Loving Your Husband and Children

Tradition and Wisdom
Teaching and Learning:
Loving as God's People

Titus 2:1-5

The Message

A God-Filled Life

 ^1-6Your job is to speak out on the things that make for solid doctrine. Guide older men into lives of temperance, dignity, and wisdom, into healthy faith, love, and endurance. Guide older women into lives of reverence so they end up as neither gossips nor drunks, but models of goodness. By looking at them, the younger women will know how to love their husbands and children, be virtuous and pure, keep a good house, be good wives. We don't want anyone looking down on God's Message because of their behavior. Also, guide the young men to live disciplined lives.

For Reflection
During my residency in grad school, my wife and I began to develop new ways of living alone.  When I returned, we discovered that each of us had developed new rules about our relationship.  She discovered that she liked to do some of the things that I used to do.  I discovered the same about me. We began the sometimes difficult negotiation of a new marriage relationship. 

People change.  What does not change, however, is the need to support and accommodate change.

We are much older now, but change is still a factor.  We are not who we were.  Neither are who we will become.

A wife's role in a marriage is not static.  Neither is a husband's.  As we change our roles change.  The only rule is that we act toward each other in love.  A marriage is not a competition, but rather a partnership bound in mutual respect and support.  It requires the sacrifice of self and embracing the oneness of the union even when dissolution is a rational alternative.

Interestingly, an effective marriage relationship is similar to an effective relationship with God.  It, too, requires the sacrifice of self for the union of God and humankind.  A God filled life makes human living much more satisfying.

Pray
for those who's relationship is rocky.  Pray that they will open themselves to God's guidance and comforting support.  Pray that you will be able to accommodate the changes in your life,  Pray that you will listen to the God whispers and have the courage to act on them.