From my heart to yours:
Dear Family and Friends,
This is a chapter about love.
There are all kinds of definitions of love that after you receive it, still leave you empty. But there’s the God kind of love that builds you up and fills the broken places of your heart.
I’ve seen what love looks like in the Bible when it says in Romans 5:6-8. (NLT) ‘When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. 7) Now, no one is likely to die for a good person though someone might be willing to die for a person who is especially good. 8) But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners”.
I’ve seen what love looks like in my family. Some people called her Lois, we called her Mom or Grandma.
I believe each of our family felt acceptance from my mother. Somehow when we were with her, or even still think of her, we all feel unconditional love. We knew there was nothing we could ever do that would make her stop loving us. Her love was given to us even though we were confused or crazy, successful at our jobs or fired, happy or over-burdened. She made us feel believed-in, and she just knew that we would “turn out OK.” I don’t know how she did it, but she made everyone who knew her feel like they were her special favorite. If you want to start a fight at a family reunion, just try convincing another family member that they were not my mom’s favorite.
The last day I saw her, Parkinson’s and age had stripped her of her strength. She had become a shriveled up little person who struggled to talk. Her thoughts were often unclear, and life had become difficult. But in her presence, I still felt loved. What a gift. That night she went to heaven, but there has never been a day since that I don’t think of her and feel closer to God because of her.
She helped me see that when you love and are loved, you will want to keep the rules. I didn’t want to disappoint her! When you love and are loved, you want to spend time with each other. When you love and are loved you never want to say good bye.
As you read this chapter on parenting, I hope you see our Heavenly Parent in me.
WHEN LOVE FOR YOUR MATE DIES
What happened to “Happily Ever After”? Are you having a hard time loving your husband or your wife? Marriages are intended to be the TOTAL COMMITMENT of the TOTAL PERSONS for the TOTAL LIFE. But if that’s what it’s supposed to be, what happens when love dies?
Two people are drawn together by passionate romance. Their relationship deepens as they share common long-term dreams. There are times, though, when the passion diminishes, the dreams move in and out of focus, and all that holds them together is their commitment to a sacred vow…”until death do us part.”
One day a woman came into my office and said, “I don’t love my husband any more. I’m going to get a divorce.” I miserably thought to myself, “Good. Your kind of love isn’t worth giving or getting.” The problem was, as I listened to her story, I could see myself. I too had a hollow heart. I knew I couldn’t give a love to my wife that I simply didn’t possess. The love was gone.
How do we, who are created in the image of God, lack the love that it takes to make relationships last? Are we just wounded children who become wounded adults and then go on to create wounded marriages in wounded homes where we raise more wounded children?
How about you?
Maybe you and your spouse are living in the same house, sleeping in the same bed, eating at the same table, sharing the same children, yet, you are each very much alone. Have you longed to be loved all your life? As a child, did you seek love from your parents, only to discover they couldn’t give you what they didn’t have? Did you seek love from friends, only to find they couldn’t understand your desperate need and left? Did you look for love in sex, but only find frustration? Did you search for love in the Bible, but only find truths that made you more miserable? Have you looked for love in the church, but only found other desperate people—all hoping “the right church,” the “right doctrine,” the “right kind of worship” or the “right kind of preacher” could help soothe the ache in their hearts? Did you search for love in marriage—thinking “at last” you’d found it—but now you find you’re still empty?
YOU CAN’T GIVE AWAY WHAT YOU DON’T HAVE.
OTHERS CAN’T GIVE YOU WHAT THEY DON’T ALREADY HAVE.
I could give you a lot of supposition, but, for whatever reason, since my earliest childhood I have been driven to find someone who’d love me. I tested everyone I met with my expectations, but they either couldn’t or wouldn’t meet my needs—so I drove them away. I could have written the song, “Looking for love in all the wrong places, looking for love in too many faces!”
