Had I ever known the meaning of love as Jesus translated it in Gethsemane and on the Cross? “Love is very patient and kind, never jealous or envious, never boastful or proud, never haughty or selfish or rude. Love does not demand its own way. It is not irritable or touchy. It does not hold grudges and will hardly even notice when others do wrong. It is never glad about injustice, but rejoices whenever truth wins out. If you love someone you will be loyal to him, no matter what the cost. You will always believe him, always expect the best of him, and always stand your ground in defending him” (1 Corinthians 13:4-7, TLB).

No! I hadn’t reached that pinnacle of spiritual success, and probably never will. And if I, as a professing Christian, had to admit that I failed every day and fell so short of the glory of God, what right did I have to blame my husband for any failures, alleged or real? And what right had I to leave him, considering the damage I had inflicted on us?

If, as already stated, one of the reasons for the rush to dissolve marriages is lack of appreciation, another is the diminution of the sense of responsibility towards others. The “me-first” blocks we use to build the precarious foundations of

Then why do we make it so difficult for ourselves? Years ago an article I read in a church periodical placed the primary responsibility for submission upon the wife, but the article also stressed the corresponding need for submission of the husband to his wife. Indeed, mutual submission is inseparable from Christian love, for it is only within Christian love that there is true submission. Otherwise, tyranny results. Only in love is there the freedom to say, “I will.” And the only way to keep that promise, that nuptial covenant, is mutual submission under God’s dominion. The true standard of Christ cancels out the double standard that exists in so many marriages. In a truly Christian marriage two egos succumb to the I AM. Where this is not the case, the two egos clash.

In my own marriage, as in so many marriages, the sweet icing of attraction and intensity turned sour for us once the heavy responsibilities overwhelmed the once carefree days and nights. In the heat of anger and frustration I began to doubt the wisdom of this much-touted institution of marriage. I became convinced it was an institution of the penal type, with no time off even for good behavior. My friends, who I unwisely let in on my problems and who were locked in the same woeful situation, readily agreed, of course. “Misery loves company,” goes the adage. One truth is certain: discontent breeds quicker than rabbits. We did not help each other!

Then one short-fused day something I heard on the radio helped me to accept the idea that staying in my marriage was God’s will: “You may think you have gone against God’s will when you married, but don’t ever consider it a mistake, because God can cut the cloth to fit the pattern.” I was so impressed with that image of God fitting us to His will. That day I prayed for faith to believe that in the human circumstances of misunderstandings, fatigue and all the other robbers in marriage (Satan is the robber baron), God would trim and shape our frayed cloths of pride and selfishness, our hurts and hates.

One’s imagination can make a valuable contribution to life. It can also be like a wild bacterial disease racing through the mind, growing rapidly and pushing out positive and constructive thoughts. In marriage, as in any close relationship, the faculty of imagination must be brought under spiritual control, just as all other members of our bodies must be given to His control. Satan, knowing how easy it is to take control of our minds, insinuates the idea that our spouse no longer loves us because he or she forgets to do something, or says something in the distress of fatigue or illness that hurts us. For some reason it’s all right for the neighbors to have an off day, even the in-laws, but the spouse is expected to be in top emotional and mental shape 24 hours a day, 366 days a year.

As I prayed and thought about our marriage, I found a major problem was my own overactive reactive imagination that reveled in rehashing past hurts that should have been long forgiven and forgotten. When I wrote the list of my husband’s good points and my own bad ones, I decided to regroup images into a more constructive pattern. I wanted to “see” - with a productive imagination - the good marriage we could still have. When the imagination started to conjure up the bad memories and experiences, I prayed to the Holy Spirit to remove the unholy spirit that is the source of our destructive thoughts.

I want to stress here that I realize there are unbearable situations in families in which separation is the only recourse that will bring peace and harmony. My stepfather finally divorced my mother after she got drunk and threatened him with a gun. I watched with horror as she put the gun to his chest. The shock triggered a massive heart attack. Somehow he survived, and when he was well enough he got a divorce - and me! I don’t believe God requires us to remain in impossible situations.

