Casting Crowns Encourages Couple to be Broken Together

In a world where marriage has gone from being "till death do us part" to "until it gets tough," Casting Crowns and Focus on the Family have teamed up to encourage couples to stick it out. The new music video for "Broken Together" (from Thrive) shows a couple who vow to stick together through thick and thin - and then do it. Yes, there are hard times, fights, disappointments - but they work through them rather than throwing in the towel and heading to the nearest divorce lawyer.

The band offers the following real life advice for those who have already gotten married or are planning to:

"Marriage is tough. We bring a lot of fairytales to the picture when it comes to marriage. We bring them to the altar with us [thinking]: 'This is going to be perfect. We don't have to be apart. We can just wake up together every morning and no one is going to have morning breath. We're not going to have any problems.' And then the problems hit and you don't know where to file those into your picture. . . The idea I'm trying to say is: 'Can you lay down who you thought I was and love the 'me' that is? Can we take this from where we are now and realize that I can't be that person?' Only God is going to be able to make this work and broken people can be broken together."

As someone who has been married for 21 years, I can say with absolute certainty that this is some of the best advice you'll ever get. There is no "perfect relationship" any more than there is a "perfect person" out there. Marriage is hard work that takes daily effort, sacrifice and compromise (and that's before you ever have children). But it is beyond worth it when you can look back at those shared moments and memories and know that the person you're waking up to in the mornings will be there to make more till death do you part.