Michele Huey's Blog: God, Me, and a Cup of Tea, page 44

Goodreads giveaway

Dear readers,

I’m giving away three paperback copies of my newly re-released book The Heart Remembers on Goodreads. You can enter the giveaway  by clicking on “Enter Giveaway” in the sidebar. The giveaway ends Aug. 15.

In the Waiting Room

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Wait on the LORD; Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the LORD. – Psalm 27:14 (NKJ)

The phone rang one Monday evening a few years ago while my husband and I were having a late supper. It was our youngest son, David.

“I’m on my way to the hospital,” he said. “I broke my arm playing first base.”

My heart sank. After enduring shoulder surgery and months of physical therapy a year and a half earlier, David, a pitcher, had worked hard to get back in form. The coach for his summer league team had been playing him on first and third bases for the games between his starts, planning to use him on the mound for the must-win games.

“Was it his right or left arm?” I asked my husband after he hung up.

“I don’t know.”

The news stunned him so much he hadn’t thought to ask.

Nearly three hours later, David called back. The bone just above the wrist on his left arm – not his pitching arm, thank heaven – was broken clear through and was out of place.

“I have to come back to the hospital tomorrow for surgery to put the bone back in place,” he said. “I might need pins.”

After we hung up, I packed my bag for the next day with plenty of reading material, a crossword puzzle book, fruit, and bottles of water and juice. I knew from experience it would be a long day sitting in hospital waiting room. There was nothing I could do but wait for the outcome – and worry how we would replace the income from his summer construction job, which he’d just started three days earlier.

Now, instead of playing in the big tournament or putting away money for school, he’d be nursing a broken arm, waiting for it to heal in time for fall ball.

“Well,” David said on the way to the hospital, “I can still work on strengthening my legs – and I can still throw with my pitching arm. I’ll get a bucket of balls and toss them to keep my arm in shape.”

Another setback. More waiting. More time is spent in life’s waiting rooms, I think, than on the field of play. Like the psalmist, I often cry, “How long, O LORD? How long? Will you forget me forever?” (Psalm 13:1).

I don’t like being benched in a waiting room, but I’m learning to deal with it – and with the disappointment, confusion, frustration, and anger that accompany the waiting orders. Oh, the emotions aren’t as intense as they once were, but still they pop up, undermining the faith that’s the foundation of my life: “Do you really believe God protects you and those you love? Maybe you didn’t pray enough. Maybe it’s all a lie.”

That’s when I pull out my finger-worn Bible and do my faith-strengthening exercises. I like Psalms for low-faith times because the writer plumbs the depths of emotions that we, too, experience. Voicing his anguish and looking for answers that seem too long in coming, he reaches a turning point, where his questions collide head-on with faith: “But I trust in your unfailing love; and my heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing to the LORD, for he has been good to me” (Psalm 13:5–6).

Maybe waiting time isn’t wasting time, after all. For the lessons learned in the waiting room and the work God does in us while we wait are much more valuable than the answer we think we should have. For the harder a thing is to attain, the greater will be the triumph.

When the questions are hard and the answers don’t come, when my faith falters and my beliefs grow brittle, remind me, Lord, that it’s in the waiting room that faith grows best. Amen.

Read and meditate on Psalm 13

(c) 2017 Michele Huey. All rights reserved.

The Heart Remembers re-released

Same wonderful love story, but with a new cover and a new publisher (me, now an independent author-publisher).  Available in Kindle and paperback. Click on the image to order your copy.

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Let love and faithfulness never leave you; 

bind them around your neck, 

write them on the tablet of your heart. 

~ Proverbs 3:3 (NIV)

Forty years after meeting, falling in love with, and marrying Dust Off pilot Seth Martin then losing him when he’s declared MIA during the Vietnam War, Evangeline “Vangie” Martin decides it’s time to move on. After having him declared dead, she heads to a mountain resort for her fortieth high school reunion, hoping to reconnect with her high school sweetheart. But fate has other plans. The resort caretaker is none other than her Seth, but with no memory of his life before being shot down. When he refuses to acknowledge his true identity, Vangie must make a decision: If she is to have the love she’s waited for so long, she must forget the past and accept Seth as he is now. But can she?

