Happy New Year everyone! We are so excited for 2019 and the opportunity to get to share hundreds of more marriage stories with you about how couples have chosen to live out their vows everyday, no matter the circumstances that have come their way.
To start off the new year, we are sharing a very powerful story from Lara and Ari Isaacson. They have been married 12 years and have 3 kids. I listened to Lara’s podcast the other day called “She Believed She Couldn’t” where she shared her marriage story in detail, and I had tears in my eyes hearing all about the faithfulness and transforming love of God. I reached out to Lara to ask her permission to share her story on Everyday Vows and in true Lara fashion, she not only said yes, but she thanked Colby and I for the work we are doing with Everyday Vows and encouraged us. So thankful for her!
When Lara and Ari got married, they both came from two different faith backgrounds. She was Christian and he was Jewish. They will both tell you that the first 6 years of their marriage was extremely difficult. Ari was deployed for Iraq and while he was away, Lara felt like she could finally read her Bible without being worried if she was offending her husband. Throughout this time, she began to find true purpose and true worth and felt more like herself than she had in years. Ari came home from Iraq and Lara will tell you that this is when things got worse, not better. He was in school and she was in the midst of her work with Southern Weddings magazine, and they were just ships crossing in the night. Actually, they were butting heads all day and all night. Things just continued to get worse as they both threw themselves into their work. And that’s when Lara decided that she can’t keep chasing perfect anymore.
Lara started going to church. Alone. And she loved her time so much at this church and was desperate for hope and a change in her marriage, that she went to a marriage class…alone. She walked in, felt a little uncomfortable by being alone, but opened up and said, “Hi. My name is Lara. And my marriage is falling apart and I don’t know what to do.” And someone in the class looked at her and said: “the impossible is possible with God.”
And this started a journey of transformation. Ari began going to church with her (even when there was fighting involved on the way to church most days). He started to really dig in and do research on who Jesus was and who Jesus is and he committed his life to Jesus. He began to see how important marriage was to Jesus and he wanted to do whatever it took to strengthen their marriage and resuscitate their marriage.
And one of the first places he had to start, was confessing about an unfaithful time in their marriage. He said that you can’t have a marriage with a foundation of deception. Honesty and confession is very important! As he was confessing his unfaithfulness, Lara opened up about a time she was unfaithful as well during their extremely hard times earlier in their marriage.
With a foundation of truth and forgiveness, they began to rebuild a marriage stronger than new. They began doing the hard, but beautiful work of putting their marriage back together. Lara will tell you that the real key to a successful marriage, is dying to yourself. And acknowledging that you can’t do it alone. God has to be the center of your marriage.
We are so thankful for Lara and Ari and their marriage story. We pray this impacts you today as much as it did us!
