Love as a Way of Life

For decades Dr. Gary Chapman’s best-selling books have shown readers how to speak the “love language” of those they care about. In his newest work, Love as a Way of Life, Chapman presents poignant stories of real people who have discovered the joys of living out the seven characteristics of authentic love: kindness, patience, forgiveness, humility, courtesy, generosity, and honesty. Enhanced with eye-opening self tests, practical ideas for building daily habits of love, and inspiring examples of love’s power to change lives, this book guides readers in putting love to work in all of their interpersonal relationships.

Dr. Chapman writes:

I first recognized the need for Love as a Way of Life when in a counseling session a husband said to me, “I’ll tell you right now, if it is going to take my washing dishes, and doing the laundry for my wife to feel loved, you can forget that.” I had just explained to him the concept of the five love languages and that his wife’s primary love language was ‘acts of service’ and that these acts would deeply communicate his love to her. I realized that he lacked the will to meet his wife’s need for love. He was locked into his own perception of what his role was to be and it did not include washing dishes and doing laundry. I knew at that moment that there was something more foundational than simply knowing a person’s love language.

Love as a Way of Life is designed to help the person who sincerely wants to make a positive impact in the world. I believe that is most of us. Our biggest problem is that we don’t know how and we keep getting tripped up by our own selfish ambitions. The purpose of the book is to help us break free from the prison of selfishness and come to experience the satisfaction of truly loving others as a way of life. It is little acts of love that build up to a lifestyle of service.

C. S. Lewis's The Four Loves

Sometimes when you are in the middle of a relationship (family, spiritual, friendship, or romantic) it is impossible to see what is happening within it. Emotions can be very blinding. C.S. Lewis’s The Four Loves provides a detailed study of those four loves, and examines their faults and virtues.

Some passages that impacted me the most are those which deal with falling in love with love. He says,

Theologians have often feared, in this love, a danger of idolatry.... The real danger seems to me not that the lovers will idolise each other but that they will idolise Eros himself....'These reasons in love's law have passed for good,' says Milton's Dalila. That is the point; in love's law. 'In love,' we have our own 'law,' a religion of our own, our own god.

Where a true Eros is present resistance to his commands feels like apostasy, and what are really (by the Christian standard) temptations speak with the voice of duties- quasi-religious duties, acts of pious zeal to love. He builds his own religion around the lovers...It seems to sanction all sorts of actions they would not otherwise have dared...The pair can say to one another in an almost sacrificial spirit, 'It is for love's sake that I have neglected my parents...' These reasons in love's law have passed for good. The votaries may even come to feel a particular merit in such sacrifices; what costlier offering can be laid on love's alter than one's conscience?

Even the strongest lady has been tempted to commit a sin that may be disguised as something loving, whether for a friend or beloved. An amazing point that Lewis makes throughout the book is that love is good! It was commanded by God that we should love one another, but the problems arise when we love others more than we love God. C.S. Lewis doesn’t give a step by step, foolproof plan to escape this, like so many writers today. I think he believes that by understanding the dangers, we are more likely to avoid them.

Naturally, in a book about love, including married love, there is an occasional mention of the physical aspect of it. Actually, when Lewis first wrote the articles for radio broadcasting, the religious group that had first asked him to write them wouldn’t let him read them over the air because the group was outraged that he mentioned sex. Lewis doesn’t talk about it in detail, but for what it is: something representing the Savior and the Church, and something coveted for marriage. Personally, I did not find it “objectionable” at all, but if it is something you stumble with, I may suggest you don’t read the chapter titled Eros (the discussion of sex is concentrated primarily in the first half).

Overall, I find the book highly encouraging and insightful, full of advice that you may not notice for yourself when you are in the situation. The Four Loves is written from a Biblical perspective, but it makes many good points that are universal, so I would also recommend it for non-Christians.

- by Chelsea Wichert

Love

Love is suffers long. Love is Kind. Love doesn't envy, Love doesn't seek to advance itself, it is not proud. It does not react in a wrong way to any situation, Love doesn't seek it's own good. Love is not provoked easily, and does not assume evil of another. Love doesn't rejoice when another falls into sin, but Love rejoices in what is true. Love bears all things- even when it's not fair. Love believes the best. Love hopes- always hopes. Love endures all things. Love, true love, does not fail, in spite of all of this.

Love is a gift of God. True love is not something we find in ourselves, and without Him, we are completely void of love that will endure the most severe trials.

It is not hard to love someone who loves us, but when we face total rejection, when we have been wounded, to love the one who broke us is a task that we cannot handle, but God give us the strength, the grace and the gift of True Love in our hearts.

True love. It's a perfect picture of who God is, and what He desires us to be. It's one of the hardest things we will ever meet- to have and to live this true love, because it's deeply painful. It asks us to die- and that is hard.. so very hard. But to have this Love, is to have something that's worth the pain... any pain, that it might cost us.

Lord... let me die, so you can live. Let me suffer any pain, only let my life be a reflection... of your love.

- by Chantel Harding

Alzeimher's: The Living Out of Love

In memory of Merritt's Grandpa, and President Ronald Reagan

who went home to Heaven after their bouts with Alzeimher's
leaving loving wives behind

• Blog: Grandpa and President Reagan
• Blog: Loving Him 'Til Death Do Us Part
• Ringing the Bells for a Generation's Heritage of Freedom
• Farmer's Wife or First Lady: The Woman Behind the Man
• Rush Limbaugh's Tribute to Reagan
• Reagan on Marriage

"We've had an extraordinary life, and I've been blessed to have been married for almost fifty years to a man I deeply love--but the other side of the coin is that it makes it harder. There are so many memories that I can no longer share, which makes it very difficult. When it comes right down to it, you're alone. Each day is different, and you get up, put one foot in front of the other, and go--and love; just love. It's hard, but even now there are moments Ronnie has given me that I wouldn't trade for anything.
Alzheimer's is a truly long, long good-bye. But it's the living out of love."
-Nancy Reagan in I Love You, Ronnie

"Whatever days are left to me, they belong to Him."
-Ronald Reagan

---

A Tribute to the Love of Ronald and Nancy Reagan

quotations from I Love You, Ronnie: The Letters of Ronald Reagan to Nancy Reagan
(Published by Random House, Copyright 2000)

“This is a very lonesome place when you are someplace else.”

