(If you would like to hear Lori read this story click)here

 

Have you ever noticed who shows up for those Breast Cancer Walks for the Cure? Usually it is not the cancer patients themselves. They are too zapped of energy. It is their daughters, sisters, husbands and friends. They are driven by an urgency bubbling out of the frustration of not being able to rescue their loved one from disease. The thwarted compassion is blocked by the relentless cancer, so it finds a new direction. 

 

"If I can't save my mother I will try to save someone else's."

 

So they show up. In droves. Wearing pink tee shirts and athletic shoes, they walk, jog and run, carried along by the collective wave of hope. I have a friend who walked sixty miles. That is a lot of steps. 

 

I have not read any studies but I wonder who shows up to be marriage mentors. Perhaps it is people who have been racked by the pain of a divorce... their child, sister, best friend. They cannot find the rewind button to go back and fortify the falling marriage before erosion set in. By the time they were alarmed it was careening out of control.

 

What if you believed you could save a marriage in twenty four hours? Guaranteed. People would probably go through near torture if the prize was that sweet. Heck, twenty four hours is less time than it takes for milk to sour. 

 

Being a marriage mentor is a commitment of twenty four hours spread out over two years. You may not be able to salvage the covenant whose star struck beginnings are still smiling from the albums you cannot bear to throw away. But you can help keep another couple from crashing.

 

I will even give you a tee shirt.