Marriage
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My name is Jim Newton. I am sixty-three years old or young as I would put it. This is a short article about my marriage. I pray it is or will be the positive story you can write about your own marriage at some point.
I veer as far from the accepted example of a perfect Christian as set forth by our Lord Jesus as one can and still be called a Christian. In other words, I'm a work in progress. But that is what being saved is all about…working at putting on our new selves as our dear Paul stated. Putting that new self on and rejoicing in our new life as a Christian is what it's all about. Enjoying the eternal and enormous benefits of Christianity should be something that brings us great joy, not great consternation. My wife is excited to see the Christian faith spreading over and within me. It makes you a much better spouse which, in turn, improves your marriage.
I look at my blessings from the expanse of many years upon this earth. This perspective gives me a benefit that I did not have in my younger years. I have a much broader sample to work with in my evaluation. Any statistician will tell you the larger the data base group the more accurate the analysis.
Caroll, my wife of forty years, is as beautiful as the day I met her. She has that same warm smile that melted my heart so many years ago. That smile still sends chills up my spine when she greets me after an absence. I can hear that smile in her voice whenever I talk to her on the phone. What she saw in me I do not know. God truly intervened on my part to make this union a reality.
We had a simple wedding with a few close friends and immediate family. Those wedding vows affected me deeply. I had never felt an interest in marriage with any other person before her. As for her, I was fresh out of the navy and half in and half out of college. She was a year away from graduation. I had no visible source of income other than the GI Bill for education monthly payments I received. My father made sure I understood the no-job part when I informed him of the impending marriage. By the way, I did get a part time job to go with the stipend from my veteran's education benefits before our wedding. I'm not sure I would have let my daughter marry a person bearing the financial situation I possessed at that time. Evidently, Caroll saw something in me that my parents failed to see. Thank the Lord that she did find some positive qualities worth exploring through marriage. I was profoundly in love with her then and that love grew immeasurably over the years.
We never really understood nor gave much thought to why our marriage succeeded when others failed or existed in a state of limbo. Until, that is, we rejoined the church ten years ago. The Lord told me it was time to return and we did. He has always directed me in life, and, brother, I've needed some directing. For you new Christians, through education and development in your new faith, you will over time become aware of just how deep his involvement is in your life, and how secure and loved that involvement makes you feel.
So, we joined the church and the spirit moved us to examine the difference between our marriage and the failed or complacent marriages. There was nothing scientific in our examination. The differences stood out like the hump on a camel. We discovered simply that we have always been good servants to one another. We each take great joy in serving one another. In other words, we spoil each other and that spoiling is very satisfying to both of us. The spoiling is not done with money for we have never possessed a great quantity of that material. It is done with simple serving or pleasing one another. We enjoy pleasing each other. I love to open the door for her when we enter a home or any building. We hold hands when we walk. We love doing things together. Yet we have separate interests that we encourage each other in. I enjoy helping her clean the house and shopping for groceries with her, etc…the simple things.
We see so many marriages where the husband and wife go out of their way to be away from each other. They say terrible, belittling things about each other. We have always had a policy of never saying bad things about one another to other people. The Lord knows I have plenty of traits to complain about. I guess you can say we are in love. We looked for commonalities between our marriage and acquaintances with similarly good marriages. The common trait was being a servant to one another and enjoying the act of serving. Please, do not get the idea that we do not have arguments. We have had some good fights, and rarely have gone to sleep mad…I have done that on a couple of occasions, and was punished by not sleeping a wink till we could make up in the morning. We are not perfect… we just love and show that love by serving one another.
We have three wonderful children, two sons and a daughter, our baby. They are intelligent, successful, and hard working, but, most important, full of God's spirit. We have their spouses and six grandchildren (more to come) blessing our growing family. They are not perfect by far, but love conquers all problems. How blessed we are by God, our loving Father.
We have very little stowed away for retirement, but I am always full of optimism and my faith puts a seal of approval on that optimism.
"Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?" (Matthew 6:26 NIV)
I like to describe myself as materially poor but spiritually rich (here, I could be mistaken for a Rockefeller). There are things I wouldn't mind having but will not die if I do not acquire them…like iphones, fancy SUVs, airplanes, etc. I am rich with the wealth one can take with them when they exit this worldly life, the holy spirit. We do not lack any of the basic necessities for a very comfortable life. We look at people in the majority of the world outside the United States and realize how materially wealthy we really are. Actually, we should sell some of our possessions and donate the money to those people living on a handful of rice a day. I am typing this story on a computer that cost me more than the majority of the world's population earns in a year. We are low income only by U.S. government standards.
I never go to bed hungry. I never wear hand-me-downs, I never have a patch on my clothing, I never have to beg to feed my family, I never have to sleep in the open (unless I'm camping and I really prefer a nice hotel at my age), I never had to sell my children because I could not afford to feed them, never have I wanted for any of the basic necessities in life…I am rich materially and spiritually. Life lived with faith in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, is the true wealth.
I suppose I am a Christian Rockefeller of sorts. I possess unimaginable spiritual riches. I pray for God to bless your marriage or future marriage with the great blessings he has bestowed upon us. Remember this: trials, struggles, and arguments can improve the bond between husband and wife if you pray for and mutually work toward that end.
All good things require hard work at times and perseverance. Only by mutually (you should be a team as husband and wife) working to overcome obstacles can you develop the perseverance needed to build a successful marriage and family. You both must possess a desire for a successful marriage and both need to pray for that success. Begin your marriage with the knowledge you will encounter many obstacles, but with a mutual agreement that you will attack those obstacles together to overcome them. If you are in the middle of a marriage, and having issues, you need to sit down and look at why you chose one another as a spouse. There must have been something you both enjoyed about each other. Both partners need to recommit to making the marriage a success. You must find some common ground and build on that. At the same time, you need to celebrate your differences and show an interest in one another's differences. Do not look at those differences as worthless merely because it does not appeal to you. For a starter, learn about one another's differences by listening with a caring attitude. Simply put…learn to care about one another. If you only listen to things concerning what interests you, you are being selfish.
Bless you and your spouse. May your marriage be one of learning together and loving one another at all times. If your marriage is in tatters, may our Lord bring you healing and bonding through prayer and the holy spirit working within you both. It is easy to love someone when all is perfect, but, when you can love someone at their worst, you truly love that person. Who would have thought, love requires effort…the effort of development and nurturing. Caroll and I just thought we loved each other when we married. Actually, that love was developed over time through mutual shared experiences and nurturing by being a good servant to one another.
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