“Just think we were married 28 minutes ago. Yes, I know the calendar says years but what does it know? Time goes by faster when you are happy and I’m the happiest man in the world.”

“When I was young I thought marriage might be this way for a while: I never knew it could go on and on, getting better and better year after year.”

“It’s amazing what that four letter word, ‘wife,’ covers when it’s applied to you. It means a companion without whom I’m never quite complete or happy. It means the most desirable woman in the world who gets more desirable every day. It means some one who can make me lonely just by leaving the room.”

“She has 2 hearts—her own and mine. I’m not complaining. I gave her mine willingly and like it right where it is.”

“I wonder how I lived at all for all the three hundred and sixty fives before I met you.”

“We are so much ‘one’ that you are as vital to me as my own heart—with one exception; you could never be replaced with a transplant.”

“If I ache, it’s because we are apart and yet that can’t be because you are inside and a part of me, so we aren’t really apart at all. Yet I ache but wouldn’t be without the ache, because that would mean being without you and that I can’t be because I love you.”

“I love you so very much I don’t even mind that life made me wait so long to find you. The waiting only made the finding sweeter.”

“Tonight I’ll probably be looking at the Moon which means I’ll be looking at you—literally and figuratively because it lays far to the South of this mountain top and that’s where you are. That takes care of the ‘literal’ part—the ‘figurative’ part requires no direction, I just see you in all the beauty there is because in you I’ve found all the beauty in my life.”

“I could offer you my heart but I’d have to get it back from you first.”

---

At a private service in California on June 11, 2004, President Reagan's children shared tributes to their father

"As years went by and I became older and found a woman I would marry, Colleen, he sent me a letter about marriage and how important it was to be faithful to the woman you love with a P.S. -- you'll never get in trouble if you say I love you at least once a day, and I'm sure he told Nancy every day I love you as I tell Colleen."
-Michael Reagan

"At the early onset of Alzheimer's Disease my father and I would tell each other we loved each other and we would give each other a hug. As the years went by and he could no longer verbalize my name, he recognized me as the man who hugged him. So when I would walk into the house, he would be there in his chair opening up his arms for that hug, hello, and the hug good-bye. It was a blessing truly brought on by God."
-Michael Reagan

"...at his last moment, when he opened his eyes, eyes that had not opened for many, many days and looked at my mother, he showed us that neither disease nor death can conquer love."
-Patti Davis

"History will record his worth as a leader. We here have long since measured his worth as a man. Honest, compassionate, graceful, brave. He was the most plainly decent man you could ever hope to meet. He used to say, a gentleman always does the kind thing. And he was a gentleman in the truest sense of the word. A gentle man. Big as he was, he never tried to make anyone feel small. Powerful as he became, he never took advantage of those who were weaker. Strength, he believed, was never more admirable than when it was applied with restraint. Shopkeeper, doorman, king or queen, it made no difference, dad treated everyone with the same unfailing courtesy."
-Ron Reagan Jr.

---

Myrna Blyth, in her column in the National Review entitled "Taking Care of Ronnie: Mrs. Reagan Gave Her Husband What He Needed":

Obviously, a woman who understood how to take care of a husband, in the best of times and the worst, is Nancy Reagan. Nobody could help but admire the valiant way she coped with her husband's long illness. The couple's great friend Michael Deaver has said: "As the years progressed, she didn't really go anywhere. She was simply there with him...Ronald Reagan was her life. From the time she met him, she'd done anything she could for him."

Yet during the White House years, the former First Lady was often criticized and laughed at for her total devotion to her man. Remember the jokes people made about Nancy's rapt and adoring look of love whenever her Ronnie spoke, no matter how many times she listened to exactly the same speech or heard exactly the same jokes. How women, especially, in those stridently feminist times, scoffed at the way she fussed over him, coddled him, and fiercely protected him from any criticism or slight.

What we were watching, of course, was a love story, the real thing, starring a woman who didn't mind being "the woman behind the man," not because he was a great man (which he was), but because she truly adored him. He, in turn, was a man who, even when he had forgotten his many glory years, was still trying to pick a rose in a neighbor's garden for his beloved "lady."

"Nancy was Ronald Reagan's emotional caretaker" Laura Schlessinger says, and all Americans owe her so much. Because of the way she cared for him, he could remain optimistic and resolute and effective as he cared for us. Unlike so many wives who are always criticizing, always asking their husbands to change, she loved him just the way the he was. That may be the most important reason he had the confidence and courage to truly change our world.

Rush Limbaugh, commenting on Blyth's column and Schlessinger's book:

"She [Nancy Reagan] didn't at all subordinate herself, and nobody ever thought that she subordinated herself... She just loved him! She just loved him and she knew who he was and let him be who he was -- and look, he never left her side. The premise of Dr. Laura's book is, if I can boil it down is, just: the happiest woman in the world is the woman who lets her husband be who he is. ...[President Reagan is]who he was because he found the right woman. Pure and simple. He's who he was because he found the right woman. So that's a great tribute to her."

---

She Misses Him

She shaves his face
She combs his hair
She helps him find his rocking chair
She cooks his meals
She wipes his mouth
And the window that he's looking out
She reads him books
She speaks his name
Oh every day is much the same
She sighs that sigh from deep within
The one that says
She misses him

She misses his gentle touch
And the way he used to make her laugh
She misses the man he was
In all of those old photographs
So strong, so kind, so sweet, so smart
The man who stole her very heart
She misses him

His children come on Saturday
There at his feet
His grandkids play
It's sad they don't know him at all
He's just the one they call grandpa
They take out his trash
They mow his lawn
Things he can't do since he's been gone
She's grateful that they're pitching in
And like everyone
She misses him

She misses his gentle touch
And the way he used to make her laugh
She misses the man he was
In all of those old photographs
So strong, so kind, so sweet, so smart
The man who stole her very heart
She misses him

And yes they're still together
After all these years
But sometimes you can almost feel
The sadness in her tears

She misses his gentle touch
And the way he used to make her laugh
She misses the man he was
In all of those old photographs
So strong, so kind, so sweet, so smart
The man who stole her very heart
She misses him

(by T. Johnson, sung by Tim Rushlow)

Fascinating

Ravi Zacharias writes:

From the beginning God positioned this relationship of man and woman in a unique context. Having created Adam, God said, 'It is not good for man to be alone' (Genesis 2:18), so He created a partner for him. Man's aloneness was an impediment to his complete fulfillment.