Then I met Bobbi. She had “bedroom” eyes (At least, every time I looked in her eyes, I thought of the bedroom). But when I looked into her heart I saw her love for the Lord and her desire to serve Him, just like I did. She was so different than anyone I’d ever met; she was the one person I couldn’t drive away.
I married her thinking I’d found the love I desperately longed for, but for the next seven years I lived in want, frustration, and doubt. My longing was not for sex, but for an elusive goal I could not clearly define. As I look back, there were only two things wrong with us, but because those two things were wrong, nothing much was right.
What do we really want?
Have you ever wanted something, but you didn’t know what it was? Have you ever wanted something, got it, but discovered it wasn’t what you wanted after all? I guess that’s what happened to me. I knew I wanted to share real and lasting love, but I couldn’t, because I didn’t have it to give away. I didn’t even know what it really looked like; I guess I thought one day I’d just find it.
A LOVE THAT LASTS
I remember hearing one man say, “If I had shared Jesus with my first wife like I’m sharing Him with my third wife…there wouldn’t have been a second wife.” It’s a cute saying, with a whole lot of truth packed into it. So, what did he mean? What was he really sharing with his present wife? Jesus, the real love that glues two broken people together!
Now Bobbi and I were both devoted Christians. We had Jesus, but there were two obstacles in our way. First, I was married to a Christian who trusted God, but she was married to a man who believed in Jesus, and wanted to serve Him, but didn’t know or trust Him. My relationship with Him was based upon truth and a mission, not upon love and a relationship. Second, even after both of us knew and trusted the Lord, we didn’t share our love for Christ. We were trying to raise a family and serve in the church. We were intimate physically and emotionally, but not spiritually. We did not share Jesus.
After nine years of struggling, we finally went to the Lord, first as individuals, and allowed Him to begin to heal our hearts. As we grew closer to Him, we grew closer to each other. It was after that time that I began to understand, and I wrote to Bobbi:
MY FAVORITE PLACE
To My Bobbi It was a place where performance mattered, A place where passion burned. Or a place of anger and silence As backs were often turned. A Lonely place without touching A place of pain and tears; A place with expectations unmet Through nights that seemed like years. But when our human love had vanished, God gave us real love instead And now my favorite place in living Is with you in our bed. Our bed is like an island In a sea of troubled pain; It’s a port in a storm of trials Or a shelter from the rain. It’s a place of loving and sharing, Of joy in the middle of tears. A place where I’m still welcomed In spite of all my fears. A place where sex is a blessing, Where I give and you give to me. A place where just holding and touching Is my favorite place to be. A place that becomes like an altar Where our deepest prayers are said, A place where memories are kept alive With you, in our bed. A place where I can really be me No false smiles or pretend A place where I share all my feelings With you, my cherished, dearest friend. I love you. Bill 11/14/95
What changed?
God began to work in my wife and she found the source of real love. She allowed God to give her real love and then she brought some to me. Bobbi loved me, even when I didn’t know what love was or how to love her in return. She trusted God in her loneliness, and He allowed her to survive all those years, living with a broken unloving husband. Bobbi became my best friend and then became, next to Jesus, the love of my life. What happened?
I’d been preaching about God’s love to everyone else, but I finally began to understand what God had been trying to tell me all along. I had been looking for real love for twenty-nine years—seven of which I was married! I was in a frustrating marriage, in a frustrating home, with three frustrating little children…and I finally got it! I had been telling others of God’s love and grace, but I hadn’t been accepting it for myself.
God is love. He is the source of real love and He loves even me! He loves me just as I am, just where I am—He loves me! I finally understood that if I’d been the only sinner on earth, He would still have loved me and sent me Jesus to be my Savior! Jesus still would have gone to the cross and a grave for me! And He promised to do a good work in me. Think of it…God wasn’t finished with me. There was hope! God would place His Holy Spirit into my life and He would produce a royal kind of love that I could give away! I could now begin to give real love because God had given it to me!