Reviews

“Wow! What a enthralling story by a most talented writer. The authors retelling of the Vietnam era, is so surreal, I felt like I was there, I even covered my head and ducked as the bombs exploded. The story is filled with suspense, compassion, and inbounding love. I find myself, still wishing I was going home to read this book. It is hard to find another read that is so engrossing as this one. It is one that you do not want to miss. I highly recommend this book to everyone.” – Amazon review by deha

“From the first sentence to the final words etched in granite, The Heart Remembers by Michele Huey grabs the reader and won’t let go. I can heartily recommend this incredibly well written, researched, and crafted novel about the Vietnam War, about love lost and remembered, about family and faith, and about never giving up hope.

Told in two parts, in two continents and in two eras, the first part rockets the reader into 1970 Vietnam’s PTSD generating war zone. The story pumps adrenaline through the reader’s body, and pummels war’s sights, sounds and stench into the mind. This must read book will not disappoint the reader seeking an action packed novel, nor will it disappoint the reader looking for a suspense riddled romance.

Told in the first person by nurse, Evangeline Blanchard, her tour of duty thrusts her into a bloody OR and dives her into a bunker beneath exploding rocket bombardment. She meets hero Seth Martin, a helicopter Dust Off pilot who romances her through hilly Vietnam’s gardenia dotted countryside, but leaves her fretting with each rescue mission. Will the sparks flying between these two, burst into love?

The second part opens in the year 2007 as snappy dialog between retired nurses Vange Blanchard and Michaelena Molinetti pepper the drive along I-80 to a class reunion. As these two best friends speed through the green hills of Pennsylvania to a peaceful cabin along the Clarion River, the past collides with the present. Among Cook Forest’s old growth trees, along the peaceful river, opportunities for love flow their way. Will their once-in-a-lifetime-love find them or will they leave their reunion, alone . . . and lonely?

 Michele Huey’s debut novel will keep you reading, cheering, nail biting, laughing, crying, rooting, and even praying for the characters to find their happily ever after. I give this novel five stars!” – Amazon review

Travelin’ Together

 

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If possible, so far as it depends upon you, live peaceably with all. – Romans 12:18 (RSV)

Early in our marriage, Dean and I rented a canoe and set out to navigate the Clarion River. Although my husband was more familiar with using a paddle than I was, I ignored his directions and paddled the way I thought I should. The result was our canoe, instead of cruising down the river, went around in circles.

Good thing I took note of the lesson I learned that day (work with each other, not against each other) because over the past 43 years, I’ve needed it – through raising three kids, building a do-it-yourself house, changing jobs, and losing both sets of parents. But nothing, not even that canoe trip, challenges our relationship more than a road trip together.

Dean does the driving, watching traffic and road conditions, while I read the map and road signs, letting him know where the exits we want to take and the rest areas are. While he depends on me to play the role of navigator, he doesn’t appreciate it when I help him drive, such as pointing to the car ahead and shouting, “Brake! Brake!” Or flinching or gasping when it looks as though that tractor trailer is too close.

I’ve learned that if I want my marriage intact at the end of the trip, it’s better, when my navigating skills aren’t needed, to keep my nose in a book or magazine and not on the speedometer or traffic.

Just as we had to learn to paddle together when we went canoeing as newlyweds, we’ve had to learn to travel the road of marriage together. We haven’t always been in sync with each other. Sometimes I paddled one way and he another, an, once again, we ended up going around in circles.

After more than four decades, I’m still learning that “he who keeps his mouth and his tongue keeps himself out of trouble” (Proverbs 21:23), and that a soft answer does diffuse a tense situation (Proverbs 15:1). I still fight attitudes and feelings that could easily put us on the wrong road – Selfish Street, that leads only the town of Heartache.