My concern here is with the marriage that shipwrecks on the rocks (pebbles, really) of those nits of misunderstanding and impressions that lead to depressions. But the battered hull is salvageable, and it can be repaired with God’s hammer and wood, and re-varnished with a coat of God’s love. I know to the despairing this may sound like something written by the angels who have no earthly experiences. It may seem impossible to start again and to love again. Certainly I thought so. Then after I read 1 Corinthians 7:12-14, I was ashamed to admit that I couldn’t be Christian enough to remain with a situation that I helped forge with my own hot tongue and temper. Scripture compelled me to step back and take an extensive and objective view of my spouse. I was forced to recognize and admit that he is a good, decent, dependable and hardworking man.

When I searched Scripture, the final arbiter of my actions, I couldn’t come up with an excuse to do what I wanted to do. The only message from the Bible that came through so clearly was the necessity of unconditional love and understanding on my part and, above all, forgiveness. I prayed to better understand my own motivations and lack of innovations to make the marriage work. I begged God to give me the strength and grace to be a true helpmeet for my husband.

Had I ever known the meaning of love as Jesus translated it in Gethsemane and on the Cross? “Love is very patient and kind, never jealous or envious, never boastful or proud, never haughty or selfish or rude. Love does not demand its own way. It is not irritable or touchy. It does not hold grudges and will hardly even notice when others do wrong. It is never glad about injustice, but rejoices whenever truth wins out. If you love someone you will be loyal to him, no matter what the cost. You will always believe him, always expect the best of him, and always stand your ground in defending him” (1 Corinthians 13:4-7, TLB).

No! I hadn’t reached that pinnacle of spiritual success, and probably never will. And if I, as a professing Christian, had to admit that I failed every day and fell so short of the glory of God, what right did I have to blame my husband for any failures, alleged or real? And what right had I to leave him, considering the damage I had inflicted on us?

If, as already stated, one of the reasons for the rush to dissolve marriages is lack of appreciation, another is the diminution of the sense of responsibility towards others. The “me-first” blocks we use to build the precarious foundations of

Then one short-fused day something I heard on the radio helped me to accept the idea that staying in my marriage was God’s will: “You may think you have gone against God’s will when you married, but don’t ever consider it a mistake, because God can cut the cloth to fit the pattern.” I was so impressed with that image of God fitting us to His will. That day I prayed for faith to believe that in the human circumstances of misunderstandings, fatigue and all the other robbers in marriage (Satan is the robber baron), God would trim and shape our frayed cloths of pride and selfishness, our hurts and hates.

One’s imagination can make a valuable contribution to life. It can also be like a wild bacterial disease racing through the mind, growing rapidly and pushing out positive and constructive thoughts. In marriage, as in any close relationship, the faculty of imagination must be brought under spiritual control, just as all other members of our bodies must be given to His control. Satan, knowing how easy it is to take control of our minds, insinuates the idea that our spouse no longer loves us because he or she forgets to do something, or says something in the distress of fatigue or illness that hurts us. For some reason it’s all right for the neighbors to have an off day, even the in-laws, but the spouse is expected to be in top emotional and mental shape 24 hours a day, 366 days a year.

As I prayed and thought about our marriage, I found a major problem was my own overactive reactive imagination that reveled in rehashing past hurts that should have been long forgiven and forgotten. When I wrote the list of my husband’s good points and my own bad ones, I decided to regroup images into a more constructive pattern. I wanted to “see” - with a productive imagination - the good marriage we could still have. When the imagination started to conjure up the bad memories and experiences, I prayed to the Holy Spirit to remove the unholy spirit that is the source of our destructive thoughts.

I want to stress here that I realize there are unbearable situations in families in which separation is the only recourse that will bring peace and harmony. My stepfather finally divorced my mother after she got drunk and threatened him with a gun. I watched with horror as she put the gun to his chest. The shock triggered a massive heart attack. Somehow he survived, and when he was well enough he got a divorce - and me! I don’t believe God requires us to remain in impossible situations.