It’s amazing how that little glimmer of hope helped me. Next I thought, “If God isn’t finished with me, maybe He isn’t finished with Bobbi!” I decided there was hope yet for my marriage. I looked at the children and thought “Maybe He isn’t finished with the kids yet either! Maybe there is hope and help for our broken home!” And I was right.
LOVE RESTORED
As that year progressed, I felt God’s love move through me. I was able to give real love! He helped me see my family through His eyes and to have true love for them. He was real love and we shared Him with each other!
I remember the morning true love came to our bed.
I woke up, rolled over, and looked at Bobbi to discover that after seven years of frustration and two years of receiving God’s love to give to her, I had fallen in love with my wife! We still had all the open wounds and scars my lack of love had produced. We still had the dysfunctional home and the tremendous debt. We still didn’t know how to be healthy people, marriage partners, or parents, but I had found what I had spent my life looking for, I had found real and lasting love.
Where are we now, 41 years later? (Now 52+ years) We are still learning, still growing in the right direction, but we have by no means “arrived.” Sometimes changes in health, medication, and the number of our birthdays have affected our passionate romance. Sometimes our shared dreams move in and out of focus. Sometimes it’s our commitment to be faithful “until death do us part” that causes us to hold on, but then, after a few tough days together, we remember the source of the love that’s been our glue for 41 years isn’t in our own efforts. It’s in Christ. It’s given to us and through us from the Lord. Then that romance is rekindled, the dreams move into focus and the intimacy of sharing all we are, body, mind, will, and emotions is held together like glue through God’s love to us. Bobbi has become my best friend, my partner, the one who shares true intimacy with me. It’s not “me”; it’s not “her.” It’s “us”—a relationship of three, as the Lord holds us together (Ecclestices 4:9).
As we grow old together, and we’re not “old” yet, I know that God will continue His work in us—as individuals and as a couple! I believe our best years are those to come because it only gets better as we grow closer to the Lord. Still I wonder, will we become just good friends who live in the same house and sleep in the same bed? Will we continue to fall in love with each other over and over again?
What will our old age bring? If we are at some point placed in a nursing home I hope you accidentally “catch” us lying in the same bed, arms around each other remembering the passion of our youth, smiling, and reliving the dreams that we have shared together. I hope you see two people who have found a quality of intimacy where their hearts beat as one and who continue to grow together in their love for the Lord, joyfully clinging to their commitment to God and each other.
God is love, real love. He is the glue! I have come to the place where I now trust and know that “THERE IS ONE THING RIGHT WITH ME, AND BECAUSE OF THAT ONE THING, ALL THE THINGS THAT ARE BROKEN IN ME CAN BE HEALED! Philippians 4:13 says it this way, “I can do all things through Christ!”
CONSIDER THIS PROJECT TO GET YOUR MARRIAGE BACK IN FOCUS:
It is intended to help you see beyond the present problems and to help you remember the early days of your marriage.
PROJECT ONE:
Read the above statements in I Corinthians 13 out loud. Working together, paraphrase them into your own words. Listen to each other. Make sure that both of you agree on these statements about marriage. Make this commitment together.
PROJECT TWO:
Interview five couples of your own choosing. Tell them, “We are doing a project to strengthen our marriage. Can we ask you two questions about your marriage?” If they agree, ask them: ”If you were able to start your marriage over again, what would you do the same? What would you do differently?” (It’s important to take notes and spend time together discussing their answers.)
PROJECT THREE:
Plan your next two dates: Flip a coin; whoever wins plans the first date. The other person plans the second date. The “date planner” must ask, “What would please my mate?” On these dates, plan to identify and discuss the LONG TERM dreams that brought you together. Before your date, each of you, individually, should spend time with God asking Him to be the help you establish the promises YOU are willing to make to God and to each other. And asking Him to be the power to keep the promises and the glue to keep you together.
NOTE: 52 years and counting
Bill