I find that to be thought provoking, because in a very real sense, man was not alone. God was with him. Adam experienced companionship in his relationship with God...yet God said that man was 'alone.' Interestingly, He made this pronouncement before Adam's disobedience ruptured his relationship with God. So when God says, 'It is not good for man to be alone,' He must have had in mind a kind of companionship uniquely human to help meet Adam's human finitude in a way that God designed and orchestrated (I, Isaac, Take Thee, Rebekah pg. 13, emphasis mine).

I pulled this quotation from a longer excerpt. But it's so profound...so thought-provoking that I could not wait any longer to share it with you all. If you have not read any of Ravi's works, I urge you to pick up his book on love and marriage. Reading it for me felt like all my thoughts and hopes and beliefs were clarified, refined, and expressed with laser-sharp accuracy which I could never have accomplished.

Edited May 2008

Following her man and her God

Ever since their first date (a Sunday afternoon presentation of The Messiah), she had known he was the one. "I laid it before the Lord and left it there," she wrote.

But she was called as a missionary to Tibet, and he was not.

"Do you believe that God brought us together?" he asked her in the intervening weeks.

Of course she did.

"In that case, God will lead me and you will do the following."

"And I have been following ever since," wrote Ruth Bell Graham in It's My Turn, (copyright 1982, p. 52).

But for the wife of Billy Graham, following her husband meant staying home, raising their five children while he traveled. That alone tells me she was a woman of strength. And that she got her strength from a never-ending Source.

I picked up my paperback copy of It's My Turn the day after the news of Mrs. Graham's death. It had sat on my shelf unread ever since I'd found it. Now seemed like a good time to read about this woman behind the man, this wife waiting at home for the returning evangelist.

There are few well-renowned people I agree with completely. Even fewer I would choose to emulate in all aspects of their lives. But I can I find what I admire about them, and learn from that.

As with everything I read, I paid particular attention to what she wrote about her marriage. I found much to ponder.

"It is a foolish woman who expects her husband to be to her that which only Jesus Christ Himself can be: always ready to forgive, totally understanding, unendingly patient, invariably tender and loving, unfailing in every area, anticipating every need, and making more than adequate provision. Such expectations put a man under an impossible strain." (p. 74)

And well-aware of the child growing so near the book I held in my lap, her words on motherhood had more to say to me than they might have a year ago.

"A good mother is one who makes it easy for a child to be good." (pg. 102)

The Grahams were obviously both of strong and very different personalities. But they had a love that stayed strong through long separations, and kept growing for almost 64 years of marriage (their 64th anniversary would be August 13th). That is why I paid close attention to their secrets.

"Love is not only the 'union of two good forgivers' but the 'union of two good appreciators.'" (pg. 76)

"A Christian wife's responsibility balances delicately between knowing when to submit and when to outwit. Adapting to our husbands never implies the annihilation of our creativity, rather the blossoming of it." (p. 55)

And she had a faith, that sustained her through it all. That is why I listened carefully to her words.

"For me, spiritual dryness usually follows an extremely busy period. Air must be still for dew to fall, and I was anything but still." (p. 162, emphasis mine)

"Worship and worry cannot live in the same heart: they are mutually exclusive." (p. 137)

Related Posts:
Lifelong Love Aflame
A Valentine from the not-so-Pink House

Marry a man who will make a good daddy...

"Marry a man who will make a good father." I don't know where I heard it, but it's always stuck in my mind.

Ever since I met Merritt in Yellowstone National Park that day, I knew he liked children. My little sister Jessica was just a year old at the time, and though Merritt and I never exchanged anything but shy smiles, he talked to Jess and made faces at her as I pushed her in her stroller
down the boardwalks in Yellowstone. I took such notice that I wrote to my cousin Melissa about how good this boy Merritt was with my baby sister. And a few mental notes were made for "someday."

As we got to know the Achesons better, and spent time at each other's houses, I had ample opportunity to observe Merritt's ability with kids, as he was an older brother himself. One picture is forever etched in my mind: he was kneeling down, holding the 4-year-old's hand, patiently explaining why one should not run in the house.

It was easy to picture this laid-back man as a patient father. Of my children. He would so well balance out my impatient tendencies. We would make a good team. And all our children would have curly hair...

"The best thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother."

I married Merritt for a lot more than his curls and his ability with children. But when we were there at the doctor's office together, filling out forms and answering questions, I realized how much I had to be thankful for as the nurse glanced at the next question, looked at Merritt sitting there by me, and stated, "And the father is obviously supportive."

Yes, from the moment I woke him up at 4 a.m. to tell him the pregnancy test was positive, he has shared my joys, and held me as I cried from exhaustion. He held my hand as I walked into a new doctor's office. He sat there with me as we saw our baby for the first time on the ultrasound. And we both pleaded ignorance to how our baby could have gotten the stubborn genes, when the nurse had such difficulty getting the baby to stay in one position for a picture.

When for a month I had never been so exhausted in my life, nor had to eat so much so often to keep from being sick, and we were in the middle of spring planting, Merritt was there for me. Sending me to bed as soon as we got home. Making supper and doing dishes every night. Mopping the floor and washing windows while I was at work. And even making custard, cookies, and cheesecake, without any help, while I took naps. I had never felt so helpless, nor so loved.

When we all got the flu, I celebrated my first Mother's Day with a bowl of Top Ramen noodles my husband made me. (Next year, I'm hoping for steak and potatoes--but Top Ramen had never tasted so good.) And when I finally started feeling more like myself, he was the first to rejoice that "he had his wife back."

