Lessons In Faith, and In Marriage Learned Through Another’s Loss
I’m not an overly religious person. I don’t really even talk about religion and my personal beliefs or of my Christian walk on my blog. But today, I am. With good and just cause.
You see, it ties in with marriage. Love. Faith. Marriage. And I have been able to have the fortune to witness those in actions.
A dear friend of mine on FaceBook and I met in a now defunct group for those that have had any and all kinds of transplants. He is also a cancer survivor, as well as a pancreas recipient. And his wife had been battling different ailments as well.
The biggest blow though, was that they had discovered that she had been found to have contracted cancer. Leukemia to be exact. Along with her other health problems, the cancer grabbed hold tight.
But she and her husband grabbed a hold a million times tighter. To their faith and to God. And of course, grabbed on tighter to one another.
As the days and treatments worn on, she was getting sicker and sicker. Her husband of thirty years stayed by her side constantly as she battled. In the end, he made the ultimate and most loving gift that a man could give to his wife. Peace and rest. No more suffering or treatments.
She passed away this early morning, just after two o’clock.
And even now, knowing he is a Widow, he is still ever faithful. He isn’t angry with God. He isn’t cursing him. Asking why, maybe, which is a natural response. But still, the ever-faithful servant.
In those thirty years, they have had their ups and their downs. But they loved one another today as they did all of those years ago. You could tell it in their voices on the phone. And in their posts back and forth to one another on FaceBook. He looked out for her, and she for him. They were “newlyweds” for the entire time that they were together, and rarely ever apart.
And in the time that I have known them, I have learned a few lessons about marriage.
1. Never go to bed without saying “I love you” to your spouse.
2. Even when I am indeed right, bend a little and meet in the middle. Even if the other is wrong.
3. Don’t be ashamed or scared to show the world how much you love your other half.
4. Even when you aren’t with one another, you are tied at the hip.
5. “In sickness and in health”… be there for them as they were there for you in your hour of need.
6. Marriage is a 24/7/365 commitment. There are no breaks or downtime.
7. Love your spouse and tell them how much they mean to you EVERY day, because we never know if it’s the last day with them in your life.
8. When God feels that it’s time to call your spouse home, know that even though it’s “death til you part” in your wedding vows, it bears NO meaning in real life, because you will NEVER be truly apart. For you are forever joined in heart and in spirit, forever more.
9. God has already planned your marriage from beginning to end. You are just along for the (sometimes bumpy) ride.
10. God is ever faithful, within a faithful marriage when the two are committed to it as one.
In all of this, I hope that myself and my husband are even just half of what marriage is all about. We will be married for ten years in October, and had just celebrated this week, our 12-year “together” anniversary. We aren’t as smoochy and “lovey dovey” as we used to be. And that’s to be expected. But I still think we hold true to most of my ten things. Including still acting like newlyweds (for the most part!), even all of these years later.
We have a special song. One that has stood the test of time. I’m no longer a huge Shania Twain fan. But I still think that the words to the following song ring true.
And for the couple that are still together, although apart because of death, but still together in spirit. For indeed his heart in time, will go on. And as for her, she will be with him, as his faithful and ever-watching angel…
“You’re here. There’s nothing I fear.
And I know that my heart will go on.
We’ll stay forever this way.
You’re safe in my arms, and my heart will
Go on and on.”
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