Marriage

(By Michal Crum) It’s all the rage to name your spouse as your best friend. No anniversary Facebook post is complete without the words “and he’s my best friend in the world!” But what if your husband just plain isn’t your best friend? A friend of mine asked me recently, “Is that okay?”

In the past six months, I’ve seen a small backlash against the idea of “spouse as best friend.” But it doesn’t begin to stem the tide. According to my Facebook feed, this world is chock-full of women blissfully wedded to their BFFs. Perhaps the claims will make it true, but what I see in real life doesn’t quite match up. So why is everyone claiming their spouse is their very best friend?

I think it’s just shorthand for “We’re married. And we’re glad we’re married"...

(2008) I received a poem by e-mail this past week and asked its author if she would allow me to post it. The poem is a wonderfully conceived summary of the two paths women choose today. One ends in death, the other in life.

These past few days our home has been graced by my mother-in-law, Margaret West Taylor, who's visiting for the week. As I think about her sacrificial life, I also look around at other women of my own family and church and praise God for their godliness! It's hard to conceive of the full spectrum of leadership these women exert among the sons, brothers, pastors, elders, deacons, and husbands—let alone children and other women—as we watch them lose their lives.

Now then, the poem...

Just saw this ad on Bloomington's CL page and thought to pass it on. Word for word:

Cow catching service

we catch anything from calves to bulls and anything in between dose not matter how wild or how long they've been out have dogs to track loose cattle and panels for portable pens also work and pen cattle no job to big any questions call

Older women ...encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored. (Titus 2:3-5)

A brother in Christ passed this text on to me. It's from Project Gutenberg so it's public domain (meaning copyright-free).

There are many of us who come to the end of the dialogue and are able to say "that's my dear wife!"

Will you be able to say as much when you're my age?

In our wicked culture with the church seemingly determined to hide her light, being blessed with a wife who loves doing the home work and loves her husband doing the away-from-home work is a miracle. But this miracle begins with a lover of a husband who sees the good of this and argues and fights for it, maybe with his wife, but certainly with his friends, neighbors, and relatives—starting with his in-laws. In these fights, it is a great help to have...

How beautiful and how delightful you are, My love, with all your charms! Your stature is like a palm tree, And your breasts are like its clusters. I said, "I will climb the palm tree, I will take hold of its fruit stalks." Oh, may your breasts be like clusters of the vine, And the fragrance of your breath like apples, And your mouth like the best wine!” It goes down smoothly for my beloved, Flowing gently through the lips of those who fall asleep.

I am my beloved’s, And his desire is for me. (Song of Solomon 7:6-10)

Several years ago we planted a bunch of bare root trees including a couple apple and one peach tree. Four years later none of the trees had produced a single piece of fruit, so we were quite excited this spring when our peach tree set well over a hundred little peaches. When I first saw them they were quite small—maybe the size of the tip of your pinkie. Thinking maybe I should do something to protect the fruit, I went on the internet and read that the little peaches should be thinned, leaving one every six inches or so. So up went the ladder and well over half the peaches were pinched off and fell to the ground. The peach experts told me if I let all the peaches ripen, they would be so heavy they would snap the branches off.

A few weeks later, still during spring, I noticed a friend of mine winced and limped as he walked... 

Daniel Meyer provided the link to this Millennial emoting about how his marriage is so good that he and his wife decided they'd keep their love for themselves. That's not exactly what he said, but reading between the lines, you know that's what it all adds up two. Not three.

Here's some of the man's public airing of his and his wife's dirty laundry:

On the eve of the procedure [his vasectomy], there was a sense of anxiety around the house. Not just mine, knowing I was about to undergo a bit of trauma in an area I'd heretofore protected so vigilantly. There was something else. This sense between Amy and me of, for lack of a better word, loss. We didn't have children. And we weren't going to. Ever. It was a serious thing, this. And serious things tend to touch our deepest emotions.

We both got a little sad. A little weepy. My wife, through a few tears, said the sweetest thing. "I know some people have kids because they want to see themselves in their children. But I would have wanted to see you."

Spare me. Why do Millennials take their most shameful private moments and broadcast them to millions? All previous generations of men and women grieved over their...

"Christians today are cringing at God's explicit condemnation of sodomy and are looking for some new place to stand. Desperate to find a sweet spot halfway between "marriage equality" and the Apostle Paul's "degrading passions," we find "gay spiritual friendship" scratches us just where we itch."

To identify as "gay," "queer," "lesbian," or "homosexual" is to declare our rebellion against God Who made us. When we say we're "gay," we repudiate the personhood and duties God assigned us when He created us one of only two sexes, man or woman. It's analogous to a man claiming he's a monkey or cat imprisoned in the body of a man. He refuses the human nature God gave him at the moment of his conception. So it is with the man and woman who say they're "gay"; they refuse to confess the sexual nature God gave them at the moment of conception.

Yes, there are questions we would want to ask those who identify as "gay." Why are you in rebellion? What contributed to your rebellion? Do you see your rebellion as soft or hard-wired? Is the origin of your rebellion tied to anything obvious in your past? Your childhood?

We will ask souls with this besetting sin such questions, and many more. We will be sensitive, tender, and loving. But if we truly love them and trust the Word of God in its revelation of the nature of sexuality, all our ministry with gays will be founded on the hard fact of their rebellion. It is the only solid foundation from which to minister to Christians who claim gayness, and within the church their number is growing. How could it be otherwise given our squeamishness...

After decades of counselling husbands and wives, this short video provided more of a catharsis than "What About Bob." Almost.

Here in Toledo, Municipal Court Judge C. Allen McConnell seeks to perform his duties in accord with his Christian faith...and he says so, forthrightly in the midst of a ruckus caused by his declining to "marry" a lesbian couple. 

As can be expected, many are incensed by his nonconformity:

Although the initial motivation for McConnell's refusal was vague, his subsequent statement not only makes clear the religious motivation for his abdication of duty, but also indicates that he plans to continue seeking some sort of "religious exemption" from performing the duties required by his title.

Please keep Judge McConnell in your prayers. He is not only a professing Christian he is an elder within what appears to be a Bible-believing church...