This morning at the breakfast table I looked over at Elizabeth, who was intently studying an upside-down cash register receipt, and I had the thought, “This is like having breakfast with Jesus Christ.” Of course! She’s part of Him, 1 Corinthians 12:27.
The specifics?
1. Elizabeth loves me, enormously.
2. She would lay down her life for me.
3. She intends to speak only the truth to me.
4. She wishes only my good and my happiness, both here and in eternity.
5. To that end, she encourages me to be loving to all, courageous, fair, truthful, righteous, forgiving, self-controlled, — in a word, Christlike; and also, kind to myself;
6. She’s also funny, witty, wise, and endlessly interesting;
7. She’s also delicious to enter the silence of worship with, or the silence of sleep, and no doubt also the silence of eternity, holding hands with me.
among Friends 
February 15, 2011 at 9:49 am |
What a wonderful message this was! Thank you!
February 15, 2011 at 7:43 pm |
Thank you for this, Marshall!
It gives me particular pleasure to hear this from you, knowing that you know Elizabeth, so that she’s not just some faceless person to you, some generic wife that a distant Quaker blogger sang the praises of!
I’m hoping that the two of us will someday be able to meet you in person.
February 15, 2011 at 10:41 am |
This reflects my belief that spouses are each other’s redeemers.
February 15, 2011 at 8:32 pm |
Sadly, spouses so often become each other’s devils that they become blind to the possibility that they could be each other’s redeemers! Think of it! “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the beloved, created in God’s image, into the likeness of creeping things….” Sound familiar? It’s called dumbing down, and projection of our own “shadow” onto the other. Patanjali (Yoga Sutras ii.34) advises us to think, before we cherish the thought of hurting anyone, that such things bear fruit endlessly in suffering… and ignorance. But all this darkening of consciousness can be reversed!
February 16, 2011 at 7:56 pm |
John, clearly you are not speaking of your Elizabeth, but I WAS speaking of my Mary. Spouse = redeemer. If not, then “spouse.”
February 17, 2011 at 10:40 am |
I’m sorry, friend Ken, to have misunderstood you.
I hope you’ll understand my felt need to speak to my readers, many of whom do not have relationships as untroubled as mine with Elizabeth, about the option of asking the Lord’s help with healing them. I look back on what I wrote and now wish that I’d put that more plainly.
February 17, 2011 at 10:53 am
I appreciate your replying a second time. Sometimes I think I’m speaking plainly and, when I’m asked to look back at my words, realize that they may not have been as plain as I intended. Apparently, we are both blessed with redemptive spouses.