Now he's there to kiss my tummy and agree that yes, I'm getting fat. And yes, it's cute. And yes, that dress still fits. And even though I manage to do most of the cooking these days, Merritt still sends me to bed while he does the dishes every night.

And every morning, he is there to hold my hand and pray with me... And when he prays for "our baby", I get so teary-eyed that when it's my turn to pray, I can only say, "Dear Lord, thank You so much for my husband...

Has it really been a year for us?

Sitting here looking out the window on this rainy June morning in Washington, it is hard to believe that it was more than a year ago now, on another rainy morning in another state, that I became his wife. And what a year it has been!

Finishing our little home, riding in the tractor together while he baled hay, finding a church family, an explosion and a broken leg, spending lots of time at work together, crutches and a cane, finally being able to hold hands again when we went shopping, trying to surprise each other for our birthdays, elk hunting in the rain and snow with my dad, much to be thankful for on Thanksgiving, visits to Oregon, coming back home to our home, our first Christmas together, more trips together, celebrating Valentine's Day as husband and wife, watching my husband's carpentry skills up-close with more building projects, then planting and weeding in the garden together, watching as my farmer prepared the fields, celebrating our very first anniversary with family and friends on Memorial Day weekend, and trying to figure out how we can see enough of each other this summer without breaking another leg.

Yes, it's been quite the year. But God has been so good to us.

We little knew, as we stood there in front of the church, holding hands, singing "Great is Thy Faithfulness" with everyone else, how well we would learn the truths of that song in our first months of marriage. We thought He had proved His faithfulness over and over again throughout our 10-year friendship. But we learned He is never through showing us His faithfulness. "A peace that endureth" through surgeries and hospital waiting rooms. "All I have needed Thy hand hath provided" as He took care of all the hospital bills and extra expenses through our friends and other believers in Samaritan Ministries.

"Strength for today" to care for my husband and all the household chores. "Morning by morning new mercies I see" as we unwrapped the bandages each day and saw the miracle of how God created our bodies to heal. "Bright hope for tomorrow" as we found out that the Lord is sending us a little one in December to train up in the way it should go--yes, "blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside."

We "join with all nature in manifold witness, to His great faithfulness, mercy and love"...

C.S. Lewis on Love

Here are a few of the quotes I've gleaned from recent excursions into Lewis's work. I also just requested the books Miracles and Perelandra from Paperback Swap. They always have Lewis books available. Hurray!

"Love is something more stern and splendid than mere kindness."

"This is one of the miracles of love: It gives a power of seeing through its own enchantments and yet not being disenchanted."

"Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person's ultimate good as far as it can be obtained."

"Why love if losing hurts so much? We love to know that we are not alone."

Wisdom from a Grandfather

From a letter written to Gretchen some years ago by her grandfather...

Wisdom defined God's way as this--the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. My daughter, if you will receive my words to lay up my commandments with Thee, so that you incline your ear unto wisdom and apply your heart to understanding. Then you shall understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.

When wisdom enters your heart and knowledge is pleasant to your soul, discretion shall preserve thee and understanding shall keep thee to deliver you from: 1. The way of the evil man, 2. From men that speak perverse things.

That is God's advice.

This is Papa's advice:

1. Don't fall in love!

Love is the fruit of the spirit of God. Fruit grows when the seed (the Word of God) is planted in the good soil of the heart. Fruit grows from the branches, which abide in the Vine. If we abide--we produce fruit. If no fruit is produced, the branches are pruned.

True love is defined as eight positive and eight negative heart attitudes, actions or responses to tests, trials, and temptations, encountered along the way of life. Our actions then establish our habit patterns which ultimately develop our character.

2. Don't Fall in Love. Stand.

Stand, having your feet planted on the firm foundation, which is Jesus Christ. Stand fast with the whole armor, that you may be able to withstand the wiles of the devil.

Stand. Abide. Obey. Submit. Seek His will. Serve as He leads the way through the storms, over the rock slides, around the slough of despond, and finally to the verdant pasture of peace and contentment where love will bloom and bring forth its fruit in due season.

3. Don't Fall--but Grow in Love.

That your love may abound more and more in knowledge in all judgement (perception, discernment). That you may approve (distinguish) things that are excellent...and there are many excellent things out there today!

4. Don't look for love.

As seed planted in the good soil needs warmth, moisture, and light, so we can produce:

The warmth of friendship and service in compassion. We can water the seed with the water of the Word. We can shed the "light of the world" in the world.

Be patient as the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth and has long patience for it, until he receives the early and the latter rains. First the blade, then the ear, and then the full ear of corn.

5. Don't measure love--observe it!

You may be attracted, but don't be distracted by: words, looks, and kindnesses to you!

The yardstick of love is not how he looks at you but how he sees:

1. God
2. The World
3. Other Women

The true measure of love is not how he speaks to you, but how he speaks to his mother and his sister. That is how he will speak to you later on.

6. Don't hope to fall in love...

...but be willing to love those you are serving. Love is not an emotion, but rather a matter of the will. Love is kind--a learned response of the heart when others are unkind.

Love is a commitment--dying to self--a life of giving. An attitude of serving. A heart that is kind, compassionate, and caring in spite of the circumstances.

7. Don't rush into love.

Wait!

And again I say wait!

Watch. Beware. Watch out.

Wait on the Lord.

- by Dr. Bill Brink

Happy First Anniversary to the Achesons!

May 27, 2006 was an unforgettable day for many of us here at YLCF.

A very happy First Wedding Anniversary to Mr. and Mrs. Merritt Acheson!! One year ago we were gathered in Oregon to see you pledge your lives to each other...so much has happened in the past twelve months!

Merritt and Gretchen's Courtship Story
THE Wedding!

The Soldier's Wife

There, two stand in the door,
And embrace for one last time.
War has called one far away to fight,
And the other to fight at Home.

One will fight on a Sandy Plain,
Far across the Sea,
She will fight on the home front,
Facing battles as great as He.

