What I Love Best About My Wife Part 1

      

       I hope your day is filled with heart smiles. Before I tell you some very cool things about my wife, let me cover some human experiences that can become seeds of love if you will accept and nurture them. There is a strong possibility that you fall into one of the following categories:

• You may be a wife wishing your husband was fruity enough to express his love for you so the whole world could see it.
• You might be recently divorced and thinking that if your spouse had been more demonstrative with their love, that maybe you wouldn't be divorced.
• You may be widowed and tearfully remembering the love you shared with your spouse.
• You might be embracing a single life and wondering why you would bother to read this. (Please don't stop!)
• You might be a guy wondering how to love your wife in a more excellent way.

Whatever your "love-status,"  whether it's single, plural or a work in progress, you will find hope here for you. There are many reasons why I love my wife. This list is not all encompassing, nor is it compiled in order of importance - it's simply a list.

My Wife Simply Loves Me

Just As I Am

          Billy Graham wrote an autobiography called: "Just As I Am." It's a great book about a great man. I would read it if I were you. My wife loves me just as I am. Yup - all of me - my goods, my bads, my uglys and my in-betweens. I call them my 4 seasons of "Bob-hood." I'm just a simple Bob who wants to give and receive love and sometimes gets selfish. I am no different than Fall, Winter, Spring and Summer. My personal moods and spiritual growth follows a "Four Season Life Plan." My wife knows that I sometimes have to let go, rest, plan and celebrate - repeatedly!

           My wife recognizes my imperfections and doesn't scratch them with a pointing finger. I invite her to hold me accountable in love and in truth. She gives me the comfort of knowing that I can confess a weakness to her and she won't use my confession as a weapon against me. I know that no weapon formed against me will prosper if I'm on God's side. Love cannot prosper when weapons are formed by folks who are supposed to be lovers.

          Loving me as I am requires a great deal of patience. As a simple Bob, I recognize that my love for my wife requires a diligent and participatory effort. Linda accepts what I give and doesn't ask for what I'm currently incapable of giving. She doesn't repeatedly remind me of what she has already requested from me. I think she prays and God takes care of the reminders. Yeah, the Holy Spirit is a great teammate for a spouse!

Ask and you'll be given,
Seek and you will find, 
The spouse with whom you be livin' 
The Holy Spirit will remind!

          Knowing me as I am is accepting my limitations and believing in my potential. Encouragement is one of the most beautiful words in the heart. My wife lifts me up and helps me weather the seasonal changes in life. The heavy burdens on the shoulders of my heart are like snow and ice piled high on our doorstep. She may not be able to remove the burdens but she supports me in so many ways. Her support helps me to build spiritual muscle that enables me to remove the burdens. By accepting me as I am and encouraging me to grow, my life is a limitless possibility filled with potential. My wife loves me just as I am.

          Your life may be in a mode of salvage; desperately seeking ways to save your marriage. Press on, you may have children learning about perseverance. Giving up will cause a rending in their hearts that will leave a heart-scar for life. Do the very best you can to weather the seasonal changes of love. The seasons actively change; love is a verb of action, just do it!

          Your life may be in a mode of mourning. Maybe your spouse passed away a a few years ago or maybe just a few days ago. Winter and Spring are sometimes interchangeable and do not always follow a definite pattern. Winter is a time of rest and inactivity in many ways. In your time of resting in God (Shabbat,) allow Him to plant new seeds in your heart. The love that you shared is the soil where hope will grow eternal. Love in a more excellent way is God's desire for everyone. He knows brokenness. God allows a kernel of wheat to fall to the ground and die before it returns to life. It not only returns to life - it gives more life in abundance. God wants to give you love in abundance. Rest and grow - in Him.

          Your life may be in "scrap mode." Starting over seems to be the best option available. God is a God of "fresh starts." Sow carefully - you wouldn't want to plant a sapling in the shadow of a mighty oak tree. When making a decision on when to give up on a marriage, there are 3 very important things to consider, who wants the marriage to end:

1. If God wants your marriage to end, He will do so to protect you spiritually from evil. If your spouse has done nothing evil, you have no grounds for destroying your marriage.
2. If the devil would like you to end your marriage (AND HE DOES!) he will lie, steal and destroy to accomplish the end of your marriage. Seek the Way, the Truth and the Life for instructions on how to discern whether or not the devil is influencing your decision to end your marriage.
3. If you are making the decision to end your marriage based on your desires - that's selfish. Maybe you think that being married is a hindrance to what God has called you to be - that's usually a lie from the enemy. God uses conflict to help us grow. The greater the brokenness, the greater the capacity for love. You have been made in the image and likeness of God. Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. You are not just you. Your heart was designed for community, forgiveness, and brokenness. Your heart has been endued with a "Resurrection-like resiliency." You may feel like your marriage is dead - maybe it's time for you to act like a kernel of wheat.

