Each Day is a New Day… 

“We have the opportunity to learn from yesterday and renew our minds, actions and words today that we may look forward to tomorrow.” Juliah Wolfe

A definition of precious, according to dictionary.com, is as follows “of high price or great value”.

How do you take care of a precious gift from the best father ever? Do you honor it, care for it, keeping it in a special place?

Or do you set aside and forget about it? Maybe disrespect or speak harshly to it? You could be taking a chance of losing it.

Let me tell you a short story.

Many years ago when my youngest son was about 14. He built, with his own hands, a small Knick knack shelf, out of scrap wood and nails from the garage. He decorated with paper and labelled the shelves, one with Mom and one for Dad. With an ink pen, he also wrote on it, “You two will always be loved.” Now in anyone else’s eyes it might not be beautiful, scrap wood and paper. But being very special to us. I put that shelf in a special place, out where everyone could see it. Over the years, it worked its way to the laundry room window sill. This place was not particularly special. Eventually, it was hidden. Mind you this was years later. One day, I thought about that shelf, but did not know where it went. I scoured the house. After days of searching, I found it, behind the water heater in the laundry room, covered in dust bunnies and spiderwebs.

God showed me how something so special to me could get lost over time, unintentionally, but lost just the same. He related it to marriage and how we could lose something so precious to us, something that God had given to us because we did not take care of it, or had let it become devalued in our heart. Your spouse may not be beautiful to someone else but is still a precious gift to you. Given to you by God, to care for, to work and grow with, till death do you part.

In John 14:16-21, Jesus was speaking to His disciples, to comfort them before his crucifixion.  “…I will ask the Father, and He will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever. The Spirit of truth….” continuing on in verse 19 “Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.” (NIV)

If you are in Christ and Christ is in you and Christ is in your spouse, what you do to your spouse, you are doing to Christ….

I don’t like to think that when I speak harshly to my husband, ultimately I am speaking harshly to God. God gently corrects me by asking “just who are you rebelling against now?” When I pay attention and listen, the Holy Spirit redirects my thoughts, words and actions. I don’t know about you… I find that arguing with God, trying to justify myself, is not very productive.

Sometimes it is easy, in our anger or bitterness or just plain apathy, to forget that our spouse is a precious gift from God. As we stay close to God, we will be able to take note of our Father gently reminding us to care for our spouse and love them unconditionally, as God has first loved us.