Do you Know what love is?

 Do you know what love is? Well I do.

Twenty-four years of marriage and it was amazing.  

Yes, it had its up’s and down’s, but we got through them with love and God by our side. But as Martha would remind me THIS TOO SHALL PASS—LIKE A KIDNEY STONE, BUT IT WILL PASS.  Sure enough painful as some of the passages were, God dragged us sometimes kicking and screaming onto the shore. 

Years ago when we lived in Tulsa, we would have my brother Mike and his wife, at the time, Stacy  as well as her sister Stephanie and her husband over to play dominos. We would use M&M’s for when we would have to stop the line, of course we ate more than we used. We had a lot of laughs too. We always accused Stacy of cheating, but she could count the number of dominos and come up with what was left we should have taken her to Las Vegas. Well, that ship sailed, but we had some good times.

When our oldest son, Jonathan, was one he would run down the hall, hit the wall at the corner, stumble backwards before landing on his butt and look bewildered. Being the astute parents we were, first child, you know, it only took a few of these episodes till we took him to the doctor.  We found out he had crossed eyes and needed surgery.  For us this was financially devastating, but we survived, he had seven more surgeries. Love got us through all of these and more.

When my job brought us to Stillwater, we had two more children, with love we made it through. I remember Martha & I would have her friends over I would make pizza for everyone and we would have a blast. Times were simpler then but fun, we even put a mattress in the garage so we could be intimate and not wake up our son. Martha took me for who I was period without fail, I took Martha for who she was period without question. There were times She would get so angry it hurt, but I loved her, and her anger was intense. Afterwards she would not ask for forgiveness from her outburst, I never asked her to but because of my love for her I forgave her. It is what she felt needed to be done, my ability to forgive her was my way of showing her my understanding of what a man needs to do. A man needs to show the love of Christ through actions for his marriage and for his children.  In all fairness, her forgiveness and encouragement of me, her love for our children and her love for God showed me what a Godly wife does.

 Now why did I go through this why did I bring up my wife’s anger, my anger, forgiveness in marriage, because this is how God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit treats us, God will never forsake you, never leave you, he will even forgive you for your mistakes. Without you asking for forgiveness he has already forgiven you, when the bible says if you approach God and ask for forgiveness, he will forgive you. I have found this to be true asking God for forgiveness is not so much for God but for us to forgive ourselves. If you wonder why I believe this read the book of Hosea, what happens there is God telling Israel how he continues to go out and bring them back forgiving them every time.

  That is God’s Love for you and for me.   It keeps no record of wrongs.  It is there without even asking.  One minor catch, you have to receive it.