It happened over night. Literally.

I slipped out my back door this morning to tend my garden. I love this early morning interlude. There’s a new-born freshness and promise to the awakening day. Dew magically glistens on the grass and leaves, and I sense a subtle hint of coolness stirring in the breeze—in spite of the sun’s best efforts. Immediately, my heart is drawn to the majestic and artful Creator of it all…a very good way to begin any day, don’t you think?

And then I saw it.

My war-ravaged, battle-weary flower garden…surrendered in defeat. Chewed, gnawed, battered, broken, and mutilated in less than 12 hours—a new world’s record.

Yay, slugs…

Could anything be more revolting, vile and disgusting? I feverishly yanked twenty-three of those bloated, slimy globs from their victory celebration inside my flowerpots and my flowerbeds. I crushed them mercilessly on my driveway stones.

I really hate slugs.

Rustling in my garage, I found last year’s slug and snail poison pellets and generously scattered them angrily around the roots of all my pitiful survivors. Too little, too late.

I felt sick. I felt sad. And are you ready for a pretty wild twist? Sorry, this is the weird way my mind operates.

I thought of marriage. I’m feeling pretty sick and sad about marriages right now too. So many look (and probably feel) a little too much like my decimated garden. Chewed, gnawed, battered, broken, and mutilated. What in the world is going on?

Do you see the metaphor too?

Marriage is a garden. Two starry-eyed and hope-filled romantics promise to dutifully design its contours and character, prepare and till the soil, sow the seeds, and tend the plantings. Gardeners. Together they sacrifice and labor with the goal of creating something bountiful, flourishing and beautiful. Their love and naiveté fuel their passion to make this garden more magnificent than any garden before it. They really mean it.

But a lovely garden takes hard work. Together.

And neither figures it requires so much sweat and so many tears.

Neither imagines that flowers can be so slow-growing. Neither realizes that flowers—fragile, vulnerable, and delicate—require such tender, constant, and informed care. Neither accounts for all of the watering, feeding, pruning, and weeding that a lovely and healthy garden needs. Nor do they anticipate the climate variables.

Effort. Protection. Expense. Time. Attention. Cooperation. Sacrifice. Every day. And it never ends. Haven’t you found this to be true?

Then there are weeds to contend with.

Among the most relentless and destructive weeds in the marriage garden are selfishness, immaturity, idolatry, poor communication, an unforgiving spirit, laziness, a controlling personality, and unrealistic expectations. The common strains of these weeds need to be immediately tugged out as soon as they are noticed. Nothing that has the potential to choke the plants or steal nutrients from the flower, hindering its growth to maturity, can be tolerated. Not even for a minute.

Yes, our stubborn flesh sows the seeds of these weeds. And they are watered and coddled by a very anti-Christian, hedonistic culture. Our desire to nurture and grow a beautiful garden of love is thwarted, disparaged, and attacked from without (the world) and within (our flesh). These weeds, if we are careful and diligent gardeners, are pretty obvious. Though work is required to get rid of them, there is a lot of information and help available out there.

But there is another not-so-obvious enemy to contend with. And no one gives much thought to him.

The slug. He is the secret and sinister destroyer. He’s done dirty work in a garden before.

Unseen, in the cover of darkness, he slips unnoticed into the flower pot, entwining his oily body around the stalks and winding his way into the roots, nipping and gnawing to feed his insatiable appetites. He is ruthless. He takes all that our flesh and the world throw at us and twists it and distorts it to confuse us, deceive us, and divide us. Mutilation.

And the unwitting gardeners, some focused on watering and weeding, some neglectful and lazy, are totally unaware that the wily slug is hiding in the shadows and soon will be wreaking havoc in the garden.

Sometimes, even when we may be busy doing good things, right things, we still we are not seeing the growth and beauty in our marriages that we expect to see. We have gotten counseling, taken the marriage courses, attended the seminars, and read the books. We even have a monthly date night. We have nurtured the garden and it doesn’t flourish. So we become hurt or disillusioned. We want to give up the hope of that beautiful marriage we had once dreamed about. We blame each other for the failure. Could it be that there is something else going on?

Let the words of Ephesians 6:12 sink in.

“Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realm.”

I think we often forget the slug. Satan.

He is the enemy…not our spouses.

He is out to kill our hope, steal our joy, and destroy our marriages.

Sure, we all can be jerks to one another. There are times when a husband may get lazy about his leadership or a wife may not respect her man as she should. Maybe they both are overcommitted and neglectful of their “garden.” Weeds may be taking over. No matter. Though these issues need to be resolved, we all need to remember that the real bad guy is Satan.

When we identify the enemy, when we recognize the unseen forces at work, we can pray that God would put a hedge of protection around our marriages. We can ask Him to dress us with spiritual armor, like the shield of faith and the helmet of salvation, so we can stand our ground against any attack that comes at us. We can fill our homes with songs and hymns of praise. I’m deeply persuaded that the worship of King Jesus drives the enemy away screaming in protest. I love to remind myself out loud that Satan is a defeated foe and the Victor is my Father. No one but the King is welcome in my home and in my marriage. I hold on to the truth that greater is He, my glorious Savior, Who is in me than he that is skulking about the world (and around LFA) seeking to devour and devastate. We must not let him! Be alert!

So to summarize, recognize that your marriage garden requires hard work and that it is worth every drop of sweat you expend. Marriage was God’s idea. Be loving, grateful, attentive and careful gardeners, patiently nurturing the growing beauty of your marriage. Pull the weeds as soon as you see them. Guard against your flesh and the influences of the world.

And watch out for the slug.

No more overnight, record-breaking victories for him. Are you with me?

--Eileen Hill