My concern here is with the marriage that shipwrecks on the rocks (pebbles, really) of those nits of misunderstanding and impressions that lead to depressions. But the battered hull is salvageable, and it can be repaired with God’s hammer and wood, and re-varnished with a coat of God’s love. I know to the despairing this may sound like something written by the angels who have no earthly experiences. It may seem impossible to start again and to love again. Certainly I thought so. Then after I read 1 Corinthians 7:12-14, I was ashamed to admit that I couldn’t be Christian enough to remain with a situation that I helped forge with my own hot tongue and temper. Scripture compelled me to step back and take an extensive and objective view of my spouse. I was forced to recognize and admit that he is a good, decent, dependable and hardworking man.

When I searched Scripture, the final arbiter of my actions, I couldn’t come up with an excuse to do what I wanted to do. The only message from the Bible that came through so clearly was the necessity of unconditional love and understanding on my part and, above all, forgiveness. I prayed to better understand my own motivations and lack of innovations to make the marriage work. I begged God to give me the strength and grace to be a true helpmeet for my husband.

Had I ever known the meaning of love as Jesus translated it in Gethsemane and on the Cross? “Love is very patient and kind, never jealous or envious, never boastful or proud, never haughty or selfish or rude. Love does not demand its own way. It is not irritable or touchy. It does not hold grudges and will hardly even notice when others do wrong. It is never glad about injustice, but rejoices whenever truth wins out. If you love someone you will be loyal to him, no matter what the cost. You will always believe him, always expect the best of him, and always stand your ground in defending him” (1 Corinthians 13:4-7, TLB).

No! I hadn’t reached that pinnacle of spiritual success, and probably never will. And if I, as a professing Christian, had to admit that I failed every day and fell so short of the glory of God, what right did I have to blame my husband for any failures, alleged or real? And what right had I to leave him, considering the damage I had inflicted on us?

If, as already stated, one of the reasons for the rush to dissolve marriages is lack of appreciation, another is the diminution of the sense of responsibility towards others. The “me-first” blocks we use to build the precarious foundations of

As I prayed and thought about our marriage, I found a major problem was my own overactive reactive imagination that reveled in rehashing past hurts that should have been long forgiven and forgotten. When I wrote the list of my husband’s good points and my own bad ones, I decided to regroup images into a more constructive pattern. I wanted to “see” - with a productive imagination - the good marriage we could still have. When the imagination started to conjure up the bad memories and experiences, I prayed to the Holy Spirit to remove the unholy spirit that is the source of our destructive thoughts.

I want to stress here that I realize there are unbearable situations in families in which separation is the only recourse that will bring peace and harmony. My stepfather finally divorced my mother after she got drunk and threatened him with a gun. I watched with horror as she put the gun to his chest. The shock triggered a massive heart attack. Somehow he survived, and when he was well enough he got a divorce - and me! I don’t believe God requires us to remain in impossible situations.

My concern here is with the marriage that shipwrecks on the rocks (pebbles, really) of those nits of misunderstanding and impressions that lead to depressions. But the battered hull is salvageable, and it can be repaired with God’s hammer and wood, and re-varnished with a coat of God’s love. I know to the despairing this may sound like something written by the angels who have no earthly experiences. It may seem impossible to start again and to love again. Certainly I thought so. Then after I read 1 Corinthians 7:12-14, I was ashamed to admit that I couldn’t be Christian enough to remain with a situation that I helped forge with my own hot tongue and temper. Scripture compelled me to step back and take an extensive and objective view of my spouse. I was forced to recognize and admit that he is a good, decent, dependable and hardworking man.

When I searched Scripture, the final arbiter of my actions, I couldn’t come up with an excuse to do what I wanted to do. The only message from the Bible that came through so clearly was the necessity of unconditional love and understanding on my part and, above all, forgiveness. I prayed to better understand my own motivations and lack of innovations to make the marriage work. I begged God to give me the strength and grace to be a true helpmeet for my husband.

