The Love of a Husband (Wife) Deserves Gratitude and Respect – A re-blog aimed at Husbands.

I’m sharing this The Love of a Husband Deserves Gratitude and Respect but I’m sharing it for all the husbands out there. If you’re blessed to have a wonderful wife (and all wives are wonderful if we view them from God’s perspective, and love them as God loves us) then take a moment today to let them know. Don’t ever let a day go by without kissing your wife, and letting her know how much you love her.

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Letter of Love

This post Letter of Love is beautifully written. Take a moment to read this and let it touch you.

Please don’t pass this one by…

Please don’t pass this one by.  Give this The Coalition of African American Pastors, USA a look because what they’re saying is very important and the stance they are taking is a courageous one.  They need our prayerful and public support.  Thank You.

A Thought on Honoring Our Commitments

     Do you honor your commitments?  I know.  Right off the bat you’re thinking, “What?  You had to start off with that right from the get go?”  If you haven’t already left me for some site that makes you feel more comfortable give yourself a solid ten points.  The last thing most people want to be reminded of is a failure to keep their commitments, so the fact that you’re still here shows at the very least that you care about the subject.  Caring about whether you keep a commitment is a good place to start.  As far as I’m concerned that puts you on another level automatically because finding people and businesses that actually honor their commitments is growing harder all the time.  Honoring your commitments is akin to keeping your word, doing what you say, being responsible for your actions, all that stuff that doesn’t seem to mean a whole lot to anyone anymore.  If we get it done, great, and if not, “Well, oh well” seems to be the refrain, and we leave it behind scarcely without a thought as to it’s impact on others and ourselves.

     Failure to honor commitments seems like it’s a national pastime with our federal government, and elected officials all leading the way, and what seems to be good enough for them, seems to be just as good for the people they represent.  Doesn’t seem like much changes over time, and through the course of history, to me.  The same things going on today were going on back in the time of the prophet “Malachi.”  Just as much of the leadership and people of today aren’t overly keen about honoring their commitments, so the Priests and people of Malachi’s day weren’t much better.  If you’ll look at the second chapter of Malachi, you’ll see many similarities between the so called priests, preachers, and teachers of that day, and the ones that are leading a lot of our churches and religious institutions today.  Matter of fact, in many of our churches you would be hard pressed to see any difference at all between the two.

     I realize this is a pretty stern statement, and more than likely some of you reading this are going to be offended, but as an old saying goes, “if the shoe fits.”  Well, you get the idea.  Malachi 2:2 says, “If ye will not hear; and if ye will not lay it to heart, to give glory unto my name, saith the Lord of Hosts, I will even send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings: yea, I have cursed them already, because ye do not lay it to heart.”

     They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but it seems to me that these 53 God inspired and prophetically written words draw a pretty good picture, too.  I’ve always been amazed that of all the many different views we have of God, so few of God’s children ever view Him as a God of Discipline.  The nation of Israel didn’t have any trouble viewing God as such.  They had seen it first hand, and more than once.  Just as an experiment, do a word study on “curses” in the Bible.  You already have an inkling of what you’ll find if you’ve read the above paragraph carefully. 

     It doesn’t seem like much of a stretch to me to say that our country-the good, old US of A-is in pretty much the same condition as the priests and people of Malachi’s day were in, and for pretty much the same reason.  Our spiritual leaders are doing the same kind of things as the priests of those days were.  Malachi 2:5: says “My covenant was with him of life and peace; and I gave them to him for the fear wherewith he feared me, and was afraid before my name.”   The priests of that by gone era had broken God’s covenant of peace that He had made with the tribe of Levi.  That covenant of peace extends to every child of God through Jesus Christ, but just like the priests of Malachi’s day we’ve often broken it by failing to give God the reverence He deserves, and by failing to live by his commands.  When we do so we deprive ourselves of “life and peace.” 

     We as a society have fallen into the same quagmire as the people in those days.  They failed to honor their commitments, to God, to their office, and to the people, but their most abysmal failure was in their failure to honor the covenant of marriage.  Now, please understand, it’s not my intention to reopen old wounds, to make people relive the past, or to cause anyone pain by mentioning this, and I’m truly sorry if I have.  I understand the pain of divorce because I’ve been through it myself, and I’m very much aware of  and sympathize with those who have had to go through it, and please know that I’m not judging.  Those of us who have experienced divorce came to it from different angles, for different reasons, and it’s nobody’s right other than God’s to judge or condemn someone for it. 

     Having said that, our society has succumbed to the same covenant-breaking, God-hating practice that the people of Malachi’s day were guilty of.  In part, our spiritual leaders, are to blame for this in that they have failed to communicate God’s view of marriage to His people.  Let me be clear, as God’s Holy Word, is clear.  God intended marriage to be between one man and one woman for life.  God hates divorce.  To say anything else any other way would be a lie.  He hates it.  He hates the destruction it causes His people, their families, and worst of all the incalculable damage done to children.  He hates it because it’s a blight, a stain, upon His people who were intended to be a pure and holy people. 

