Are you married or engaged?

What your marriage needs to succeed and weather the storms of life is Real Love.

If you read last week’s blog, we talked about foundational habits but we didn’t talk about Love. The reason is that love is an all encompassing topic/subject and cannot be fully addressed in 2-3 sentences.

So today let’s talk about love; the kind of love that holds marriage(s). Wewill talk about REAL LOVE not as the world defines it but as we have come to see and understand it.

Few days ago, hubby and I were discussing about the greatest gift  we can give one another/mankind is love.Love breaks barriers, it’s selfless, sacrifices and still stretches a hand in spite of the hurt.What then is love? Love is so simple that we sometimes miss it in our everyday lives.

•Love is the ability to meet a need in the life of another. For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten son.

• God met the need of redemption in our lives and that’s why we love Him so much!

Let’s get back to marriage –

No matter how much I wanted my husband to love me, it just couldn’t happen! After much ups and downs, I began to release him to God daily – ‘I began to pray daily  to love him through God’s eyes’ and finding ways to help him live a better life. When we sat down for discussions, the conversation wasn’t about my needs alone but also about his needs/dreams too.I began to see myself as an INVESTOR investing into God’s greatest gift to me.

Months passed before any dividend was seen but when the dividends/results began to show, I was struck in awe!

Hubby began to see me as priority, he also began to invest in me even beyond what I did or still do for him. Our love for each other began to deepen, we began to grow in ways we didn’t know we needed to grow. Our greatest joy became seeing the other happy and fulfiling purpose.

Years have passed, he’s still my ‘NUMERO UNO’, our love is growing deeper, we’re enjoying each other’s company and yet comfortable in our space. Am his greatest  cheerleader and he’s mine! No doubt once in a while, the selfish part of us does come out but it’s once in a while and we are permitted to caution one another in love not criticism or force.

Question most people ask is how can I develop REAL LOVE –

• Meeting a need in the life of your spouse.
• Let truth be your standard – naked and not ashamed
• Accountability: Give room to be corrected by one another.
• Time: Spend intentional time with one another
• Share your dreams: Create space for your spouse to be part of your dreams.
• Pray together, pray for each other; this is very crucial.
• Learning process: Give room for mistakes, forgive, learn from it and give yourselves another chance.
• Don’t be God in your spouse’s life. He/She has only one God.

 

Love,

Ngee & Rich       

Founders of Keeping Marriage Alive Initiative

“Will two people walk together unless they have agreed to do so?” Amos 3:3 (CEB).