“Make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification,” St. Paul wrote in the first century. Those words are especially needed in the home, where I long to let my hair down. It’s hard being nice all the time. Sometimes I don’t want to be nice. I don’t want to say the words or do the thing that makes for peace. I want to be mean, to retaliate when someone hurts me, to have the last word. But I know such actions lead only to more strife.

“As far as it depends on you” means I’m responsible, not for what he says and does, but for my own actions and reactions. It means keeping quiet when he tries a new route to see if it will save time but it adds it instead. It means biting my tongue and saying something positive through missed exits, wrong turns, slow pokes, blind drivers, and time-consuming detours.

“It’s better to live in a desert than with a quarrelsome and ill-tempered wife,” Solomon wrote in Proverbs 21:19. I don’t want to be a wife whose nagging is “like a constant dripping on a rainy day” (Proverbs 27:15). I’d rather be the wife of Proverbs 31, who brings her husband good, not harm, all the days of her life (v. 12).

[image error]Dean and me, hiking the trails at Great Smoky Mountain National Park, October, 2014

Lord, help me to be the wife my husband needs so that he can be all You plan for him to be. Enable me to be a true helpmeet. Amen.

Read and meditate on Romans 12:9–18

(c) 2017 Michele Huey. All rights reserved.

On Disappointment and Hope

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And hope does not disappoint us . . . – Romans 5:5 (NIV)

In his book Disappointment with God Philip Yancey tells the story of two men: a young seminary student named Richard who burns his Bible, his textbooks and all his Christian books after an intense struggle with disappointment; and Douglas, a psychologist who turned down a lucrative career to launch an urban ministry and faced a life of trial after his wife was diagnosed with cancer and a car accident left him nearly blind. I bought this book more than 20 years ago in an out-of-the-way bookstore while on a visit to my brother during a time when I, too, was struggling with disappointment. It was probably the lowest time in my life, when the future was a big question mark and everything that meant anything to me, from faith to family to career, seemed to be slipping away. A time when God was silent and I wondered if He even cared to stop my fall into a hole that seemed to have no bottom.

On that getaway trip, though, God was so real that everything I touched, read, and experienced had GOD written all over it—including Yancey’s book. Because the disappointment I was feeling was bitter, deep, painful, and hope-sucking, that book was a lifeline.

A dozen years later, I endured another period during which God was silent, the questions were plenty, the problems were getting deeper, and no answers were on the horizon. I prayed to get perspective, but I remained in a fogbank. Once again, disappointment tainted my days.

But I wasn’t having a crisis of faith. My faith was sure, firm—then and now. It’s my backstop against the wild pitches life hurls at me.

What I experience during these times is a crisis of hope. I don’t want to hope. I don’t trust it. Hope leads to disappointment. Wouldn’t it be better, I reason, to hope for nothing, expect nothing, and deal with whatever comes when it comes, whether it’s a delightful surprise or a discouraging setback?

Perhaps I hope too much, put too much stock in the future, in plans and dreams. Maybe I haven’t really learned to live. Perhaps life is like going on a trip, with the destination known but the route and the time it takes unknown – watching the scenery, enjoying the detours, stopping at a scenic overlook, or buying fresh fruit from a roadside vendor; not being concerned about the gas mileage, whether or not I’m making good time, where I’ll stay the night, what I’ll eat, or how much cash I have left in my wallet.

Just lifting each moment as it comes and holding it close to my heart, gently pressing out the love and joy.

As I reread the story of Richard, I thought, “How sad! He didn’t give it enough time.” After years of professing Christianity and experiencing one bitter disappointment after another, he spent a night in prayer, asking God to reveal Himself. When morning came and heaven was still silent, he burned his faith.

Douglas, on the other hand, responded to his crises in a most unexpected way.

“To tell you the truth,” he told Yancey, “I didn’t feel any disappointment with God.”

