Amongst the pile of shower gifts was a cookbook from Mom--a very thick book. "I'll save it for a rainy day when I'm stuck at home alone ", she promised herself. "For now, there's a stack of thank you cards I've got to write, and he's taking me somewhere special tonight."
fast forward
"He says he loves me but he's tired of burned toast and instant coffee for breakfast. Lately he hints that he's growing tired of holding my soft, delicate hands across a restaurant table and perhaps we should start saving a little money for our future. Well, I can take a hint," she said, thumbing through Mom's precious pristine cookbook, vowing to wow her beloved with something exotic to impress him--how hard could it be?
Apparently, pretty hard, as it turned out, she decided--as she watched him bravely choking down the casserole dish she had thought would impress him. Oh, well, tomorrow's another day--his birthday, in fact, and she had found a yummy cake recipe, but perhaps she should go back to the first chapter "Basic Rules for Brides or Idiots".
Alas, her fluffy 3-layer special cake clearly looked more like a stack of pancakes, and deserved a dollop of syrup instead of the thin icing, dripping across the table. Oh, well, tomorrow's another day! And another, unlike the others, except for the growing lack of smiles and excuses of: "I had a late lunch" or "I had to take a customer out."
fast forward
"My poor Sweetheart seems to be losing weight--I wonder if he's coming down with something," she wondered, removing his barely-touched dinner plate from the table. " She followed him to the living room couch where he sat quietly, thumbing through a book--her cookbook? Meekly, she waited to find out what was on his mind.
"You know I love you and try to give you anything you need to be happy and healthy, but I can't be sure you love me, though you keep telling me. Love is not something you feel--it's something you do" Shocked and hurt, she assured him she wanted nothing more than being his wife and someday mother to his children. "Then why won't you put more effort into the stuff you put on the dinner table? You have a great cookbook that covers beginner to gourmet recipes, which you refuse to use." Shocked, she defended herself. He didn't see that there was so little time before he came home to do dinner and make herself beautiful, so he would see her at her best.
He took her hand and led her to the kitchen where the dreaded cookbook lay waiting. "Many brides are lousy cooks," he said, " but they resolve to change. Most spend hours learning to offer their husbands a nourishing, tasty meal for his health and appreciation. They invest their time working to please their husbands. Practice makes perfect, and you have an excellent reference book to guide you in learning a little each day as you become more skilled. I guarantee, before you know it, you will become proud of your effort. You have an expert to guide you--trying to ad lib can't compare"
Many of us are like the inexperienced or misguided bride, drinking in the new experience of being loved totally, yet forgetting that great love deserves love in return to please our God. He gave us His personal instruction book, which does not belong gathering dust in the bookshelf, but instead should become worn and wrinkled from daily use, as we become ever closer to our God's ideal. Remember, after all, He calls us the Bride of Christ!
9For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; 11strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience; joyously 12giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light. Colossians 1:9-12
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