Exchanging One Problem For More!

Abnormal behaviors may include:

• Aggressiveness
• Agitation
• Hallucinations
• Confusion
• In depressed patients, worsening of depression including risk of suicide may occur

Allergic reactions such as:

• Tongue or throat swelling occur rarely and may be fatal

Side affects may include:

• Unpleasant taste
• Headache
• Dizziness
• Morning drowsiness

These are actual conditions that could be associated with taking a certain product. I was watching television one day and this commercial came on. I was stunned by the lengthy list of possible side affects and behaviors that could occur upon taking this medication. The crazy thing about it is that this medicine was to help you sleep! All of this risk just to so you can get a good night’s sleep?! You mean there isn’t an easier way?

It sounded a bit crazy to me. After listing all of these possible affects the commercial offers a free 7-night trial. Oh yeah, sign me up for that!

I have often been amazed at some of the commercials I have seen for medication. If you want to cure your sleep problem, then you have to possibly create another problem. Doesn’t make much sense, does it?

Strangely enough, it made me think about marriage. You see, we have this “problem.” It may be that our marriage wasn’t quite what we thought it was going to be. We are pretty sure that we may have married the wrong one. We rationalize that we weren’t saved when we got married so surely there must an out. Or we think that God wouldn’t want us to be so unhappy. He surely must see the way our spouse is treating us! God would understand, right? So we take care of the problem by ending the marriage—or we stray from it. Yet, in our attempts to “cure” our problem, we have just created a whole list of new problems. The side affects are an endless long list of possibilities that just don’t seem worth it.

The problem is, it’s too late. We take the sleep medicine without reading the label and now we have gone from having trouble sleeping to some serious health problems. We bail on our marriage and now we have more than just a troubled or less than ideal marriage to contend with. We have some serious problems and consequences to deal with!

As a personal testimony, I was not saved when I married my husband. In fact, the biggest thing that drew me to him was the fact that my parents weren’t thrilled about my marrying him. I was always a bit rebellious so the more they pushed for it not to happen, the more I pushed to make it happen. Now don’t get me wrong, I did love him. But the foundation to our marriage was not based on “godly” love, it was on worldly love. It was pretty messed up from the day we said, “I do.”

For the first five years of marriage, we went through some pretty trying times. Everyone who knew us was convinced we were destined to divorce. In fact, I’m sure we both thought the same thing—there was absolutely no way we could make it. But then a year after our oldest son was born, I had an encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ and about a year later, my husband did, too. End of problems, right? Not on your life! In face, it seemed new problems erupted. Just because we had changed the course of our life did not mean everything was easy street.

We still had a lot of that old baggage to deal with. You see, it didn’t just go away. Some of it still creeps up even after the 18 years we have been married. But now we know how to deal with it. In fact, a couple of years ago we sought some marriage coaching because of some old issues that had never been dealt with. You see, marriage takes work. There will NEVER be a point in a marriage when you can sit back and say, “Whew! Glad all that’s over with…finally time to enjoy a problem-free marriage.” Life happens. Disappointments come. Circumstances arise. Problems rise up. New seasons in marriage only bring new problems. The great thing, however, is that we don’t have to deal with it by taking a path that is going to lead to other problems. We deal with it by remembering that A cord of three strands is not quickly broken (Ecclesiastes 4:12). Husband, wife, and the Lord Jesus Christ…with these three working together, it becomes a cord that CANNOT be broken! And guess what? NO SIDE AFFECTS!