          I will tell you more about how my wife and I met next time. There are ways to start over after a marriage, before a marriage and within a dead marriage. Thanks for your time. Go do something nice for somebody. JLYASDW

JJ/SGD/blk

God's Soil in the Grieving Process

          Yesterday I was taking a young guy to his road test when I got a call asking me to help a young lady change a flat tire. It's not unusual to receive calls for help. After 12 years of youth ministry in Buffalo, the word gets out that we will help you when you have a need.

          We stopped and changed the young lady's tire. The young guy with me helped to change the tire. He had lost his brother to violence 2 weeks ago. We had his funeral service 1 week ago. The young lady's brother was killed over 4 years ago. I knew and loved both of the young guys who were killed.When I was a young guy, I didn't know anybody who was killed. Now I'm an old guy and I know lot's of guys who have been killed. 

           Standing in a parking lot with 2 really good young people whose brothers were killed is a sad reality in Buffalo. After I left the young lady with a fresh spare on her car, we drove to the road test. The young man passed his road test, it was a pretty good day. A few hours later in a coffee shop, I had time to reflect on my day. My mood became somber. I realized how eery it was to reflect on the closeness of death, the brevity of life - especially for young guys in Buffalo. Why do I feel like I am surrounded by young folks who experience more than their fair share of grief? Why do I feel like many young people I love are killed before they get a chance to really understand what love is?

          I'm believing for a better future for the young folks in Buffalo. Why? Because many of them are choosing to put God on their side. My wife gave me a shirt for Valentines Day that has a picture and quote by Abraham Lincoln. This is what it says: 
   

  "Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side;

 my greatest concern is to be on God's side,

 for God is always right." 

          I cannot begin to understand everything that happens in life - especially the pain and agony that accompanies the death of someone we love. I do know that the ground has to be broken for a seed to be planted. I do know that through brokenness we are given a greater capacity to love. I let God do the praying through me when my soul is too wrenched in pain to utter anything more that a sob of grief. He understands the unthinkable. He won't let us sink any deeper than a seed that will grow in the soil of His heart.

"If there is darkness in your life, 

just imagine that you are a seed

 buried in the soil of God's heart."

 

You will grow.
This too shall pass.

Romans 8:28

The Message (MSG)

^26-28 Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.

Thanks for your time.

Go do something nice for somebody.

JLYASDW

Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/abrahamlin388944.html#GHc0rPvsDptWiscy.99

Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/abrahamlin388944.html#GHc0rPvsDptWiscy.99

A LETTER FOR YOU (and snitches too!)

Covered in cold snow, another cold stone on top of a cold body.

I hope your day is filled with heart smiles. If there is anything that irritates you, I pray that it turns into a pearl of wisdom. If your life is hard, I pray that your experience becomes a diamond in the making. If your life is a struggle, I pray that you experience a release and fly freely.

I read a story this morning that seemed to reflect the last 2 weeks of my life, well actually it reflected the last 12 years of my life. Maybe the story will resonate with you as well. It's called: "The Field of Blood." As I read the story, visions of deceased young boys and men came to my mind. The words: "Murder, Tears and Bloody Cement" from the title of a CD could be used to describe the sidewalks of Buffalo. There were 3 young people who made music together, Roxy, Rollo and Christian made a huge difference in the lives of thousands of young people in schools all over Buffalo. That was until Chris was killed. He was murdered when he was 14 years old while riding his bike.

The story I read this morning was about a guy who was jealous and bitter. He envied his friend and mentor to the point that he was willing to betray him for money. This was true "snitching." The guy sold information as an act of betraying a friend. The problem was, the act resulted in the loss of life, both for the snitcher and the one he snitched about.