What? He didn’t blame God or feel betrayed after being obedient and giving up money for ministry, only to have his wife get cancer and a drunk driver ruin his health? Wasn’t disappointed that God didn’t stop it or at least protect them?

“I learned,” Douglas explained, “not to confuse God with life. . . .We tend to think, ‘Life should be fair because God is fair.’ But God is not life. And if I confuse God with the physical reality of life—by expecting constant good health, for example – then I set myself up for a crashing disappointment.”

So where is hope in all this – in the unfairness and disappointments of life?

Perhaps, like faith and trust, hope is a choice.

Will I be a Richard or a Douglas?

Dear God, when disappointment dries up my dreams, give me the hope I need to plant new ones. Amen.

Read and meditate on Psalm 42

(c) 2017 Michele Huey. All rights reserved.

 

The Greatest Commandment

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For the LORD does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart. – 1 Samuel 16:7 (NKJ)

According to The Merck Manual, an online source of medical information, vascular disease is a leading cause of death in the Western world. Arteriosclerosis, commonly known as hardening of the arteries, is a silent killer, as gradually the walls of the arteries, which carry the blood to vital body organs such as the brain and the heart, become hardened and thick with plaque, restricting the flow of blood. When blood can’t get to the brain, a person suffers a stroke. When it can’t get to the heart, a heart attack occurs.

Most of the time, a person doesn’t know his arteries are becoming blocked until physical symptoms, such as chest pain, occur. Often there is no warning. A person may appear healthy and strong until suddenly a heart attack or stroke takes his or her life.

Life is in the blood (Leviticus 17:14), and what pumps this life-giving liquid throughout the body? The heart. Our hearts, however, are only as healthy as our blood vessels.

[image error]Over the past several weeks, we’ve delved into the Ten Commandments, exploring how these 3,450-year-old laws apply to us today. But which of the ten is the most important?

One of the rulers during Jesus’ day asked Him the same question. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength,” He replied (Mark 12:30). Heart, soul, mind, and strength represent the total person: emotional, spiritual, mental, and physical.

Is that possible? Can we finite human beings love anyone or anything so completely?

I know I struggle with loving God the way He demands to be loved. Too much of myself gets in the way. Like the rich young man who came to Jesus and asked, “What must I do to be saved?” (Mark 10:17–30), I, too, struggle with “one thing you lack.” There always seems to be something that gets in the way of total surrender. It might be feelings and attitudes of envy, self-pity, smoldering anger, or resentment. Perhaps it’s a bad habit I refuse to give up or wanting my own way rather than God’s way.

These unhealthy feelings and attitudes, also known as “sin,” are the plaque that builds up in my spiritual blood vessels, restricting the flow of life-giving blood to my heart. Sin is the leading – and only – cause of spiritual death.

According to the Bible, our hearts have been giving us trouble since the beginning.

“The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure,” the prophet Jeremiah wrote, “Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9)

“These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me,” God said through the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 29:13).

What is the cure for our sin-plagued, hardened hearts?

“Rid yourselves of all the offenses you have committed,” God commands in Ezekiel 18:31, “and get a new heart and a new spirit.”

But how? We are powerless to cleanse and purify our own hearts. We must turn to the Great Physician, the Healer of our hearts.

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“Create in me a clean heart, O God,” David wrote in Psalm 51:10, “and renew a right spirit within me.”

“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness,” the apostle John wrote (1 John 1:9).

“I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them,” God promises through Ezekiel (11:19). “I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh.”

Only when my heart has been softened, cleansed, and renewed by the hand of God – only when the sin-plaque is carved out of my stubborn will – only when my heart has been changed can I truly love Him as He demands to be loved. Then and only then, with a changed heart, will I find the Ten Commandments – all ten of them – easy to obey.

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Amen.

Read and meditate on Mark 12:28–34; Psalm 119:161–176

(c) 2017 Michele Huey. All rights reserved. All images in public domain.