For the Soldier's wife is a Soldier too,
With battles daily to meet.
For staying at Home is almost as hard
As fighting across the sea.

She is home, but she is not
Though busy her day will be,
A part of her heart is with her man,
In the sandy place across the sea.

She fights for courage to hope,
And for strength to keep going on
When she seems all alone-
And time seems so very long.

Battles to smile, battles to laugh
When tears began to run,
For the memories made in years past,
Before the war had begun.

She has more to face than most,
For the future is unknown.
And praying, longing, she waits
For her man to come home.

- by Chantel Harding
- photo of Staff Sergeant John Baker with his wife Ashleigh

Quotations from Gretchen - 2

God didn't save you 1/7th of the way, so we should give him all 7 days. - Dustin Blumenstein

Insanity: Doing the same thing and expecting different results. - Anonymous
Flirting: Doing the same thing and expecting better results - Jennifer Straw
Love: Doing the same thing in a different way everyday for the rest of your life. - Gretchen Glaser

A wife is not her husband's moral custodian. She is God's gift to him, and he is God's gift to her. He does not always act like a gift--nor do we wives, alas. This is perhaps the most important testing ground for the production of the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Where else, how else, shall we learn them?

There is no other way. Jesus Himself had to "learn obedience by the things which He suffered," not by the things which He enjoyed. Shall we who claim to be His followers expect the cross to be presented to us in a more congenial form?

The cross is an instrument of torture. What else was it meant to be? Yet through that holy cross Christ redeemed the world. He calls us, "o'er the tumult of our life's wild, restless sea," to follow Him. We must choose. He will not force us. He will not invade our freedom to choose not to follow. He offers the cross--in this form and no other--and asks us--ever so gently and quietly--"Will you trust Me? Will you love Me? Will you praise Me?"

-Elisabeth Elliot, The Gatekeeper, August 2001

You don't add Jesus to your life--He becomes your life. -Bill Conn

The highest reward of serving God is not what we get for it but what we become because of it. - Bill Conn

- compiled by Gretchen, spring 2006

Unrequited Love(sickness)

I have long been in the habit of jotting down page numbers of favorite passages as I read a book. My husband now discovers these little slips of paper with random, sequential numbers scrawled in pencil, and asks what it is for. I always laughingly explain that they were quotations I wanted to write down from the book I'd just been reading. And invariably, it is because the words reminded me of him...

The following passages struck a chord with me, because for so many years I loved Merritt without knowing if it was returned. I never managed to express my woes of unrequited love so beautifully, but maybe someone else will find comfort in Elizabeth Goudge's words, knowing that others have trod this oft-lonely path before. Remember, "the readiness is all."

"She had gone into shop after shop and walked round and round in circles for what had seemed like hour after hour, but nothing she looked at had commanded itself to her as a suitable gift for a woman to give a man she loved when the man didn't love her."

"Her own arrogance appalled her. Who and what did she think she was that she should expect this...man to love her? She was much younger than he was, she had neither gifts nor beuty to match his. And yet, trying to see tings as they were, as was her habit, aware that excessive shame was just as distorting to the judgement as excessive arrogance, she knew that she ought to be his wife... But you couldn't hand yourself over if you weren't taken.

"And at this point her thoughts would come up against Hamlet's words, 'The readiness is all,' and cling to them as to a rock. That put it in a nutshell. That was the only possible attitude to life and death as well as to love. You had to be ready to be used or not used, picked up or cast aside, and it didn't really matter which it was provided you yourself were pliant to fate like a reed to the wind.

"...She was going back to that bit of Hampshire between the river and the sea that was now to her the most beloved spot on earth, that was home. She supposed it wasn't really home but it felt like it... That was why she loved it so much, of course... They were David's. They had made him. She had given herself so utterly to this love of hers that it permeated every part of her being and nothing that was connected with David seemed to have any value for her any more... How on earth was she going to get through the rest of her life if...She pulled hersulf up abruptly and groped after Hamlet, but she couldn't seem to get hold of him; she was too tired..."

-Pilgrim's Inn, excerpts from pg. 292-4, by Elizabeth Goudge

Preparing for Marriage, Part Four

At one of the parties before our wedding, an elegant dinner hosted by dear and gracious friends of my parents, Philip and I found ourselves in a quiet corner chatting over coffee with a couple we deeply admired. They were much older than us by some forty years, but there was an unspoken kinship among us, a like-minded ideal of a truly happy marriage—one upon the very threshold, the other in smiling triumph many paces down the road ahead. As our talk gravitated naturally towards the great step Philip and I were preparing to take, the wife spoke up in her very decided yet altogether lady-like way:

“I have just one piece of advice for you,” she told us, scanning our expressions to make sure we were comprehending, “and it’s this: if you always agree on everything, one of you is expendable.”

One of you is redundant. One of you is getting walked over.

We all like to think that when we’ve waited for the right one, fall in love and get married, that everything’s going to go along swimmingly with never a ripple of dispute. Sure, we tell ourselves with a judicious inner nod, married people have their troubles just like everyone else. Married people have flat tires and lost jobs and children with chicken pox. Some married people even argue. But not us—we’ll never do that. We love each other way too much to ever disagree about anything.

But hopefully we soon learn what God and Mrs. McCrae knew all along: differences of opinion are a completely natural, and more, a healthy aspect of a truly loving relationship. How else are we to grow, if not challenged by the other? What need have we of ‘iron sharpening iron’ if we’re already perfected to begin with? If we are not prepared, however, for these occasional divergences from what we think is right, some panic button down inside of us can send out a false alarm of anger or fear. An over-reaction. An outburst or a withdrawal. A fight.

As much as we hate to be reminded of it, we are all sinful creatures. And the intimacy of marriage is only going to high-light this. If nothing can give you joy like the sunshine of your beloved’s favor and understanding, conversely, nothing can bewilder you with pain like even a momentary loss of communion. Disagreements come with the territory; it’s all part of the game—no two people, no matter how much in love, in understanding, are ever going to look at things exactly alike. But it doesn’t have to get ugly. It can actually be interesting—it can even be fun if we play by the rules. And, no matter how mature we are or otherwise, it can always be a moment of God’s grace.