Had I ever known the meaning of love as Jesus translated it in Gethsemane and on the Cross? “Love is very patient and kind, never jealous or envious, never boastful or proud, never haughty or selfish or rude. Love does not demand its own way. It is not irritable or touchy. It does not hold grudges and will hardly even notice when others do wrong. It is never glad about injustice, but rejoices whenever truth wins out. If you love someone you will be loyal to him, no matter what the cost. You will always believe him, always expect the best of him, and always stand your ground in defending him” (1 Corinthians 13:4-7, TLB).

No! I hadn’t reached that pinnacle of spiritual success, and probably never will. And if I, as a professing Christian, had to admit that I failed every day and fell so short of the glory of God, what right did I have to blame my husband for any failures, alleged or real? And what right had I to leave him, considering the damage I had inflicted on us?

If, as already stated, one of the reasons for the rush to dissolve marriages is lack of appreciation, another is the diminution of the sense of responsibility towards others. The “me-first” blocks we use to build the precarious foundations of

My concern here is with the marriage that shipwrecks on the rocks (pebbles, really) of those nits of misunderstanding and impressions that lead to depressions. But the battered hull is salvageable, and it can be repaired with God’s hammer and wood, and re-varnished with a coat of God’s love. I know to the despairing this may sound like something written by the angels who have no earthly experiences. It may seem impossible to start again and to love again. Certainly I thought so. Then after I read 1 Corinthians 7:12-14, I was ashamed to admit that I couldn’t be Christian enough to remain with a situation that I helped forge with my own hot tongue and temper. Scripture compelled me to step back and take an extensive and objective view of my spouse. I was forced to recognize and admit that he is a good, decent, dependable and hardworking man.

When I searched Scripture, the final arbiter of my actions, I couldn’t come up with an excuse to do what I wanted to do. The only message from the Bible that came through so clearly was the necessity of unconditional love and understanding on my part and, above all, forgiveness. I prayed to better understand my own motivations and lack of innovations to make the marriage work. I begged God to give me the strength and grace to be a true helpmeet for my husband.

Had I ever known the meaning of love as Jesus translated it in Gethsemane and on the Cross? “Love is very patient and kind, never jealous or envious, never boastful or proud, never haughty or selfish or rude. Love does not demand its own way. It is not irritable or touchy. It does not hold grudges and will hardly even notice when others do wrong. It is never glad about injustice, but rejoices whenever truth wins out. If you love someone you will be loyal to him, no matter what the cost. You will always believe him, always expect the best of him, and always stand your ground in defending him” (1 Corinthians 13:4-7, TLB).

No! I hadn’t reached that pinnacle of spiritual success, and probably never will. And if I, as a professing Christian, had to admit that I failed every day and fell so short of the glory of God, what right did I have to blame my husband for any failures, alleged or real? And what right had I to leave him, considering the damage I had inflicted on us?

If, as already stated, one of the reasons for the rush to dissolve marriages is lack of appreciation, another is the diminution of the sense of responsibility towards others. The “me-first” blocks we use to build the precarious foundations of

Had I ever known the meaning of love as Jesus translated it in Gethsemane and on the Cross? “Love is very patient and kind, never jealous or envious, never boastful or proud, never haughty or selfish or rude. Love does not demand its own way. It is not irritable or touchy. It does not hold grudges and will hardly even notice when others do wrong. It is never glad about injustice, but rejoices whenever truth wins out. If you love someone you will be loyal to him, no matter what the cost. You will always believe him, always expect the best of him, and always stand your ground in defending him” (1 Corinthians 13:4-7, TLB).

No! I hadn’t reached that pinnacle of spiritual success, and probably never will. And if I, as a professing Christian, had to admit that I failed every day and fell so short of the glory of God, what right did I have to blame my husband for any failures, alleged or real? And what right had I to leave him, considering the damage I had inflicted on us?

If, as already stated, one of the reasons for the rush to dissolve marriages is lack of appreciation, another is the diminution of the sense of responsibility towards others. The “me-first” blocks we use to build the precarious foundations of families and societies eventually become stumbling blocks. Like it or not, we have a responsibility to others, primarily our spouse and our children. We cannot possibly measure the present and future effects of the thought, words and deeds of our lives, or even our deaths, for what we do and say lives on in the hearts and minds of those entrusted to our care while on this earth. Yes, it is an awesome responsibility!

