Love Songs and Christian Marriage

I usually avoid celebrity gossip. I’ve never been one to pick up a magazine at the Kroger checkout line or tune in to Entertainment Tonight. Celebrities are regular people just like you and me. Why would I have any special interest in the personal lives of people I’ve never met? In fact, if I’m completely honest, I loathe the escapism that drives the celebrity-gossip industry. We’re often looking for transcendence from our mundane lives, and we falsely believe that identifying with the rich and famous will somehow elevate our dull existence. But their lives aren’t any better than yours or mine. You won’t find what you’re looking for there. The transcendence you’re looking for goes infinitely beyond the flash of paparazzi cameras and the excess of Beverly Hills mansions.

Nonetheless, I’ve long maintained interest in at least one celebrity marriage—that of singer-songwriters Jason Isbell and Amanda Shires. For the past fifteen years, Isbell’s music has contributed significantly to the soundtrack of my life, and partly because so many of his songs derive from his relationship with Shires, I’ve rooted for their marriage to work out with more attention than I typically pay to celebrities.

My parents divorced in my early adolescent years, and I lived in a lot of different houses growing up. For the first half of my life, I never sensed a tie to any place I’d call “home.” Thus, I’ve always resonated deeply with Isbell’s line in “Cover Me Up” that “Home was a dream, one I’d never seen, ‘til you came along.” Isbell, too, was affected by divorce and lived in vagabond instability before meeting Shires. I had that line etched on a wood frame with a heart featuring a map of Dothan, Alabama—where I’m from—and Lexington, Kentucky—where my wife is from—and gave it to my wife one year for Christmas. That phrase about home still gets me.

His song “If We Were Vampires” has had a similar impact. It’s a beautiful song that reflects on the timebound nature of love: “It’s knowing that this can’t go on forever; Likely, one of us will have to spend some days alone; Maybe we’ll get 40 years together; But one day, I’ll be gone or one day, you’ll be gone.” In the Bible, noting our impermanence leads to wisdom. Isbell postulates that time running out is a gift, for it leads the lover to work hard until “the end of my shift.” We live under the illusion of invincibility, but love is best served when we face the brute reality of our impending end. The song’s message has helped me at times to get over stubborn resentments. Life’s too short to waste time not loving each other.

And then there’s that time, years ago, a drunk guy in the bathroom at an Isbell concert told me very matter-of-factly that Shires was going to end up breaking Isbell’s heart. He said it with such slurred bravado, and I’ve always wanted him to be proven wrong. Unfortunately, he wasn’t. I learned—a year after it went public—that Isbell filed for divorce from Shires in late 2023. I can only assume they both experienced heartbreak.

There were clues. HBO released “Running with Our Eyes Closed” in early 2023, a documentary that followed Isbell during the COVID lockdown-era recording of his 2020 album “Reunions.” As much as the documentary tracks the recording process, it’s really about their marriage. The tension between them is palpable as they struggle to communicate through marital conflict complicated by their musical collaboration in front of the cameras. In fact, at one point in the recording process, the relational strain led Shires to move to a hotel.

Every couple faces rough patches, even if few choose to work through them in front of documentary film crews. What really jarred me, however, was the way they both expressed uncertainty about their future together. There was always an “if” implied when they talked about their marriage. At one point in the documentary, Isbell, who got sober with the help of Shires, even speculated that he’d probably start drinking again if they ever divorced. They loved each other, and they both hoped it would work out. But it seemed to me from watching the film that they both had serious doubts about whether it would. Unrelenting commitment to their marriage didn’t seem to be in their purview.

News of their divorce has led me to dwell on the permanence of Christ’s love in a world of impermanence. Paul connected Christ’s unrelenting love to marital love when he wrote,  “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Eph 5:25). There is no “if” in Christ’s covenant. Nothing in all creation will be able to “separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:39). We are loved in Christ eternally.

This foundation in Christ’s love led Tim Keller to write, “When the Bible speaks of love, it measures it primarily not by how much you want to receive but by how much you are willing to give of yourself to someone.” Biblical marriage isn’t about fulfillment—that comes from Christ alone; it’s about covenant commitment. Keller wrote, “Wedding vows are not a declaration of present love but a mutually binding promise of future love.” If Christian marriage derives its power from Christ’s love for his people, then there’s no “if” when sinners saved by grace say “I do” to one another either.

I’ll keep listening to those beautiful Isbell-penned love songs. They’ve enriched my life in many ways. But I’ll keep looking to Christ for love’s permanence.

The post Love Songs and Christian Marriage appeared first on Remembrance of Former Days.