     As Christians, we hold a God-honoring, responsibility, to uphold and to keep our covenant-making marriages intact.  This is a sacred thing and not to be taken lightly or to be treated trivially.  I cannot stress enough how important and how serious God views this covenant between a man and a woman.  Honoring this commitment is and should be your highest form of praise and worship to God, and is your most sincere witness as to His place in your life.

     We, as Christians, our duty bound to honor our commitments to: our spouses, our families, our business interests,  our brothers and sisters in Christ, and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.  We cannot hold anyone else responsible, no group, no individual person, no organization, for the condition our once-great country is in.  The failure is ours, but all is not lost.  We as God’s people, as the unified, loving body of Christ, are never more than a prayer away from His love and forgiveness and restoration.  Let us, as the Christians we’re called to be,  kneel and pray, and honor our commitments today.

When People Come Into Our Lives

     Do you think you meet people by accident?  That they become a part of your life because of chance or whim?  I guess it depends on whether you believe that you’re in control of your own life, or that God is.  When I look at my life, and the people who have come into it, I know, that they were put there for a reason.  I know it was by design.  Some people only stayed a little while; some have been with me my life long, but each of them taught me something about myself or about life, or about God.    When we belive, when we take the view, that God uses people as agents of change, to effect His will in the lives of others, then we can see clearly that every single one of us has a purpose, that we have value, and that God is an active God in our lives. 

    I encourage you to always try and look at people in this way.  By doing so, we can develop an appreciation and a respect for all people, and for the God who made us.

My Marriage

     There was a time when I used to wonder what it took to make a good marriage, and while I was wondering about that, I was also giving some thought as to whether I had what it took to be half of that twosome that’s required for it.  I hadn’t had much success with the first one, and the second was a disaster, so as you can imagine I had absolutely no confidence in any ability on my part to make another one work, much less last forever.   If you knew anything about my life  you’d understand why, but that’s another subject.

     By the time, I met Tracey, I’d had a number of years in which I’d been alone, and surprisingly living life with a modest degree of success, so when I met her I was feeling a little better about myself.  At least, I was holding down a job, meeting my responsibilities, and even had a few friends, so life by my standards was pretty good.  I was fragile though, keeping it together, but it wouldn’t have taken much to break me.  Still, I was lonely, and no matter how much I’d tried to kill it, that dream of wanting a wife and family still lurked around my heart like a ghost staying at home.

     I didn’t meet Tracey in the usual way, at least not usual for me.  I met her online in a christian chatroom.  She had an early picture of Barbara Mandrell as her avatar, and stupid me at the time didn’t even realize it.  She even said it wasn’t her in her tagline, and I still didn’t get it until later.  Much later.:)  Feel free to think whatever thought you want to about that.  I’ve probably thought the same thing about myself.  It’s kind of embarrassing to admit that I proved most women right in their opinions toward men and their intelligence, but there it is.  The only thing I can say in my defense is that I was so smitten with that picture of Barbara, and the very funny and sarcastic things this woman behind the picture was saying that I never thought of anything else.

     It turned out that meeting Tracey that way was about as perfect a way to meet the woman who would become my wife as could be.  For one thing she lived in North Carolina, and I lived in Oklahoma, so at least I couldn’t screw up our relationship in person.  When I think of all the hours we talked in that chatroom it blows my mind.  For at least 3 months (and probably much longer) I think all I did was work, sleep, eat, and live in that chatroom.  Finally, I had the perfect relationship.  I could share my life with a great woman, and for once I wouldn’t be close enough to her to mess it up.

     I don’t know how long we went on like that (never could keep track of time), but she was all I thought about.  Such an amazing personality, fantastic wit, great looking (I was seeing Barbara 🙂 and just so wonderful to me that I couldn’t stand not to see her, and spend as much time with her as possible.  That ghost lurking around in my heart was clanging so loud in there all I could seem to hear were bells.  We were talking one night as we usually did laughing and cutting up, and I was just typing away.  Suddenly, it was on the screen; I can’t give you any of the details because (honestly) I can’t remember, and 12 years later I’m still trying to figure out how it happened, but the words, “Will You Marry Me?” were on the screen, and so was the answer!  Talk about shock and awe, part of the shock for me was that I knew I meant it, but just couldn’t believe I’d done it.  Like a tornado ripping through an Oklahoma wheat field, I was suddenly back on the same kind of  path that had perviously ripped through my life before and left everything around me flat.  To put it bluntly, I was scared out of my mind.

     While my fingers were hovering over the keyboard, she’d already put together a plan to come out to Oklahoma, and she’d be there the following Monday (I think it was Monday).  I have to tell you I had about a thousand things go through my mind as I sat in front of the computer seeing all her excitement spill out across the screen.  I’d like to say that the thought of telling her not to come didn’t cross my mind, but I’d be lying.  Still, as I sat there, fingers hovering over the keys,  my mind flooded with thoughts of past failures, and all the harm I’d caused in past relationships; I just couldn’t tell her not to come.  Ever wondered what the best decision is that you’ve ever made?  I can put my finger right on it.  You’ll have to read the next one to find out more.:)