So here’s my little watchword for the week:

Play fair

• Don’t ever walk out the room in anger or hang up the phone on your spouse. If you need time alone to cool off, express this calmly.
• Decide beforehand not to use the words ‘always’ or ‘never’ in the midst of a disagreement. (And, for the record, ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ should be equally taboo in an apology.)
• Give your spouse the benefit of the doubt. He’s every bit as entitled to his opinion as you are.
• There’s a reason the Bible tells us not to let the sun go down on our anger—it’s all too easy to get lazy with our misunderstandings.
• Keep in mind that I Corinthians 13 is really all the rules of engagement we need. And that we have the grace of our Lord at our fingertips—if we will only remember to ask for it.

Note from Natalie: These principles are not just true in marriage of course, but in any relationship! I've had many opportunities to practice them during courtship...and it is not always (rarely) easy or comfortable. The list Lanier gave is one that I've been striving to live by and it makes a huge difference. As one who dreads the slightest bit of conflict or disagreement (though disagreement is not inherently a bad thing!), I am trying to learn how to speak up about what I am thinking or feeling.

Preparing for Marriage, Part Three

Not long before my wedding I had a heart-to-heart with one of my very best friends. She had been married for several years and had a relationship with her husband that I much admired. I wanted to know if she had any secrets for me, any wise words of counsel that would start me off on the right foot as the wife I so dearly longed to be myself. She smiled and sighed and looked thoughtful. And then she laughed, for once in her life completely speechless. (I now know exactly how she felt—Where to begin?!.)

“I’ll write you a letter,” she finally declared with a grin.

A few days later an envelope with a picture of Anne and Diana appeared in the mailbox, the last missive I ever received in my maiden name. Inside I found pages of closely-written lines, in a handwriting as dear and unpredictable as my sweet friend herself. She had many things to say to me, words of loving exhortation, cheerful reminders, glad-hearted promises of the joy that lay before me, and I cherished them all. But if the whole tone and flavor of her letter could be gathered up in a nutshell, it would look like this:

Share life.

Don’t stop dating once you are married. Take the extra pains you would have during your courtship to enter fully into the pursuits and pleasures of your beloved. Allow yourself to be stretched and broadened by the limitless horizons of this wonderful personality you have pledged your life to. Grow, change, expand, burst into flower!

All too often, married couples eventually lose the wonder of their first fascination with each other. But it doesn’t have to be this way—indeed, I firmly believe that God had something totally different in mind than cordial compatibility when He gave us the gift of marriage. Ecclesiastes exults, Enjoy life with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life…which He hath given thee! In Proverbs we are told that a man should always be ‘carried away’ with love for his wife. There’s no doubt that the Song of Songs espouses a marriage of perpetual and increasing rapture.

Of course, there is a comfort and familiarity in marriage that comes with time and this is very sweet. I would only say, don’t get so comfortable that you neglect to do the things that you once did to show your man that simply being with him is the dearest pastime on earth. The friend who thus exhorted me loves hunting and fishing and camping with her man. Another friend with a houseful of little children arranges occasional days when she and her husband can just be together and ‘pal around’. I feel almost intoxicatingly loved when Philip takes the time to read a book with me or listen to a symphony or sit on the front porch and watch the sunset.

Sheldon Vanauken had an insight that is still unique, thirty years after his book A Severe Mercy was published:

The killer of love is creeping separateness. Inloveness is a gift of the gods, but then it is up to the lovers to cherish or to ruin. Taking love for granted, especially after marriage. Ceasing to do things together. Finding separate interests. ‘We’ turning to ‘I’…Against creeping separateness we would oppose the great principle of sharing.

Every moment that a Christian husband and wife have truly shared works like a golden thread, slowly, carefully, purposefully weaving their hearts together with God into a 'three-fold cord [that] is not quickly broken’. It's worth all the work and energy and time required--and do not expect it to be otherwise. But your love will be a thing of beauty, a radiant witness to the First Love. A joy forever.

Preparing for Marriage, Part Two

My next piece of ‘advice’ in this series is so old and oft-repeated that I fear it has begun to lose some of its original meaning—or, worse yet, assume an implication that it never should have. But at the risk of some of you rolling your eyes and heaving a great sigh and saying, “Oh, that again,” ;) I’m going to throw it into the ring once more. Because I think it’s that important. Here it is:

If you are not content single you will not be content married.

It looks so heartless in type, doesn’t it? And something within us balks at such a hard-and-fast statement. Of course, it goes without saying that God can do a work of grace in anyone’s life, no matter where they are or where they have been; He does it every single day. He can take us from disgruntlement to perfect rest in a twinkling of an eye—if we will let Him. Plenty of women have found contentment after marriage, we want to say. They got what they wanted and they are happy. Perhaps that’s true—it’s between them and God. But allow me to gently expostulate: wouldn’t it be better to have our hearts grounded in contentment before they are ever wrung by the pain and bliss of love? Before the uncertainties and cares of life wear us down into thinking that ‘happily ever after’ doesn’t exist?

And whoever said that getting what we want makes us happy? The Israelites got the quail they wanted in the dessert, and, with it, ‘leanness to their souls’. That sounds absolutely dreadful to me. How much better to go to your husband—and one day, your Lord—with arms full of bounty, the rich harvest of a happy and productive single life! This is not to over-simplify a very difficult discipline of a faithful Christian walk. It is hard, I know—actually, it’s impossible apart from God’s grace. And one magic click of a spiritual button somewhere is not going to have you set up for life. Contentment is a lesson we all must confront again and again. Even the Apostle Paul had to ‘learn contentment’.

But the principle holds, no matter how many disclaimers and provisos are propped up alongside it. Because, let me tell you, the waiting does not end once you are married. Ask any woman who has dealt with infertility. Or a military wife who doesn’t know where she’ll be living from one year to the next. Or a couple pouring their very soul’s energy into a church that seems indifferent, hoping and yearning for God’s Spirit to move—or move them.