In the streets and neighborhoods of Buffalo, snitching is looked upon as a betrayal, even to the point that it doesn't matter if someone is breaking the law. That's the problem, truth becomes jaded and used as a tool of destruction. Lawbreakers protect lawbreakers and if you tell the truth to stop the lawbreakers, then you are labelled as a snitch. That's just wrong and innocent people die.

The dude in the story was the snitcher. He was given a "reward" by insecure people who wanted to remove the man who was telling the truth. People don't like change and truth causes you to change. These people were in charge and they wanted to remove the "Truth-teller." The "betrayer/snitcher" accepted money from the "treacherous/truth-destroyers." Maybe a better name would be the "snitchees." Their bitterness caused hearts to harden. They acted spitefully. The snitcher betrayed his friend to the snitchees. When the snitcher found out that his act was causing the death of his friend, he began to feel guilty.

Guilt can cause the deepest despair that you have ever known. When the snitcher found out that his friend was going to die, the money he received became like "blood money" in his hands. He tried to give it back but it was too late. The betrayal had already taken place and the truth-destroyers had no desire to take their blood money back. The snitcher threw the money at them and left. He eventually went and hung himself in a final, deplorable end to his bitterness.

The snitchees had to decide what to do with the blood money. There false sense of honor would not allow them to put it into the regular treasury - you can't commingle blood money with religious funds, that would be sacrilegious. They decided to buy a plot of land to be used as a cemetery. The only people that they would bury in that cemetery would be folks who didn't belong to their religion or foreigners as they would call them.

Up until this point, the story is similar to the streets of Buffalo. There is betrayal, hard hearts, segregation, violence and murder for money. The story had a different ending though. The guy who was betrayed had 11 other really good friends, well, sometimes they were good friends and sometimes they denied they even knew him. In Buffalo, if you were murdered and you had 11 or more close friends, some of them would be planning to get revenge for your death. They would be plotting to fill another plot in the cemetery called the "Field of Blood."

The guy who died in the story, died a very gruesome death at the hands of folks who tortured him. He did something unique though. Just before he died, he asked his dad to forgive the folks who were torturing him. He reasoned that they didn't really know what they were doing - they didn't see the big picture. The guy died and afterward his buddies did not seek revenge. They tried to teach and emulate the actions that their dead friend had taught them. They kept their friend alive by repeating the actions of his heart. You could say that their friend came back to life and lived through them.

I learned about bitterness, contagiousness, betrayal and forgiveness from this story. I'm going to ask you to do a favor for me. Could you please focus on forgiveness today? I know what it's like to hurt because someone died. I know what it's like to feel angry because someone murdered someone I love. For the last 12 years I have seen many young boys and men bloodied and bodied. It's almost as if Buffalo has become a "Field of Blood." It's time for truth to take hold of the people in Buffalo.

If you seek revenge for someone who has died, your thoughts alone will cause the death of something inside you. Death by killing is a contagious disease that spreads with each murder. The loss of life extends to those who love you. A father who murders will eventually end up in jail - separated from his children. That's like the death of a relationship. Do you honestly think your children would be proud to write an essay on "My Dad the Killer." The infestation of killer's disease will seep slowly into your children and they will eventually succumb to it's insidious spread in their soul. They probably will end up as a killer like their dad. Won't you be so proud then. I am as mad as you are at the loss of another young man who I loved as a son. There is a better way to deal with anger, a way that would be good to pass on to your children.

I'm going to keep the guys who have died in my heart - ALIVE! I will do it by remembering them through acts of love and serving others. If I remember somebody by committing a murder than my love was not really love - it was infatuation with a flawed idea of loyalty. If I really loved, then I will show love by repeating and duplicating love. I will love with everything in me - my whole heart, my whole soul, my whole strength and my whole mind. I will try hard to forgive. Is this easy? No but it can be done, it has been done by others and you can do it to. Think about others who will speak at your funeral. Will they struggle to find nice things to say about a killer? OR, maybe they will say he or she was a fighter who lifted the weights of murder off their shoulders and grew strong through trying to forgive. What do you want people to say at your funeral. Go and be the words that you want them to say.

You may not be a praying person but I'm going to ask you to help anyway. If you don't pray, just try and think of forgiving thoughts and focus on how you can show love in tough situations. If you are a praying person, I'm going to ask you to fast and pray for and end to the segregation and violence in Buffalo.

Thanks for your time.
Go do something nice for somebody.
JLYASDW

JJ/SDG:blk