The Better Bone

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A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones. – Proverbs 14:30 (NIV)

One morning years ago I gave each of our dogs, Bobby and Charlie, a big, juicy venison bone before I sat down for my devotions.

“There,” I thought smugly as they settled on the living room carpet about six feet from each other, “that’ll keep them quiet and occupied for awhile.”

I sank onto the love seat and opened my Bible to the day’s meditation. After a few minutes, Bobby got up, dropped his bone on the carpet at my feet, and stood over Charlie until she let go of hers. Quickly, he snapped it up and scooted behind the love seat. Charlie was too surprised to growl.

I didn’t want a dogfight in the middle of my living room, so I picked up Bobby’s bone and gave it to Charlie. It wasn’t long before Bobby sneaked out from behind the love seat and, once again, snatched the bone Charlie was chomping on. I took the bone Bobby had left and dropped it in front of Charlie. Catching on to Bobby’s thievery, Charlie left the bone I gave her and went after Bobby’s.

On and on the swapping went, each dog acting as though the other had the better bone. What I thought would make for peace instead became a source of envy and caused trouble.

I, too, battle envy. I try to stifle envy when I speak with retired friends who have the time and money to do things my husband and I can’t do because he can’t retire yet. After I’ve visited with someone who has plush new carpeting, it seems as though mine has gotten shabbier overnight. And it’s all too easy to find fault with those who I feel are smarter, thinner, or more talented than I am.

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Nine of the Ten Commandments deal with our actions; the tenth deals with our inner desires: “You must not be envious of your neighbor’s house, or want to sleep with his wife, or want to own his slaves, oxen, donkeys, or anything else he has” (Exodus 20:17 LB).

Like an acid, envy eats away at my peace of mind, my inner joy and contentment, and my relationships with others. No wonder God tells us to rid ourselves of envy (1 Peter 2:1). He knows what I’m still learning: that love, not envy, is the better bone.

When I feel that tug of envy on my heart, O Lord, help me to be satisfied with what I have, for everything I have is a gift from You. Amen.

Read and meditate on Matthew 6:19–33; Psalm 119:145–160

For further study: Hebrews 13:5; Philippians 4:11–13; James 1:17; Psalm 145:14–21; 1Timothy 6:9–11; Colossians 3:5; Matthew 15:19–20.

(c) 2017 Michele Huey. All rights reserved.

The Power of Truth

 

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You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. –Exodus 20:16 (NKJ)

We were driving back to Pennsylvania after a visit with our daughter in South Carolina when it happened: a red pickup truck came rolling off the on-ramp, crossed two lanes of traffic on the interstate highway, and cut right in front of us. My husband swerved left to avoid a collision, but then we were headed for the concrete divider. So he cut back to the right, causing our vehicle to fishtail. That’s when the pickup hit us.

“I never even saw you,” the driver told us.

Fortunately, no one was injured, and we were able, after giving our statements to the police, to continue our journey home. The red pickup truck was totaled. Although two motorists stopped to make sure no one was injured, neither stayed to give statements to the police. The investigating officer determined the other driver was at fault. His insurance company paid for the repairs to our vehicle, as well as for a rental car while the repairs were being made.

End of story? No.

Three months later the insurance company called and told us a witness had come forward and said that we were at fault, that we cut in front of the pickup and caused the collision. When I paid a visit to my insurance company, I read an amended report that put us at fault, yet we never received a copy of that report. Neither did we receive any further communication from the South Carolina State Highway Patrol. No citation. No fine. Nothing. I called the investigating officer three times to find out what was going on, but my call was never returned.

So where, after three months, did this witness come from? And why, after that long, did he come forward, when there were no injuries and the damage was relatively minor? I knew we were telling the truth. I had my doubts about this new witness. But how do you defend yourself against a lie?

By telling the truth and waiting for it to prevail.

And by praying. During my quiet time, God spoke to me through His Word: “A lying witness is unconvincing; a person who speaks the truth is respected” (Proverbs 21:28 The Message).