Somewhere along the way I think this idea has been twisted into the notion that real contentment means we have lost all longing for the desire that made us unhappy in the first place. That’s hogwash, for lack of a better word. ;) (Jeannie has handled this topic beautifully in her Content but not Complete series, and I recommend a regular re-reading of it if you are in a waiting stage…which is pretty much all of us.) It is perfectly possible for our hearts to break with joy and yearning at the same time. A miracle, yes, but all things are possible with God. He takes our surrender and transforms it into a threshold of true fulfillment.

A contented, grateful, happy heart is one of the best gifts that we can give to our husbands. It is a critical foundation block of a heaven-on-earth marriage. A woman who has found the freedom to be at peace with God’s plan for her life also frees her man from any of the selfish ambitions that are a by-product of discontent. He is at liberty to face the future with her, hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder, knowing that when the battle of each day is done he will always have a heart that he can trust in waiting for him at its close.

Preparing for Marriage, Part One

I received an email some weeks ago from a dear younger sister approaching marriage. It was peppered with question marks, sincere queries from a woman that truly wants to be the best wife that she can. As I read them over, I thought how blessed her future husband already is to have a girl so desirous of fulfilling God’s potential as his mate. Her attitude, far from a self-righteous sense of ‘knowing it all’, was humble and honest and teachable towards God. I sincerely wonder if there is a more valuable trait in a woman about to be married—I can only think that the Lord will be able to do beautiful things indeed with such a cooperative heart.

I’ll admit, her questions overwhelmed me a little. They were so broad, so pointed: What was the one thing you were least prepared for in marriage and wish now that you would have known? What surprised you? What’s one thing you would tell any bride-to-be to help her as she prepares for marriage? I smiled over my limited perspective of 7 years, 9 months and 2 days—a baby compared to so many other married women I know and admire. And I knew that any response I could formulate would but barely scratch the surface. But in my head I heard other girls asking me the very same things since I’ve been married. I heard myself not too many years since asking them of my friends who married before me. If I had her—or any of you—sitting here on my front porch, rocking lazily to and fro and sipping iced tea, with all the time in the world to chat, I would have ever so much more than ‘one thing’ to say…Natalie knows what a chatterbox I am! ;) Even a series is inadequate…but it’s a start. So grab your iced tea and pull up a rocking chair!

If you’re not engaged, or even close to it, please don’t move on to your next bookmark or feed! :) So much—I’d venture to say almost all—of the sisterly advice my heart is brimming with can be of use well before your intended ever shows his face, if only in the realm of your ideals. If you aspire as a girl towards a Christ-centered, fulfilling, dynamic marriage, your values will grow in that direction, as a plant towards the light of the sun. True love and beautiful marriages really do exist. And the dreams God allows us to dare to dream in our girlhood are, I believe, where such marriages are born.

That’s not to say the course ahead will run smooth by any means…I think the Bard had some wise words on that account. ;) But it’s worth it. It’s worth it to have faith in something so beautiful that only God could have thought it up in the first place. It’s worth it to learn to wait on Him and hope in Him and to find, after all, that He is the Lover of your soul. It is worth it—all the longing and disappointed hopes and even heartache that may lay before you—to be able to one day stand before the person you love best in the whole wide world, wearing a white dress and veil, and to look up at him and say, ‘I have waited for God and I have waited for you.’

Gretchen and Natalie have spent an enormous amount of time compiling and cataloguing the index of Courtship Stories. They didn’t do it to breed discontent, or to give the married girls a chance to brag. They did it to ‘direct our eyes to the First Love’, to keep us in remembrance that the ‘best maker of marriages’ has an endless store of blessing to bestow—and equally infinite resources of creativity with which to confer it. Even if you have all the testimonies memorized, take a glance through them this week and see if you are not struck with the fact that not one of them looks like any of the others. Any more than I look like any of you. Or vice versa. God has not run out of ideas. He has not run out of dreams for his precious children: I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.

So that’s my first piece of advice for a good marriage: Believe that it exists in the grace of God. Believe that God intends for you to be married unless you have a very specific calling otherwise. Believe that it can be a ‘dream come true’ of oneness and closeness and fellowship and downright fun! And remember that it is worse than pointless to try and figure out how God is going to unfold your story. I’ll be honest and say that my sweet husband is really closer to what I dreamed of as a 16 year-old than what I allowed myself to hope for as a jaded 23 year-old. But never in a million years could I have imagined how God would bring a man of his stature and caliber into my life—from the next town over, no less!

Every point has its counterpoint. Taken alone, this first bit of ‘advice’ can be dangerously construed into a ‘God-is-going-to-give-me-everything-I-want-because-He-loves-me’ kind of doctrine, and that’s certainly the last thing I would ever espouse. But hopefully in the weeks to come I can give a somewhat balanced perspective on my favorite topic! ;) And if you have any questions of your own, feel free to send them my way via comments or email and I’ll see if I can address them in this series.

Who not to tell?

Recently a reader and I exchanged rapid-fire dialogue on a topic that seemed "of sufficiently general interest" to post. If you disagree, well, come back tomorrow. :-) (The reader's text is in italics and mine (Natalie's) is plain text.)

Your "Letter to a younger sister" was very good, but I have to admit that I have shared at length with a dear sister in Christ, my un-requited like/admiration/attraction for a certain gentlemen, and through talking and praying about it with her, it has helped me a great deal through the years. My parents do know, and I've talked with Mom quite a bit about it.

What is your explanation for not sharing one's pain with a close friend who one trusts implicitly? Please help me understand what you mean. Do you think it should be a general rule? Why exactly? (And I don't mean, giggling and going over all his good points...I mean true anguish of the soul-please-pray for me-I can't get him out of my head...)

I hope you don't mind me asking, I have been greatly blessed by many of your writings and this one point you've written about a couple times puzzles me.

When you say, "I mean true anguish of the soul" my heart clenches in empathy. I am not far removed from days when the emotional pain grew so intense that I could not stop the tears. Actually, emotional pain does not stop in courtship! But as concerns this brand of soul anguish...yes, I remember. Sometimes actual physical pain comes, the heartache is so strong. This is no small trial.

