There is the pain and the miracle of growth. And there are decisions about a day's work and just wages. Yet Jesus tells us that it is in the midst of just such ordinary human events that we find God. A married couple must believe that God is serious about this life if they are to live out the sacramentality of their life together. Christian couples experience God's love in their love, God's call in the challenge of their life together, and God's creativity in the gift of their children.
Sacraments give the grace they signify.
As sacrament to one another, husband and wife become revelation and grace for each other. Each is an important, perhaps the most important, channel of grace for the other, for grace includes God's graciousness to human beings and the transforming effect which that graciousness has upon us when we are open to it. The graciousness of God touches married lives both as comfort and as challenge, and each of these aspects produces growth. When couples experience joy and recreation together, they know God's grace as comfort. Similarly, when close living challenges marriage partners to be less anxious about things or to change spending patterns, they are experiencing God's grace as challenge.