Jennifer Lopez was interviewed recently and asked if she has figured out what real love is yet. She said her songs use to be about love and romance. Then after three divorces and several break-ups with boyfriends, she sang about heartache. Now, she is not quite sure what real love looks like.
Elspeth recently made this comment on a blog, “Most people are lying when they stand in front of the preacher and vow to stay for better or worse. What’s more, everyone including the preacher, knows they’re lying which makes the whole debacle even worse.” {Elspeth has a great blog HERE.}
Real love is commitment, a vow until death do you part. Marriage is to resemble Christ and the Church. Christ is committed to those who believe in Him forever just as we are called to do with the spouse that we marry, through richer or poor, in sickness and in health, and for better or for worse.
Until she understands what love is, Jennifer will never experience the joy of committed love. Our nation does not keeps its vows. It is a nation of vow breakers. However, we are the people of God and we should not be like the world. We should be keeping our vows come what may.
God tells us wives, "Let not the wife depart from her husband" and to the husbands, "Let not the husband put away his wife." {I Corinthians 10,11} Even if we are unfaithful to the Lord, He remains faithful to us. We should do the same with our spouse.
I have seen too many marriages that stayed together despite adultery and have enjoyed many happy years together. God can heal anything. When you divorce, you are saying that God is not powerful enough to put together what is broken. I tell you, He is powerful enough to put anything back together, including your marriage.
True love doesn't seek to be happy. True love seeks to be faithful. We can remain faithful because God tells us we can, "We can do ALL things through Christ who strengthens us."
I feel sorry for Jennifer Lopez and all those out there who badly want to figure out love. They are searching in all the wrong places and coming up holding the ashes of another burned up relationship. Until they realize that true love is commitment, not emotions, feelings, or happiness, they will NEVER find love.
As Ann Voskamp so beautifully says it, "Don’t let Hollywood define it {love};
let the pages of Truth define it: Romance is a long sacrifice."
Logging you in...
FABBY · 553 weeks ago
I wonder if I really meant it too, but I think we did, because we got married by the Catholic faith 2 years after we married in Las Vegas, Nevada, lol!
FABBY
Susan Taft · 553 weeks ago
Lori Alexander 122p · 553 weeks ago
prov31 19p · 553 weeks ago
Lori Alexander 122p · 553 weeks ago
Jamie · 553 weeks ago
Ken · 553 weeks ago
It is a bit strange to think that people choose who their spouse will be, at least in our world, yet then they are unhappy with their own choice. Their happiness is then defined as more important than their spouses happiness, so they divorce. What they leave behind if they are believers are all the many promises of God and His blessings that come from being a vow keeper, faithful, loving and sold out for Jesus.
Happiness depends on circumstances, and it is not the primary reason we were born into the family of God. We were adopted by God so that we might become like Jesus, the suffering servant, who in the end touches billions of lives for the good. When I seek my own interests over those of the one I chose to love "for better or for worse" it is generally for self serving reasons. Self serving was not the Jesus I know and love.
For unbelievers we should not be surprised by divorce. They have only this life to try to gain happiness. We have an eternity to allow God to create our happiness and joy.
Don't get me wrong.... a Christian marriage can and should be very happy, but that happens only when self seeking and selfishness is put aside so that the two can truly become "one flesh."
Linda · 553 weeks ago
elspethbreathinggrace 46p · 553 weeks ago
As sad as it is, I do believe that the vast majority of people recite their wedding vows with their metaphorical fingers crossed behind their backs.
Interesting the Jennifer Lopez quote. Such a beautiful woman with such a painful track record when it comes to marriage and family.
cookiejezz 0p · 553 weeks ago
Jamie · 553 weeks ago
Ken · 553 weeks ago
I am going to try to tackle your question, but I certainly do not have all the answers on what you ask.
I see some men who seem to be so focused, or perhaps distracted from their wife, by the work or hobbies, just as you do. I think it is in the nature of a healthy man to want to try to accomplish things, build things, and build a nest egg of security. It seems that 90%+ of all things built and created in this world, outside of God’s creations are male made. That is not to say that females lack creativity, but I think the way the male brain vs. the female brain is laid out by God in the womb is for the male to be singularly focused on 1-2 items at a time, and the female brain can run a range of 8-10 things she can focus upon. Hence never leave your children with a husband who is engrossed in his work, a project, or a game as men struggle to do two things at once like most women can do easily. Study the male vs. female brains and you may come to understand part of your answer, and maybe not be offended when you see your husband in such a focused mode.
