In America 97 percent of us will marry; 38 percent of all first marriages will end in divorce; 93 percent of the divorcees will marry again, and 44 percent of these will find themselves in the divorce court for the second time. In raw numbers, one of every two marriages will end in divorce. The tragedy is that every one of these marriages began with a hope of happiness without end. Maybe that is part of the problem. We tend to see the future in terms of the present. The traditional "for better or worse, in sickness or in health" has, at best, a nebulous and shadowy meaning to a couple who are so very much in love.

After all, who can think of this beautiful, rosy-cheeked girl as being sick, invalided, or even bed-ridden? We just do not like to think about those things. Besides, who has time in the whirlwind of preparing for the wedding to think about much of anything else?

I appreciate the business of wedding preparations. However, too few of our young people include a time of marriage counseling as a part of the preparation. I would urge the young couple to insist that their pastor take time to talk to them about marriage, what it means and how to help their marriage mature.

It will be the most valuable time they will spend in the wedding preparations. God's plan for marriage is very simple: total commitment . . . to the total person . . . for a total lifetime. In God's plan divorce is not an option. In any relationship the key word is expectation. We each enter into the relationship with a full set of them. She expects him home at a certain time each day and plans her day around that time. He expects to continue most of his bachelor life and she will be cool with that. Neither of them know the other has such an expectation. After all, when you are courting you are on your best behavior and little slights will be overlooked.