I woke up this morning with a word on my brain.  Now I didn’t say a WORD, like from the Lord, a passage of scripture or an epiphany.  Just a word.  In this case, it was the word “erode”.  I thought to myself, “maybe a geologist would wake up thinking about erosion, but not me, normal American homemaker and mother of two.”  Weird.

So, then I sat down to have my quiet time, read my devotional and work on my bible studies (yes, I’m doing two this summer – this girl needs accountability, people).  For my devotional, I’m reading through Power of a Praying Wife.  Here is what I read:
I will not allow confusion, miscommunication, wrong attitudes, and bad choices erode what we are trying to build together.

Huh.  Maybe there was more to this erosion thing than I originally thought.  I consulted my dictionary.
e-rode (verb used with object)
1.  to eat into or away; destroy by slow consumption or disintegration: Battery acid had eroded the engine.  Inflation erodes the value of our money.

Wow.  Erosion has a LOT more to do with everyday life than just geology.  I was struck by how it effects our relationships in particular.  Case in point:  marriages.  
What are the things that we allow to erode our marriages?  My book mentioned miscommunication and wrong attitudes/choices; these are certainly right up there.  But, as I’ve thought about the almost 25 years of my marriage, and others with which I’ve become acquainted, there are other things.  What about busyness and workaholism?  Lack of common courtesy and simple respect?  Focus on the kids exclusively, and never the couple?  What about “real life” crowding into your sex life? Usurping authority?  Using God as a stepping stone to reach up and grab the control?  I could go on and on.
Satan has it in for our marriages.  If he can take down a good marriage, it’s like getting a strike at the bowling alley.  The king pin goes down and takes all the others down with it.  I think “erosion” in this context is one of his favorite tools, because, like the definition says, “it destroys by slow consumption”.  In other words, it happens slowly and silently until, like a termite-infested house, it falls to the ground leaving everyone who was living in it standing in horrified shock.
Erosion happens in this broken world, but we don’t have to sit silently and turn a blind eye. We can pay attention to what God says about marriage and follow the blueprints He’s given us. We can work with Him, together with our spouses, to build up what He has sanctioned for our benefit, instead of helping tear down what the silent killer seeks to destroy.
You know, maybe this was a WORD from the Lord.  Perhaps it was (literally, in my case) a wake-up call.
The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy.  I have come that they may have life and that they may have it more abundantly.  John 10:10