Black Marriage Day

Today my church celebrated Black Marriage Day. The national theme for this year is, "Married and Proud of It!"

Why Black Marriage? I get that question every year. This time my son asked me. He specifically wanted to know why Black instead of all marriages. For the record all marriage needs to be supported and celebrated. Unfortunately, marriage is weakest in the African American culture. So many children are born out of wedlock. I'm not exaggerating, statistics say something like 70% of black children are born out of wedlock. While celebrities seem to do that out-of-wedlock baby thing without significant issues (that we can see), it doesn't play out so pretty in the lives of black people of modest means. Google it. It's not a good thing, therefore the Couple's Ministry at my church strives to encourage and support marriages in our community.

Each year married couples get to stand, face each other, hold hands and repeat after the pastor just like on the wedding day. It feels like we are renewing our vows...well it is renewing our vows. That's my favorite part. Today's funny note is that an onlooker beside us was so overcome with emotion from watching us he hugged and kissed us.

About 8 couples from our congregation performed a choreographed dance to the song, When I Found You, I Found Love. It was really nice. I enjoyed the dance and even more than the dance, I enjoyed the fact that my church was allowing a space for this type of thing.

Overall, most of the talk about marriage stated or implied that marriage is hard, no one is perfect and therefore no marriage is perfect. I don't disagree completely. The best advice I heard was that couples should expect to disagree ( he said fight but I don't like that word), and should have great make-up sex. He didn't say sex, but that was exactly what he meant. If you read my blog you know how important I think good sex is for a marriage. The speaker today wanted to encourage couples to power through their troubles and determine to stay together.

We also recognized a couple at our church who've been married for SEVENTY-TWO years! The wife advised couples to be agreeable ( I'm summarizing). She said that if he does something you don't like just go with it and vice-versa. You can't do that so easily with someone you can't trust to protect your best interest, but it's not a good idea to marry that type of person. I digress. The point is, I agree with her, it's worked for her and she and her husband seem happy enough.


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