areliablefaith

Pastor P said something the other day that struck close to home. He said God won’t give you another important task until you have obeyed the last thing He told you to do. For me the common refrain as I cry out to God over the past 3 – 4 years has been Ephesians 5:25 “Husbands love your wife like Christ loved the Church, He gave Himself up for her”.

I love my wife, Lisa, and I have committed my life to her. My vow before God and gathered friends almost 27 years ago is still true – I will love her til death do us part. There is no other woman for me. Yet when compared with Jesus’ sacrificial love expressed toward the church, my love is a very pale thing indeed.  And I have played the “Oh yeah, He was God so of course my love toward Lisa will be so much inferior.”  But somehow that doesn’t wash.  When I get desperate and cry out again the Spirit whispers the same thing, “Dan love Lisa with that redeeming, sacrificial love that Jesus loves the Church with… He gave Himself up for her.”

Almost 3 weeks ago Lisa broke her leg pretty badly.  She was in the hospital for a week.  She had two surgeries and faces at least one more.  And the pain was such that the pain meds only took a bit of the edge off, but never really gave her true relief.  It was over two weeks before she slept through the night.  She is getting better but we have 10 more weeks before she will be able to put any weight on her leg and then an extended period before she will be back to full functioning.

During this time I have been able to see a vast difference in how I respond and act toward Lisa compared to before the accident.  I am ashamed of how independent and detached I really was.  With my beloved in such pain and helplessness, a better more loving part of me emerged to care for her.  Despite the pain we have laughed, cried, and talked more than in the previous year I think.  And Lisa has responded emotionally and spiritually in ways that bless me greatly.  We already look at this accident as a blessing from the Lord.

As I write this blog today I know we are at a turning point.  I am a little tired from performing most of the chores.  I am ready to get some of the things that I want to do done.  I am about to have to go back to work at the pace I usually do.  And yet I know these things as I have practiced them in the past were part of the problem why we had grown distant.  I do not want to go back there.  So this morning I ask for God’s help to do that which I know He wants me to do – to love my wife like Christ loves the Church.  And even as I ask I know He will help me to do this because it is His will for me.