sheridc@pacbell.net
I love listening to the slow, southern drawl and old-fashioned expressions of my great Aunt Ruth. Our phone conversations span over 5000 miles. Aunt Ruth is in a nursing home now battling both Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, but her words are still powerful and her influence truly inspiring.
In every conversation I anticipate a dialogue about her loneliness for her dear departed husband. Even though she has a great deal of family, friends and company, her heart aches terribly for the loss her precious Vance. I try to sympathize with her the best I can, but we both know I can’t genuinely identify with her circumstances. So she tells me, "You just love that husband of yours!" I know that she is saying love him while you still have him. Don’t get caught up in petty differences or grudges. Forgive him. Delight in him.
The words written in a letter my mother left for me ring in unison with those of Aunt Ruth, "Be gentle with each other and love each other as much as you can." I know that my mother was saying love each other even when you don’t want to love each other. Put yourself aside and choose to love. Invite God into your marriage and tap into his power, and his boundless capacity to love.
In Titus 2:4 older women are encouraged to train the younger women to love their husbands. That makes sense when thinking of the days of arranged marriages, but is it relevant today? Absolutely! We arrange our own marriages based on romantic love, but we still need godly examples of how to continue to love. We need biblical counsel on how to love the way God wants us to love. 1 Corinthians 13:4 teaches us both how to love and how not to love. God tells us not to envy, boast, and be prideful, rude or self-seeking; not to be easily angered or keep record of wrongs--all the things that come so naturally. Instead God instructs us to be patient and kind, rejoicing in truth, protecting, trusting, hoping and persevering. For this kind of love we need God to be alive and active in us, we cannot love this way by our own power.
Having an active prayer life and consistent time in the Word is essential, but what an extra special blessing to be encouraged and mentored by the older woman of the body of Christ. Sometimes we need to be told to love that husband!
Copyright Sheri Del Core
