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This article is from Today's
Native Father, issue #105, September/October, 1999. Related articles
from this issue: |
Staying Faithful to
Wedding Vows A letter to mothers by Ilva Hertzler |
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I I recently heard the inspiring story about a lady named Emma. Emma grew up and married a man named Good. Over their forty years of marriage he repeatedly left her to spend time with another woman. Emma never criticized her husband in the hearing of her four children. However, she needed to find a means of support. She bought a truck, outfitted it with a variety of supplies, and began to visit the farms of people who didn’t own automobiles. Demand for her products grew, and she had to buy bigger and bigger trucks. Finally she sold the trucks and opened a variety store and mail order business. After many years Emma’s husband died and she married again. With her second marriage came new opportunities for Christian service, which had long been her dream. She and her husband helped to start a new church. Her four children grew up to carry on her work. Several grandchildren are in Christian ministry. Emma’s story is told in the book Grace Enough. The store she founded still bears the name of her first husband, who also accepted Christ just before he died, and stands as a testimony to the grace of God. The grace of God! How else could a woman be faithful for forty years to a husband that had abandoned her? I thought about the abused and abandoned women I meet. Their husbands betray them for other women. In their pain they erupt with anger and jealousy. They respond by sleeping around with other men or getting into other compromising, high risk situations. Then they accuse their husbands, “You don’t trust me!” So now a once affectionate couple becomes two people who want trust but can’t be trusted. Do two wrongs make one right? Does revenge set everything straight? I think not. Betrayal is a spiritual disease. If you pass it on, it becomes an epidemic. Grace, on the other hand, is an undeserved gift. You never deserve God’s love and patience, but He gives it to you anyway. If you let Him plant it in your heart, it will bloom into a beautiful flower that you can give to others. I can’t count how often I have been unfaithful to my Jesus. Yet He never has been unfaithful to me. Instead, he showed me how much it hurt by stretching out his hands and dying for me. Now He asks me to be willing to die for those who hurt me. “Impossible,” you say? Exactly! Impossible in human terms. It takes a miracle to make it happen. God is waiting for you to let him bring that miracle to your life. Trust, and being trustworthy, is possible only with that miraculous grace of God. Trusting Him, Ilva Grace Enough can be purchased from: |
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