Marriage mess

You can't get married like Peter and then expect to live like Paul.

If you consider home responsibilities an interference with your work for Christ, then please don't get married. Our Lord grants the privilege of having a wife with you in the work of preaching the gospel. As you know, privilege and responsibility are twins.

If you want a short, unhappy stint on the mission field, then take a wife with you and neglect her. Through neglect, some missionaries force their wives to compete with Christ for their affection. This is wrong and cruel. A wife is not a burden, but a help-meet for you.

In marriage she becomes your body. Now what happens to your body? It gets sick doesn't it? Well, this is what happens to some missionary wives. Their husbands make them sick. The result is they make their husbands sick.

A sick marriage will not last under the pressures of missionary work, and while it does, it becomes a poor example, and a stumbling block to the work.

Joseph L. Cannon, For Missionaries Only