“Unscrupulous people fake it a lot, honest people are sure of their steps” (v. 29).

“Nothing clever, nothing conceived, nothing contrived, can get the better of God” (v. 30).

“Do your best, prepare for the worst, then trust God to bring the victory” (v. 31).

After giving our statements again, this time to our insurance company, we heard nothing more about it until December when the other driver called our home.

“This has been dragging on too long,” he said, adding that our insurance company had determined not to accept this witness’s testimony.

When King David fled Jerusalem when his son Absalom rebelled and seized the throne, a servant by the name of Ziba lied about his master, Mephibosheth, the crippled son of David’s dear friend Jonathan, telling the king that his master stayed in Jerusalem to support Absalom. That was a lie so he could get in the king’s good graces and Mephibosheth’s property. The truth eventually came out, and Ziba’s treachery was exposed.

“Sin has many tools,” wrote Oliver Wendell Holmes, “but a lie is the handle that fits them all.”

I still feel helpless against a lie. But I’ve learned that lies may travel faster, but truth sticks around longer.

“Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist” (Ephesians 6:13–14 NIV).

 

When I feel threatened and helpless in the face of a lie, remind me, Lord, that truth will eventually win out. Amen.

Read and meditate on 2 Samuel 16:1–4, 19:24–30; Psalm 119:129–144

(c) 2017 Michele Huey. All rights reserved.

Pickings without Paying

 

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You shall not steal. – Exodus 20:15

One summer day when I was a child, my sister and I decided to pick some cherries. So we hiked to the nearest tree and spent the afternoon in its lofty, laden branches, filling our containers with delicious, sweet cherries. The problem was the tree was in a neighbor’s yard.

When my mother spied the fruit of our labors, we got called on the carpet.

“Where did these cherries come from?” she asked.

We told her.

“Did you ask permission first?”

“No. We thought since she lives alone, and there were more cherries on the tree than she could ever use, we’d just take some. She wouldn’t miss them.”

“Taking something that belongs to someone else without asking permission is wrong,” my mother explained. “You’ll have to go and tell her what you’ve done and pay for what you took.”

Fortunately, the neighbor was understanding and let us keep our pickings without paying.

Stealing infiltrates our daily lives without us even realizing it. We’ve been programmed to take what we think we deserve. We come up with a thousand reasons why we should have what we want. We justify wrong by convincing ourselves that it’s right. We redefine terms to our own selfish advantage.

But whitewashing it doesn’t change it. Stealing – no matter the reason, no matter that what we stole was, in our opinion, “insignificant” – is sin, and sin is an impenetrable wall that separates us from God.

“But I just ‘borrowed’ it. I was planning to return it,” we reason. Borrowing is fine if we ask permission first. While we’re borrowing it, we’re robbing the owner of the opportunity to use what is his. What happens if what we borrow gets lost, stolen, or broken? Then it’s our responsibility to fix it, replace it, or pay for it. And we’re not to be cheap in making restitution, either.

In the Old Testament, if a man let his livestock stray into another man’s field or vineyard, then he was to make restitution from the best of his own field or vineyard. If a man stole one animal, he was to pay the owner back with five (Exodus 22:1).

In the New Testament, the rich tax collector Zaccheaus told Jesus, “If I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount” (Luke 19:8). We’re not to be cheap in making restitution. We’re to repay with generosity and quality, even if it means we must sacrifice.

Material possessions and money aren’t the only things we can pilfer. We can purloin another person’s time, ideas, and words.

Stealing means not only taking something that doesn’t belong to us, it also means not giving someone what is due him. We rob God when we don’t give Him back a tenth of what He’s given us (Malachi 3:8–10). We steal from the government when we don’t report all our income on our tax returns. We steal from merchants when we don’t return the extra change we’ve received by mistake. We steal from nonprofit organizations when we don’t honor our pledges.

