Good Morning,
Friday arrived and it was right on time. I am embracing the day with the opportunity to work and earn some pay. I am saluting this day with a hot mug of Door County Churro Coffee and a bowl of Cheerios.
A very long time ago, just after the dinosaurs stopped roaming the Earth I asked my grandmother a question and she gave me an answer that I will never forget.
Genesis 2;24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
I had been fishing the day before with my grandfather and he told me something I never knew. I was about 10 years old at the time. We were fishing and he handed me a cold 7up soda. It was quite hot outside that evening and he opened one for himself as well. I had never ever seen my grandfather drink anything but iced tea, water, and 7up as a beverage outside of hot coffee. I asked him about the 7up and why he always drank that one on special occasions. He replied, "I used to drink a lot of beer and whiskey and was known as one of the town drunks. I wasn't a good man to your Grandma, your Aunty and your Dad. I screwed up real bad one day and almost killed your cousin. I was drunk and once I made that mistake I swore that I would never drink liquor again. And I haven't. Your cousin is 18 now and I never have regretted quitting drinking." I didn't say much after that for the rest of the night. I didn't sleep well at all. I just couldn't imagine that hard working, kind man as the mean town drunk.
The next morning while drying the dishes from breakfast Grandma asked me what was wrong with me. I told her what Grandpa had said and asked her if it was true. I knew it was, because the old man had never once lied to me. But I just did not believe it. Grandma confirmed the story and asked me what I thought? I asked this. If he was as bad as he and you said, why didn't you leave him? Her reply was straight and to the point. " Because I loved him then and I love him now. He was a good man in bad shape. I prayed many nights and days for something to happen that would change him. I married for better or worse and divorce to me is a sin. But I believe that God answered my prayer when Grandpa lost your cousin in a snow bank when she was a baby. He had been pulling the child home on a sled in the dead of winter and she fell off. Grandpa never knew she was missing until he got home. Of course he was drunk and that baby could have froze to death on that day. But she didn't. God kept her warm. A marriage is something that now and then needs some divine help"
Too much for a ten year old to fathom. She went on and this stuck! "I knew God would change him and the man you know is the one I knew was there. Divorce never occurred to me. We just needed lots of prayer and some answers to it."
I was speechless and on the next day we were fishing again. Grandpa handed me a 7up and smiled. I am smiling as I write this and I smile every time I see a bottle of 7up.
So today if the marriage sucks, are you willing to pray night and day or are you just going to walk?
Marty
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