All the Days of My Life (an Excerpt)

** taken from Chapter 6- A Forever Kind of Love by Leslie Ludy.
From the book: "When God Writes Your Love Story" written by Eric and Leslie Ludy.

*one word:
OUCH. oh yeah! and important stuff (well, for me at least) are highlighted. XP
My fellow sisters in Christ.. be moved and learn from this entry as I have. [HUZZZAH FOR GENTLE AND QUIET SPIRITS! XD]

Not long after my decision to "give God the pen" to write my love story, I learned a truth about loving my future husband that dramatically changed the way I was living.

I was innocently reading my "proverb for the day" which happend to be Proverbs 31. The famous chapter in the Bible that describes the "wife of godly character."

I must admit, I wasn't paying very close attention or taking the words too seriously. After all, I figured most of it wouldn't apply to me until after I was a "wife", which as far as I was concerned, wouldn't be for awhile! Yet suddenly my eye fell upon a verse, and the words stood out to me.

"She (the wife of godly character) does him (her husband) good and not evil all the days of her life."
(Prov. 31:12)

Wait a minute! My mind raced. All the days of her life?
What was that supposed to mean? I had yet to meet any woman who had been married all the days of her life. Did this verse mean she tried to do her husband good... even before she met him?

I felt a gentle nudge on my heart. And somehow, I knew this was what God wanted for me. To seek my future husband's highest good... starting right now.
"How can I love someone I've never met?" I argued back inside my head. "I mean, i'm keeping a commitment to abstinence for my future husband... so what else can I possibly do for him?"

The gentle nudge continued, ultimately forcing me to examine the way I was living. How had I been approaching relationships? Each time I was involved with someone, I poured my heart, my emotions, my affection, my time, and all my attention onto that person. Not to mention the fact, that though I may have been technically a virgin, I wasn't keeping myself physically pure - I was constantly compromising my standards.

"How would your future husband feel..." my heart seemed to ask, "if he could see you giving everything you are to these relationships? If he could watch you freely giving away your heart, your emotions, and your physical purity... a treasure that belongs to him?"

My heart ached. I realized so clearly in that moment that I hadn't been loving my future husband. With the way I had been living, I hadn't even been considering him at all! Instead, I had been consumed with meeting my own immediate desires. Sadness overcame me as I saw that I had been giving his treasure, piece by piece, to each guy I dated.

"Lord, I want to honor You and my future husband with the way I live," I prayed that day, "and I am making a commitment today to love and seek his highest good from now on."

My love life was transformed. Even though I didn't know him yet, I began truly loving Eric at that moment- truly loving my future husband "all the days of my life." It wasn't always easy. At times it was painful. And of course, there were plenty of moments when the old selfishness tried to creep back in. But with God's help, I started laying the foundation for a lifelong relationship, because I was willing to start loving my future husband with a sacrificial love, a selfless love, a lasting love... an unconditional love.