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| | Wedding
Ministry by Design
Foundations
for Marriage
A Father's Letter to his Son
You've
heard all the jokes that have been rousted around by the 'unhappy marrieds' and
cynics. Now, in case no one has suggested it, there is another viewpoint. You
have entered into the most meaningful relationship there is in all human life.
It can be whatever you decide to make it.
Some men feel their masculinity can only be proven if they play out in their own
life all the locker-room stories, smugly confident that what a wife doesn't know
won't hurt her. The truth is, somehow, way down inside, without her ever finding
lipstick on the collar or catching a man in the flimsy excuse of where he was
till three a.m. a wife does know, and with that knowing some of the magic of
this relationship disappears. There are more men griping about marriage who
kicked the whole thing away themselves than there can ever be wives deserving of
blame.
There is an old law of physics that you can only get out of a thing as much as
you put in. The man who puts into marriage only half of what he owns will get
that out. Sure, there will be moments when you will see someone or think back on
an earlier time and you will be challenged to see if you can still make the
grade, but let me tell you how really great is the challenge of proving your
masculinity and charm with one woman for the rest of your life.
Any man can find a twerp here and there who will go along with cheating, and it
doesn't take all that much manhood. It does take quite a man to remain
attractive and to be loved by a woman who has heard him snore, seen him
unshaven, tended him while he was sick and washed his dirty underwear. Do that
and keep her still feeling a warm glow and you will know some very beautiful
music.
If you truly love a girl, you shouldn't ever want her to feel, when she sees you
greet a secretary or a girl you both know, that humiliation of wondering if she
was someone who caused you to be late coming home, nor should you want any other
woman to be able to meet your wife and know she was smiling behind her eyes as
she looked at her, the woman you love, remembering this was the woman you
rejected even momentarily for her favors.
Mike, you know better than many others what an unhappy home is and what it can
do to others. Now you have a chance to make it come out the way it should. There
is no greater happiness for a man than approaching a door at the end of a day
knowing someone on the other side of that door is waiting for the sound of his
footsteps.
P.S. You'll never get in trouble if you say, 'I love you', at least once a day. This
is a letter written from Ronald Reagan to his son, Michael. I wanted to share it
with you because I believe it conveys a much deeper message than just
"don't cheat on your spouse". I believe President Reagan's
letter shed's light on a great void in our society today, and that is that there
are too few "real men" in the world. Any husband, at some time
another, will have the opportunity or the means to cheat on their wife, but a real
husband, a "man among men" will never even consider it an
option. There
is a Jack Nicholson line from a movie, where he tells a woman, "You make me
want to be a better man." In many ways, that single line sums up what truly
loving someone means. The day you exchange your vows, you are also taking
a silent oath to, from that day forward, be the best husband or wife you can
possibly be. I
love the bedrock basic truth to the last line of this letter. There
is no greater happiness for a man than approaching a door at the end of a day
knowing someone on the other side of that door is waiting for the sound of his
footsteps. Sound
wisdom, indeed. You have that knowledge going into your marriage. It's up to you
to maintain it. Pastor
Monty Rainey
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