All that said, men also like to drop whatever they are focused upon and just rest and relax at times. This too can be frustrating for some wives as when they husband finishes a hard day at work he wants to go to his man cave and veg in front of the TV.
Yet, some men, like me, value a relationship with our wife and we make her a primary focus within our many other focuses. I see that in my sons and son in laws, all relatively newly married and they love to have their romance continue and place a big emphasis on a relationship with their wives. Unfortunately, as the children show up, I see far too many wives who take their focus off of their husbands and give their children priority all day and night long. Many husbands begin to feel shut out of their wive’s lives. In my case, it came with four children and a sick wife. There was little time or energy left for me. So I am sure I started placing an even greater focus on the things that could give me satisfaction, when I discovered that my wife would not, or could not.
As the years went by I became highly successful, overly busy, and Lori focused on the kids and her health. I longed for a deeper and more intimate relationship with her, but no matter how hard I tried, she had two mistresses, the kids and a focus on health. I understood this, and created a life of my own within my own home, but what I could not understand is why she kept asking me for a greater sense of relationship, oneness and intimacy, when in reality she was just as focused on what she wanted as was I. I tried doing all I could to please her and show her I loved her, but the timing was not right, or her focus was not on “us” at the time. It becomes just as impossible for a husband to break through a wife’s mistresses as it is for a wife to gain the focus of her hard working husband.
I can only offer this advice to both parties when it comes to trying to gain the focus of your spouse. First, become lovable. Don’t expect that your husband or wife is going to want to focus on a selfish person who is whining or demanding; worse yet complaining about the marriage relationship without making themselves into a gracious, loving, kind, and understanding spouse. What makes Lori’s ministry so powerful is the promise that a wife “may win her husband without a word” by the way she behaves. I often counsel men who are trying to deal with a difficult wife to “first be Jesus to their wife and act like a Christian in everything towards her.” Until we as believers start acting like Christians towards our spouse in a marriage, how can we expect God to bless it? So yelling, snide remarks, unkind words, arguing, being in bad moods need to be confessed to the other spouse, then ask them to hold you accountable for anything that looks like sin in your relationship. Hopefully, given enough time and grace, your spouse will want to play the same tune of being a Christian in your marriage. Once you both are on that page, the rest of the miraculous healing can happen.
Ken · 553 weeks ago
Sorry for the long note, but I now have two mistresses in my work and my children, and one wife in Lori who I enjoy spending time with and having her know who I am, and accept me just the way I am built. We are still both a work in progress, but I am growing more and more in love with my wife every day, and less in love with work and other things. In part, because Lori makes herself lovable and is understanding. She acts like a Christian towards me, and more precisely a Christian wife who makes me want to respond in kind, and kindness. If your husband has mistresses, real or just the job, fight for him by becoming the wife of his dreams. To find out what that means, ask him and tell him you want him to tell you any time you fall short so that you can grow to become someone who pleases him. Most Christian men will follow and do the same with you in time.
We are taught by Christian psychologists that as men we are to try to get into the head and emotions of our wives so we can live with them in an understanding way. I think men should try to understand, but if most women cannot understand another woman, for men this is an impossible challenge at times. Instead I suggest that a wife try to get into the head and understand her husband. Men in most cases are far less complex, but more complex than what many women perceive. All we want is not just food, sex and respect or appreciation. We do want more in our relationships but few wives will try to really get to the heart thinking of their man. So see if your husband will carve out a few times a week to cuddle and share his inner most being with you. Give this process time, but if he can share his stresses, his fears, his dreams and his desires with his wife, then I think you may find the key to unlocking his focuses and in turn his paying attention to you. You become a help meet to him not just by cooking and cleaning, but get to the heart of his being where a wife can be the greatest helpmeet in meeting his need to have one other person in this world fully understand who he is and accept him for who his is.
If you want to know why most men are focused so much on something it has to do with the way their brains are set, and added to this their fears, their desires, and ultimately their sense of failure. Yes, most successful men are driven because the never feel they will ever measure up; measure up to the expectations of Dad and/or Mom, their boss, their children, and now a wife who keeps changing the expectations regularly on him.
Men hate to fail or feel like failures, so if they have one person, the person who says they love him most in the whole world actually understand them and accept them for who they are, warts and sins and all, then this becomes a great foundation for healthy, balanced living. If a husband feels his wife does not understand nor appreciate him, he will generally find one or two other mistresses who will appreciate him, or seemingly where he feels safe, successful and appreciated.