I Remember When – Relationship Basics!

Relationships are complicated and built upon our understanding of loving one another.  While young our idea of getting along and can be very narrow.

What’s mine is mine and not yours.  As we grow older, we realize our hearts are built for giving…and our hands are for serving.

There are many enemies of a successful relationship consisting of controlling nature, misunderstandings through the lack of listening, plus the ability to communicate clearly.  Anger and impatience also lead to being enemies of a relationship that is pleasant and rewarding.

In a marriage, life begins to happen with responsibilities and consequences.  Awareness and being alert to what God is teaching you to bring the joy of growing spiritually.  Each lesson becomes a lesson of humility and the understanding that God is greater than we can ever imagine.

When we learn to please Him in the way we believe and obey Him.  For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. Romans 12:3.

It is the same in a marriage. During our sixty-six years of marriage, a time came when I asked myself, “What is Love, anyway?” I took my Bible into the basement and sat down, reading I Corinthians 13:4-8. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.

I tested myself with these words and the way my husband behaved.  Then I remembered how he consistently gave what he possessed to others, plus gentleness, concern, being kind. I remembered when he could hardly carry anything, and yet he helped a couple move their belongings. I remembered when he purchased warm coats for the evangelist’s children who had none. I remembered how he loved his children and cherished each grandchild as they arrived.

A life-changing moment. God had spoken.  Indeed, Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. I Corinthians 13:7.

         For the Lord is good; His steadfast love endures forever, and His faithfulness to all generations. Psalm 100:5. My mind and heart did somersaults in new understandings of what love is.

Time passed by, nine decades plus 2 years.  And even now, I know the truth God gave in His Word is the basis for a true relationship — when we adhere to believing in Him.

         “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him. Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.  John 3:16-18.

         And He said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 22:37-40.