I am not qualified to lay down a general rule; this is one young woman's perspective, so if it is a rule at all, it is one she lives by because of experience and the guidance of others. Before letting girlfriends know about an attraction/admiration for some young man, what about searching your heart?

Do your parents and/or a godly older mentor know your thoughts? Are they in tune with your heart and able to hold you accountable? If their advice and a girlfriend's do not line up, what will you do? What is your purpose in sharing? Aside from your own needs, will your sharing risk any harm or be a less-than-loving act for the hearer? Do all your words honor the person you admire? Has the hearer earned your trust?

It is quite a different thing to share with one confidant than to share with all your girlfriends--and the motives in your action are the key. I would still recommend sharing with someone who can be in more of a mentor position--older, with more wisdom--than a peer. But it is not a blanket statement that can be applied in all cases.

Does that help?

Thank you. It does help a great deal in understanding what you meant. It would seem from many things I've read that you and Gretchen are such confidants? Very sweet.

Yes we are. She has withstood years of my heart agonies!

So how different would you compare infatuation with being in-love??

These short answers are no way intended to be comprehensive, but as a brief answer....love is not a feeling of admiration, "like" etc. Infatuation is. There is nothing wrong with infatuation when it is for someone you are in a committed relationship with. But in and of itself, it is not enough. Love is a choice that must be made carefully....only after it is made can you let the feelings have free reign--and my do they want to! They want to be first, and not wait their turn.
Voddie Baucham's definition of Biblical love is excellent: "Love is an act of the will, accompanied by emotion that leads to action on the behalf of its object."

Just an additional note...there is nothing inherently sinful about admiring someone--I just know that I have most of the time regretted sharing that admiration/like with others besides a close mentor. It's just wise to exercise much caution--and it is very hard.

The Perfect Match

As a teenager, my only criteria for my future spouse was that he be a man of God, and taller than me. Not a lot to ask, unless you consider that at 5’8½” I was taller than over half the young men in my acquaintance! For some reason I felt it was right and proper and nearly essential that the husband lead – in altitude as well as everything else! As far as other traits were concerned, I believed firmly that if ‘he’ was in a right relationship with the Lord, despite differences in personality, background, and convictions, we would be able to blend into a good match.

I was 19 when my family began attending a new Church fellowship. All the other young men in my immediate acquaintance had been assessed and found lacking (both in height and maturity). This provided a great opportunity to see what else was out there! Unfortunately it was a relatively small fellowship and the pastor’s eldest son, who led worship every Sunday, was the only possible candidate, and he was almost an inch shorter than me! Thankfully, I was not overly preoccupied with finding a mate, and life went on for the next several years full of growing experiences and good, single-minded activities.

At the age of 22, romance came into my life for the first time. A man asked permission to court me, and with my parent’s counsel, and the Lord’s guidance, I felt led to accept and we began forming a relationship. He was not the ‘type’ of guy I thought the Lord would bring me – for one thing, he was short! But the Lord spoke to me through I Samuel 16:7

“Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature…for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.” And soon I learned to love this man for his heart, and not to give too much weight to the things man usually put so much emphasis on. After a few short months, however, it became apparent to all that the Lord’s purposes in this season had been fulfilled, and the relationship was ended. That was a very painful time for me, yet I had learned an important lesson. I had experienced the beauty of agape – unconditional love. I was now more convinced than ever that whoever the Lord brought for me as a mate, He would also provide the grace for me to love and respect him – no matter what his age, height, background, or personality. I still secretly hoped that next time ‘he’ would be tall, but I felt that a commitment to unconditional love was the most essential ingredient for a successful marriage.

Then, in 2005, guess who showed up? You guessed it, our pastor’s son! And suddenly I was falling head-over-heels in love with him! No, he hadn’t grown, but I had – I had matured from that narrow minded 19 yr. old and thank the Lord, was able to see the beauty of God’s plan for me.

“Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”

My counsel to young woman asking “how picky should I be?” is not that you should give up your high standards of godliness or purity. But I am pleading that you do not hold any of your ideals higher than the plan God may have for you. Though your list of preferences for your future mate may appear very spiritual - focused on character qualities and Christian convictions, we remain limited by what we can see. Only God knows exactly what type of mate you or a prospective young man will be. We can analyze, make lists of character qualities and background preferences, and even try to decide what kind of personality would be the greatest fit in a marriage, but we remain finite in our abilities to judge. Even in a close courting relationship, it is difficult to get to know someone on the level that would truly reveal what it will be like living with them after the vows are said. My experience has been that as I was open to the Lord’s leading, making His will my deepest desire, He led me into a relationship with more compatibility and fulfillment than I could have ever dreamed. Since my marriage I have been continually surprised and delighted as I have discovered what a gift God has given me in my husband.

We can and should look wisely at a prospective gentleman with certain criteria, but make sure the Lord leads you as you make any judgments. A few points I would consider -

1. Look for fruit in his life. Look for faithfulness, responsibility, diligence. These qualities are more important than physical possessions, accomplishments, or diplomas. Does he have friends who trust him? Have you observed him face a trial without compromise? Do you see him making wise choices now?

2. Do not rely on your own judgment entirely. How do others think of him? Do his parents trust him, his siblings respect him, his friends and acquaintances enjoy his company?

3. Who are his friends? Are they people you could respect and trust? Does he have a good relationship with his pastor and other authority figures in his life? And do his relationships go beyond surface level?

This is not meant to be an exhaustive list – I only wanted to give an example of some open minded questions you can ask when assessing a young man.

Can I promise that he will turn out to be the man of your dreams? No, but that is where unconditional love comes in. As you grow in your knowledge of who he is inside and out, begin the habit of accepting and choosing to love him just as he is. And there, I believe, is the secret to the perfect match.

In my finite, immature wisdom, I never could have come up with the exact character, personality, habits, and background of my ideal mate. But God, in His infinite wisdom, did. Let Him mold your dreams! I’m so grateful that he gave me the grace to marry someone who wasn’t perfect, yet to see my husband as God does – Perfect for me!

- Trina Holden, July 2006