Hi, Mel, wish I could be there but I was very honored when Aunt Karin offered me the privilege of writing a devotional for your shower and grateful for Auntie Annie being willing to be my mouthpiece. Greetings also, to all who are there with you.
When I was in Mammoth this summer with the family, it was so
much fun to receive your call that Ryan had proposed.
Marriage is God’s gift to us of a
life-long, best friend.
We all erupted
into cheers of joy, because we love you and Ryan and are so excited for you to
be entering into this union with such a great guy.
I’m going to pass along some wisdom nuggets which I have been so blessed to receive, four things that you can put into practice, Melanie, for the
years that God gives you together, that bring honor to Jesus Christ, from which flows a life of blessing and joy.
1)
Be Ryan’s biggest FAN.
In other words, be Ryan’s greatest cheerleader. Let him know often how much you love him and
appreciate him and the things he does for you.
This sets a protection on your marriage and will guard against a husband
going elsewhere for affirmation. God has
created husbands in such a way that they thrive on significance, and wives, thrive on security. If you are affirming Ryan often, he will only
come to you for it, and he will desire
only to love and serve you, and be your protector. You will then experience that security which
God has set into your heart.
2)
FOLLOW Ryan.
Marriages work the best when one leads, and the other
follows. God has designed marriage
so that the husbands are to lead. When
you are following and supporting Ryan, his significance will go through the
roof. The Lord has given us wives wisdom
for helping our husbands. If we see them
headed down a path we know is not good, we can and should lovingly speak into
it. But in the end, let Ryan lead
you. This will call for trusting the
Lord. Ryan will not lead perfectly and
you will not follow perfectly, because we are not perfect. We are broken. Mistakes will be made, but let following Ryan
and coming under his leadership be what characterizes your marriage. Following God’s design always produces
blessing in our lives.
3)
Live with a spirit of FORGIVENESS
I want you to picture a field of beautiful flowers. You are in it, running towards
Ryan, and he is running towards you. There’s a gentle breeze. The aroma from the flowers is sweet. You almost reach Ryan’s outstretched arms but
right before it happens…you both land in a huge...cowpie, and now that cowpie is everywhere. Yeah, it’s pretty gross, and very messy. This is the reality of life, isn’t it? Because we live in a broken world, because we
are broken image bearers of the One who made us, sin happens. We fall short of God’s perfect righteousness,
which leaves our love broken and faulty, and we land in cowpies. We sin and hurt people and others sin and
hurt us. We don’t love each other perfectly.
I have a great definition of love for you. It’s easy to remember – it’s just three words. You before me. Love is putting the other person first. It’s sacrificing what we need and want, for the good and need of the other. It’s how Jesus loved us,
to redeem us, and repair our brokenness. We are to love this way, too, but, we become selfish and want our way
first. You are going to say things and
do things that hurt Ryan, and Ryan is going to do and say things that bring you
pain. When this happens, be quick to
forgive. Quick readiness to forgive
comes from that wonderful knowledge and experience that we have been forgiven
by Jesus Christ.
Forgiveness has three
parts, or is a three-part contract:
1.
I will not hold the sin against the
offender.
Conditional love only sends a marriage down a
rocky path.
2.
I will not talk to others about it.
Our propensity is to go to others and vent. Instead of covering the sin against us with
the blanket of love and forgiveness, we commit the sin of gossip, and sometimes
slander. We know we have forgiven if we
absorb the hurt and don’t go to someone else with it.
3.
I will not bring up the offense to myself again.
True forgiveness doesn’t rehash the sin and hurt. We don’t marinade in the pain. All this does is plant a seed of
bitterness. We put it off. It’s gone.
When we feel it coming back, we tell ourselves, “Nope. Not going there.”
This is the way God forgives. This is our model for forgiveness. You will need to forgive the same hurt, more
than once and you will need forgiveness, over and over again. Ultimately, all our sin is against God. Our debt is to Him for it. But the good news is that God’s inexhaustible
bank of grace and forgiveness is freely given to us, because Jesus stepped into
our place and paid the price for our sin, so we could experience God’s
forgiveness and so that we might offer it generously and liberally to others as
it's so generously and liberally offered and given to us. There are no enduring relationships without
forgiveness. Your relationship with Ryan
will thrive, if you live with a spirit of forgiveness.
4)
FINISH Ryan.
Uncle Tim and I hadn’t been married for very long. At the time, Aunt Sheryl lived close to
us. Her in-laws had come for a visit and
we had everyone over for dinner. Uncle
Tim and Uncle Skip’s dad were so kind and did the dishes afterwards so the rest of us could sit and
visit. A little while later I went into
the kitchen and saw that the stove was still messy. I had made spaghetti or
something like messy that. Instead of thanking
Uncle Tim for doing the dishes and then quietly cleaning up the mess on the
stove, I let Uncle Tim know he’d missed that part of the clean-up – it was truly a genuine
significance killing moment. But Uncle
Tim is a gem of a husband, and he’s always been quick to forgive my failures
and hurts against him. Ryan is going to leave some things undone, unfinished. You as a wife can love him and help him by
quietly finishing him. If he leaves his
dirty clothes on the bathroom floor, smile and thank the Lord that you have him. Quietly pick them up and put them in the hamper for him. We take away our
husband’s significance when we voice our criticism to them over something so small
and petty. Guard and protect your marriage too, by not
criticizing Ryan’s faults to others. Work out the big things with Ryan. Quietly,
absorb his little idiosyncrasies with gratitude, rejoicing that you have been
given such a great, life-long, best friend, by God.
Fan Ryan.
Follow Ryan.
Forgive Ryan.
Finish Ryan.
Live your life in such a way that no other human relationship compares in importance to the one you will have with Ryan.
Love you, Mel. May
the Lord bless you and Ryan with many, many wonderful years together.
