When I met my husband he was primarily married to his job. His boss warned me that he worked 80 hours a week and he pretty much continued like that the 15 years we were married and the 13 years with his previous wife. My dad was the same way and so was his dad (work alcoholics). Everyone I have met on the planet is married. I have friends married to their grandchildren. Some people are married to pleasure or being a socialite. Some people are married to God’s ministry. I have met people married to fishing (go every weekend), married to sports, married to restoring cars, married to traveling, or married to money, etc.
I was married to my four children and going to college part-time when I met him, but I had this sense that it was not enough in my life. I was running my kids all around to the Children’s Museum and the Zoo, but there was still an emptiness in my life. Same with my husband, he had an emptiness in his life also after a divorce. I decided to try an ad in a single’s magazine and advertise for a Christian single father who would enjoy going out with my children and I. I attended several single secular and Christian socials, but I did not meet a companion that way. I screened very carefully 26 men to make sure that sex was not going to what they wanted up front and I was able to wean out 3 or 4 Christian men that wanted to meet me just for me.
My definition of marriage is anything or anyone who captures your heart. Who or what your heart “delights” in.
In Pirates of the Caribbean movie Davey Jones had his heart in a treasure box because of a woman.
You have captured my heart, my treasure, my bride. You hold it hostage with one glance of your eyes, with a single jewel of your necklace. Song of Solomon 4:9
When you are dating the right person for you, there comes a point in dating, you will not want to let that person go. Every happily married widow and widower I talk to does not want to let their spouse go who died. We are forced against our will from death to let him go. I was forced after a divorce to move on with my life and then again by a widower who lost his wife I dated before I met my husband, who remarried later after we quit dating.
It’s not forcing or begging a person to marry you. When I went to get a job, I did not beg my employer to hire me. I showed them a colorful portfolio of my work, I gave them references, and they decided that I was the best person for the job. I was not doing a favor coming to work, because I worked to get a pay check. We don’t always see the results of our efforts in marriage and raising a family, because we cannot assign certain values in life to efforts in the home.
A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies. Proverbs 31:10
Rose on the movie, Titanic, “Jack, I will never let you go.” She kept the memory of Jack intact in her heart. I like the quote on the movie Pretty Woman where Vivian says, “I will treat you so good that you will not want to let me go.” Then Edward said, “I will pay you and I will let you go”—but then when it came to going their separate ways, he did not want to let her go.
Ruth spoke to Naomi that she would follow her and not depart from her and that was a commitment like the marriage commitment.
But Ruth replied, "Don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Ruth 1:16
If a person can so “easily let you go,” I heard they never belonged to you in the first place. It’s like you never can get enough of them. Like Lay’s potato chips, you can’t just have one chip. My husband was my salt in life and I wanted more of him. As Christians, we are not to lose our salt in life.
"Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with each other." Mark 9:50
When you enjoy a person’s company so much, you don’t want to let them go. Jesus talked about “cleaving to your wife.” It’s not a repellant like insect or bear repellant where a person repels you (pushes away) in a relationship after you start dating or in marriage. (And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they two shall be one flesh? Matthew 19:5/Genesis 2:24).
Some after a divorce or death will make the decision they will remain single. It is a decision. I’ve spoken to widows who had the opportunity to move on, but determined it was not fair to the next person after being married 50 years, because of comparisons. The way I look at it is you just find the best person that you are compatible with. Top on my list is enjoying a person’s company. I meet a lot of people that spiritualize a lot in life, but marriage is a very fleshy decision. If your kids are hungry and tired, they will start acting up and marriage is primarily meeting physical needs in life. It’s not all about the physical, there is the spiritual and emotional needs of a person. I built up my husband’s ego on a daily basis and we regularly prayed about our decisions together.
Paul said it was up to the widow (or divorced woman) and who she wanted to choose to marry. In the final long run, it is a woman’s choice in our society if she will remain single or marry. Our American society is not the father’s choice. I dated this one man who said that his mother would not like it that I was divorced before I was widowed. Who cares what your mommy thinks at 48 years old? Apparently he did. I noticed his three other brothers were divorced too. I left my parent’s home at the age of 19 to join a missionary group, and considering what they thought I should do. I believe we should “honor our father and mother” to a point, and my husband was the only man in my life ever who had my own father’s approval, because he was Caucasian, Republican, and had a college degree, but those factors are not #1 on my list of attributes for a marriage partner.
A woman is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to marry anyone she wishes, but he must belong to the Lord. 1 Cor. 1:9
Just like buying a house or car or any decision I make in life, I do like to have divine guidance as far as input from the Lord on who I marry. Part of my problem in the past was I did not use the “discerning of spirits” in choosing a partner. It’s being around a person in those tense moments to see how they react in an emergency situation and if they take out their problems on others. I like what my one daughter said when she broke up with her college sweetheart. He was like a son-in-law to me and she said, “Mom why don’t you marry him?” The Holy Spirit is within me so God has to like living with this person too!
Relationships take a lot of work and they don’t always come that easy ---like fruit just ripe falling off a vine. Some relationships are easier than others and some just flow very well. They tend to flow better if you keep your tongue saying kind words and do not criticize and belittle each other.
If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other. Galatians 5:15
Divorce was never God’s attention. Divorce is the failure of the human heart to act on God’s divine love. Divorce was permitted because of the hardness of man’s heart. Jesus replied, "Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. Matthew 19:8
One insight I would suggest that many times two people come together and have children and genetically those children are only going to be a certain way because only those two people can make that child. Now this does not necessarily mean that there is a certain purpose or calling on your own children, it can be a calling even down to the grandchildren or great grandchildren. So unless these two people came together these children would have never been formed.
Has not [the Lord] made them one? In flesh and spirit they are his. And why one? Because he was seeking godly offspring. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith with the wife of your youth. Malachi 2:15
I don’t believe that any person has 100% of what we want. Some people need to let Jesus heal their hearts first whether it is from rejection, fear of failure or whatever is holding them back from being happy with another person.
There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. 1 John 4:18
I sought the Lord, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears. Psalm 34:4
I really like this song I have posted below about the Lord, because it talks about what value of knowing the Lord and the worth of who he is. It talks about us being the “bride of Christ”
Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37:4
“The Bible compares the relationship of Jesus and His church to that of a Bride and Groom. We, the church of Jesus Christ are the Bride, and Jesus is the Bridegroom. John the Baptist in explaining that he was not the Christ said in John 3:29, “He who has the Bride is the Bridegroom.” The most incredible writing of this relationship to me is in the book of the Bible “The Song of Solomon”. In chapter one verse fifteen, the Bridegroom declares, “How beautiful you are, my darling, how beautiful you are!” In verse sixteen, the Bride declares, “How handsome you are, my beloved, and so pleasant!”Jesus desires a relationship with His church of both intimacy and passion. He has that for us and wants to develop that in us. In Philippians 3:8, the apostle Paul says, “More than that, I count all things to be a loss in the view of knowing Jesus Christ my Lord.” This is a passion and desire for intimacy.”
For your Maker is your husband--the Lord Almighty is his name--the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; he is called the God of all the earth. Isaiah 54:5
More Precious Than Silver:
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