Stealing is a symptom of something more serious. It is an outward manifestation of an inward ailment, and we can’t fix the symptoms until we cure the cause. In order to stop our thievery, then, we need to examine our hearts and ask God to remove the reasons, which include selfishness, greed, discontent, covetousness, and envy (Matthew 15:19). And then ask Him to give us a generous and contented heart, for as we think in our hearts, so are we (Proverbs 23:7; Philippians 4:8).

Give me neither poverty nor riches. Give me just enough to satisfy my needs. For, if I grow rich, I may become content without You. And if I am too poor, I may steal, and thus insult Your holy name. Amen. (Proverbs 30:8-9 LB)

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Read and meditate on Exodus 22:1–15; Psalm 119:112–128

(c) 2017 Michele Huey. All rights reserved.

Stray or Stay?

[image error]Me and Dean, December 22, 1973

 

Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled. – Hebrews 13:4 (RSV)

You shall not commit adultery. – Exodus 20:14

Hippie wanna-be that I was in the early 1970s, I still chose the traditional wedding vows: “To have and to hold; for better or worse; for richer, for poorer; in sickness and health; to love and to cherish; forsaking all others, till death do us part.”

On that day my heart focused on the “better, richer, health” part of that promise. After all, doesn’t true love conquer all? Three years later our first child was born, and romance turned to reality. For the next 20 years, we struggled with raising three children on one income, building a house, and fighting the usual battles with life. The better became worse, richer became poorer, and, while our general health remained good, our bodies began to remind us that we weren’t getting any younger.

Then, 23 years after saying “I do,” I ran away from home. There were other factors in my decision to flee to my brother and his wife in Alabama, but my intention was not just a casual visit: I asked him if I could live with him. He responded by purchasing me a two-way plane ticket for a nine-day stay.

The morning before I left, I asked my husband to pray with me. In the predawn darkness, we knelt before the love seat in the living room, and I wrapped my arms around him. I visualized holding our relationship, like a wounded, broken bird, in my cupped hands and raising it up to heaven.

“Lord,” I prayed silently, “I’ve done my best, but things just keep getting worse. Make it better. Please. I give it all to You. I don’t know what else to do.”

There were no issues such as addiction, unfaithfulness, or abuse. It was simply that there seemed to be nothing left – no love, only heartache, disappointment, and frustration. We never talked heart to heart.

I spent the next nine days praying, reading, and searching for answers.

“God will make a way where there seems to be no way,” my brother told me before I returned home.

Seven years later my husband and I knelt before God again. This time it was in church, at his request.

“Let’s go up and thank God for our relationship,” he whispered to me during the altar call.

As we prayed together, his arm wrapped around me, and I remembered that dark morning when I didn’t think there was anything left. I was wrong. There was: God. Through His power we were able to work through the issues that threatened our marriage.

[image error]Dean and me on a day out with family, March 18, 2017

Not that things are hunky dory, even now, during the empty nest years and we have time for each other. At times we’re like a couple of quirky, squirrelly old folks. But we’ve learned that love is not only a feeling. It’s also an act of the will.

What happens when passion ebbs, our bodies begin to break down, and the hormones dry up? Modern society would have us believe that we can find fulfillment in pills, watching porn, sleeping around. But that’s not what God’s Word says.

“Honor your marriage and its vows, and remain faithful to one another, guarding the sacredness of sexual intimacy between wife and husband” (Hebrews 13:4).

Honor means to prize highly, to cherish, to show respect for, to treat as precious and valuable. From the romance stage to the reality stage to the revival stage, marriage is a choice, not a fairy tale. If we commit ourselves unselfishly to our spouses, love them as Christ loves His Bride, the Church (sacrificially), then we won’t be tempted to stray – but instead, with God’s help, stay and make our marriages all they can be.

[image error]January 2016

Bless our marriage, Lord. Help us to resolve the issues that threaten our commitment to each other. Amen.

Read and meditate on Ephesians 5:21–33; Psalm 119:97–112

(c) 2017 Michele Huey. All rights reserved.