The initial command from God to men who become husbands is that they love their wives – and not just emotionally. Ephesians 5:25 says, “Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it.” Notice that this is not a taking love but a giving love – a self-giving love. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned about God in thirty-three years of walking with Him it’s that He never asks us to do what He doesn’t do!
When my husband died unexpectedly, 3 months and 8 days before our 25th wedding anniversary, I missed his expressions of love terribly. Those expressions weren’t always perfect, any more than mine were to him! Humanity has a way of doing “less than.” But he loved me, and I knew it – and I needed and missed them!
If my Maker, my God, in real fact was to act as a husband to me now, how would that look?
May I give you one example?
The first Sunday of May, 1991, I came in from church feeling emotionally exhausted from dealing with my new “widow role.” Philosophically I wondered how that “widow role” fit in with the scripture I’d discovered in Isaiah 54, “Your Maker is your husband . . .” but I was tired on that Sunday afternoon, and I didn’t want to think anymore; I decided to take a nap.
I don’t know how long I slept, but as I felt myself coming awake I was aware of these words in my consciousness: “You’ll be alright!”
I could hear the wind escalate alarmingly. I got out of the rocker where I was sleeping, walked across the room to the sliding glass doors opposite me and watched as what the news would later call a “just below tornadic storm” ripped across the lake at my yard’s far edge, its center seeming to be on the next street over from my house. I watched in awe as that heavily wooded street laid down its tall pine trees in rapid order so that houses barely visible before now stood in plain sight. As suddenly as the storm came up, it abated, and I opened my door and stepped out to walk around and see what had happened on my street. None of my trees were down, and no damage was visible to the house – a neighbor’s tree had come down on my driveway but my car sat safely in front of my garage. The street next to mine was closed for 3 days while the city harvested the trees that had fallen during that heavy wind. If you look at the newspaper for those days (Columbus, GA), you’ll see that the city actually sent buses out to pick up the residents who needed to go to work but couldn’t drive out because trees were down everywhere.
Hours later, in the evening time, I really “took in” what had happened that day. My Maker, my God, had shown His love for me on a scale greater than my earthly husband ever could have. Little by little we learn that though our roles have changed and our husbands are no longer in their place in our lives, we are not “out there” on our own!
