“Our Daily Bread”     http://odb.org

The Daily Devotions of Greg Laurie    http://www.harvest.org/devotional

Revised from 11/27/2011 by bruce r. mills @   www.Godsmanforever.com

  “Till Death Do Us Part” 

Proverbs 19:14… Houses and riches are an inheritance from fathers, But a prudent wife is from the LORD.   (NKJV)

I  posted this 4 years ago today, as a tribute to my loving wife Madeline…who has truly been longsuffering by patiently putting up with me as her husband for the past 44 years !!  My wife is my best friend…my companion…and a blessing from God, that mere words on a page could never adequately describe…

I am re-posting the revised original day’s writing again, with an even deeper love for Madeline…hoping that the Lord will use this opening scripture and today’s writing to change the heart and life of someone reading it, as it changed my life views about my dear wife forever !!

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Today I celebrate my 44^th anniversary with my wife Madeline… As I look around at young married couples today, with the divorce rates going through the roof…I thank the Lord that my wife and I are still together after so many years…

No one ever said that being married was easy…that life would always be a bowl of cherries, so to speak… A successful marriage (in my humble opinion), takes a combination of love, trust, submission, and yes… hard work at times, to maintain a meaningful and long term relationship with a love that continues to grow stronger over the years…

The Bible tells us that the husband is to be in charge of the household…

 1 Corinthians 11:3… But I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ, the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.  (NKJV)

I have seen marriages fail because the husband demanded that the wife submit to the husband’s unfair or selfish requests…  Marriage is a give and take proposition… More importantly…one should always try to please their spouse before their own selfish desires… Is this easy?  Heck No !!  Our natural desire is to do what we want, when we want to do it… But just like all Christians are to submit to the leading of the Holy Spirit, I believe a successful marriage will more likely be accomplished, if we put our spouse and their feelings and needs ahead of our own…

When I read this scripture several years ago, God used this opening scripture to totally change my outlook on my wife…   If one stops and remembers that their spouse is a gift from the Lord, how can anything the Lord gives them be looked at as anything other than being perfect… The natural tendency as we get older is to gain some weight, start to wrinkle and droop in places, and then have our hair turn gray… For me, realizing that my wife was a gift from God let me look past her aging exterior…and to see a perfect gift from God that I will cherish forever !!

Any gift from God must be cherished; and just as we promised on the day we were married… I _____, take you ______, to be my wedded wife/husband…  To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness or in health, to love and to cherish ’till death do us part.

Heavenly Father, I pray that Your Word about a wife being a gift from You, would touch the hearts and minds of every married individual, as it did for me… I pray Lord, that any married couple going through hard times, would first look to You for direction… And then Lord, I pray that they would humble themselves to putting their spouse’s needs and desires ahead of their own… I pray for this humility for all of today’s married couples…in Jesus’ most precious name and for His sake…Amen…

Blessings in Christ, bruce

P.S.  Happy Anniversary Madeline  !!