins. Who shall analyze repentance? You cannot see it coming! Before you know it, there it is, and the man is no more what he was. His life is all at once upon other lines. The wind has blown! We saw not where it came from or where it went, but the new birth is there. It began in the spiritually infinitesimal, where all beginnings are. Then it grew, till one day the outer shell was cracked. (from The Baron's Apprenticeship by George MacDonald)

This has happened in the life of someone I love dearly.
Thank You, Father, for Your great faithfulness!
What You have begun, You will complete!