As a woman and a wife, I want to be loved, adored, pursued, and cherished. I believe this is a timeless truth. In the heart of every woman, regardless of age, we want someone to find us desirable and to love us unconditionally. These are God given desires that we are supposed to have directed towards our husbands. My husband and I are both divorced, remarried and seeking to please God in our lives, our home, and for our marriage to reflect the love that Christ has for the church. We say we know how to make a marriage fail from our past track records; creating a successful marriage is what we are passionate about experiencing. We are fully committed to seeking God for success and living out the covenant of marriage with each other. We are eternally grateful that God is a God of second chances, forgiveness, and redemption.
It may sound a bit strange to some, but I want David to love me second; I want to be his number two priority. Most of us want to loved the most. I want to challenge you to rethink this. See, I want my husband’s first love to be Jesus Christ. When he loves Jesus first, he loves me better. He loves me more deeply, more sacrificially than if I am the center of his universe. When David loves Jesus the most, David loves me as Christ loves the church. Jesus gave up everything for His bride. Ephesians 5:25- 30 teaches us:
“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— for we are members of his body. ”
In a “Fifty Shades of Gray” & ” it’s all about me world”, I want to be loved like this scripture, not as the world-at-large teaches. I can’t make my husband love me like this, but Jesus can. Jesus can help keep him loving and affectionate towards me. We pray together that God will keep our eyes fixed upon Him and upon each other. We pray that God will keep our desires for each other alone.The love of God transforms us into the ability to love Him and others the way He does because God Himself is love.
My husband is my biggest blessing short of the salvation and relationship I have with Christ. My love for God makes me a better wife. It is so much better to pray for my husband than to nag and complain. See, David isn’t my first love; he is my second love to Christ as well. Christ deals with me in the same loving way that He deals with David. When Christ is first, other things seem to fall into their proper priorities. The love of God is 1 Corinthians 13 love: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”
This kind of love is the love that satisfies, brings peace, joy, forgiveness, and transforms us into the husbands and wives we are called to be. These kind of marriages can make marriage desirable again. Our marriages should be a testimony to a lost and dying world that God is good, loving and kind. My prayer is that we will fall in love with Jesus again. He made sure you were His number one priority on Calvary. Accept His transformational love today.
Courtnay Aycock