Being married is a state that many find themselves in. Others want to attain it. Still others definitely eschew living as two.

Whatever your category, spiritual understanding will improve it. The most important thing you can do about marriage is to pray about it— preferably before, and certainly afterward as well.

You may find you have to overcome an initial reluctance to praying about marriage. Some who would naturally turn to God for many other reasons might not think of relying on God for spiritual direction in regard to the question of getting married. And some who are already married may be tempted simply to keep on describing the problems they have encountered in marriage instead of actively praying to see them healed.

Perhaps some of us feel since marriages are not "made in heaven," we can't wholeheartedly seek God's help on the subject. It is true Christ Jesus said, "In the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage." ^{Matt. 22:30.} But it is also true that marriage is the only moral provision for living as husband and wife. And it is just as essential to pray about marriage, which is admittedly a human institution, as it is about the human body. Both are improved through spiritual inspiration and understanding.

Spiritual direction, for example, helps with the basic question of whom to marry. Looks that we find "fascinating," style and personality, the exhilaration of new experiences together, the magnetic pull of sensuality, are by no means a solid enough basis for building a lifelong relationship.

It wouldn't make sense to start a skyscraper with no foundation and with the first floor "just a little uneven." By the tenth floor you would know for sure you didn't want to live there! But a real willingness to hear God's guidance brings direction and discernment that builds solidly from the beginning.

The Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, includes a full chapter titled "Marriage." This chapter indicates something of the importance the author attached to the subject. Mrs. Eddy warns realistically of the need to be clear about compatibility beforehand. And she points out that it is a pure attraction to each other's good qualities which will last and serve to keep on renewing love.

One of the reasons we may be reluctant to pray about getting married is that we're not so sure we want to hear God's answer. We may feel we are just too much in love to submit the question of tangible human love to God, who may seem intangible by comparison. But after all, God is not intangible. The reason we so love good is that God is the source of good. It is He who gives goodness the quality that moves us, attracts us, inspires us. And He is the only and actual reason we can expect to know and experience good.

Christian Science explains that God, Soul, rather than people or the events of our life, is the true source of happiness. Science and Health makes this basic point: "Soul has infinite resources with which to bless mankind, and happiness would be more readily attained and would be more secure in our keeping, if sought in Soul." ^{Science and Health, p. 60.}

From divine Spirit, Soul, flows out a sense of fulfillment, of love and spiritual joy, that is unmatched. We learn that this can light up even apparently bleak circumstances. Soul, not favorable circumstances, is what we most need—and also what we always have.

Whether we are married or unmarried, we eventually discover that no human person is the source of happiness for us. Happiness is found within ourselves, that is, within the spiritual consciousness of ourselves and others as God's expression. This doesn't lessen the human capacity to love and be loved but increases and deepens it.

Even after marriage some people may still feel they lack the complete affection they had hoped for. They may be tempted to look outside the marital relationship to find something that, in fact, only God can give. The fact is that God imparts to man the profound sense of completeness and acceptance and love we yearn for—but we do have to be prepared to look to Him for it. And we surely have to be faithful to His commandments in order to receive it.

Perhaps one of the most fundamental steps toward a good marriage is the growing spiritual comprehension that there is but one Soul, or Spirit, or God—expressing itself in man. At first glance, we may wonder if this is really an appropriate starting point for working out a loving relationship between two human beings. But the truth is that none of us are lonely, incomplete individual souls encased in the flesh, having to reach out to other souls for love. There is one infinite Soul, which is God, and man is the expression of Soul. Therefore Soul—our Soul—is never isolated, nor is it in conflict, nor is it ever truly dependent on human beings for fulfillment. Our unbreakable relationship is to God. This is established in the nature of creation.

The Biblical prophet Jeremiah gives us a glimpse of God's great love for us when he speaks of God as saying, "I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee." ^{Jer. 31:3.} Even a slight grasp of the nature of this infinite Love, existing throughout creation and surrounding and supporting us, satisfies as nothing else can. Understanding this, we are satisfied. We know we are loved, and we love. In the light of Love and Soul, human affection and unselfishness naturally multiply. And on this basis we'll find more happiness, whether getting married, staying single, or already married.

ALLISON W. PHINNEY, JR