If we are normal, we all have days when we would like to say to our children, “I’m fed up with all these demands and chores, kids, so I’m taking the day off from smother-hood.” Or to our spouse, “I’ve had it up to my fast-graying hair with having to account to you for everything. I think I’ll take a month off and do my own thing.” If I had a nickel for every time I’ve nursed those temptations, I could afford a divorce! But the fact remains that when we say those vows we also accept the obligations and burdens that accompany them. Even so, you say, God gave us choice. We can walk out on it. We can also choose to stay with it. But for the serious Christian who can find no excuse to divorce, there is no moratorium until we reach the mortuary! Again, let me stress that I realize there are indeed impossible situations that demand relief. This is not an attempt to pass judgment on anyone else’s circumstances.

One day my husband and I were discussing the impending divorce of friends of ours who had been married many years. Our state law has what is known as the “dissolution clause.” My husband unwittingly called it the “disillusion clause.” I laughed, then thought how appropriate, really. We go into these lifelong contracts with great illusions and expectations, only to discover that we all have feet of clay and hearts of stone. The only way we are going to be freed from idolatry and slavery is to pray for new hearts of tender flesh and new minds of tolerance and understanding.

I have discovered that forgiveness is the real essence of a close relationship. This is the gold vein in the gold mine of love. But how my heart rebelled against it. Forgiveness! Had I not every right to resent what was done or not done? Said or not said? “No, God,” I vowed, “I won’t forgive!”

It’s amazing how we nurture snakes in our proud bosoms. I nurtured hatred, and I wasn’t going to let anyone take that prized possession from me. Then one day a friend brought me a book that gave new words to an age-old lesson that we so often refuse to learn. The author made statements, in terms I could not mistake, that we are responsible for our sinful hearts, our sick minds, and our lawless natures, in the sense that we can be rid of them if we want. The author suggested that the sooner we learn it is our own attitudes and reactions that make us happy or unhappy, and not others’ actions, we would be that much closer to a healed mind and contented heart. It was a distasteful dose of spiritual medicine, but one I needed desperately at the time. I dropped to my knees and begged the Holy Spirit to “create in me a clean heart ... and renew a right spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10).

The book also helped me to view my husband from the perspective of my own sins and shortcomings rather than through the clouded lens of his alleged faults. The light reflected back on me, and I saw my own black heart. If God can wipe away that blackness from my heart, the buildup of years of myopic self-pity, I thought, then surely He can give me the power to forgive my husband, someone He had already forgiven long ago. It was the only route I could travel, the final option open that would keep us together. If Jesus at the Last Supper with patience and love and humility could wash the feet of twelve bickering disciples (including the man who betrayed Him!), then a sinner such as I must forgive fully and freely and in turn be freed from the prison of hate.

I methodically studied the gift of forgiveness in the Holy Scripture and other religious books. There is no mistaking God’s demand that we are to be peacemakers. A paragraph by A.P. Stanley from a treasured book Daily Strength for Daily Needs, written many years ago, spoke directly to my heart: “We may, if we choose, make the worst of one another. Every one has his weak points; every one has his faults; we may make the worst of these. We may fix our attention constantly upon these. But we may also make the best of one another. We may forgive, even as we hope to be forgiven. We may put ourselves in the place of others, and ask what we should wish to be done to us, and thought of us, were we in their place. By loving whatever is lovable in those around us, love will flow back from them to us. Life will become a pleasure instead of a pain, and earth will become like heaven, and we shall become not unworthy followers of Him whose name is Love.”

I constantly reminded myself that there is a law which operates in this lovely but difficult business of forgiveness: God forgives us, and we forgive each other. But if we don’t forgive each other, then He can’t forgive us. Above all, we can’t extract the last ounce of payment before we grant full pardon. The story is told of a married man who went further than indiscretion with a certain lady. He expressed his profound sorrow to his wife. She then spent the next several years salting the festering wound, never letting it heal. Finally one day the long-suffering man had suffered long enough and he told his wife that he was leaving. She began to cry and she begged him to