He Loved Their Mother Fiercely
George W. Bush said the biggest impression that his father left on his life is that his father loved his mother fiercely and was deeply dedicated to her. My youngest son wrote to my husband just a few weeks ago how thankful he was and how much it impacted him to see how much Ken loved me through all of my years of pain and suffering. My son wants to love his wife in the same way.
Children growing up with parents who love each other is like growing up with a warm, security blanket over their lives. It produces secure and stable adults. The world is a big, scary place but a home with a mother and father who are faithful to each other until death do they part is the greatest gift parents can give to their children.
I am heartbroken over this generation. They throw away marriages as if they are meaningless. Their “happiness” is greater than the love and security of their children. They try to convince me that divorce percentages are down but it’s only down because couples today are living together instead of getting married or not pursuing a relationship at all. They can easily get “free” sex so many don’t see the benefit to marriage and most had no example of loving and committed parents.
The ideal for any healthy culture to be built upon is to have loving husbands and wives bearing and raising children. Just because some of you are single or are single mothers and have found fulfilling lives without marriage doesn’t negate this truth. God created man to need a help meet then told them to be fruitful and multiply. He has never taken away this command. All nations who have tried to limit child birth or are simply not having children are in danger of extinction.
The Bible tells us that people who have turned away from God will become “covenantbreakers” (Romans 13:1). Let this not be said of any of us! You can never truly love your husband if you have a negative and critical attitude towards him. Love your husband as God commands you to love him in 1 Corinthians 13. Make the major thing (loving your husband) the major thing in your life. This is the greatest gift you will give your children and will not only bless your children but your grandchildren and great-grandchildren, too.
We made a decision before marriage that divorce would never be an option for us and we have kept our covenant before God. No, it’s not always easy but nothing worth having is ever easy. Bearing and raising up godly offspring (disciples for Jesus) isn’t easy either but one of the most fulfilling things we can do in this brief life with the greatest rewards.
Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.
Matthew 19:6
9 thoughts on “He Loved Their Mother Fiercely”
A mother is one of the most influential people in our lives! Behind every great and strong man was a loving and nurturing mother who gave him his strength, was his rock. Same for women! What woman doesn’t follow in the foot steps of a good mother? My father continues to cherish and honor his mother, and so did my uncles for my late grandmother. Sad and enraging radical feminists characterize motherhood as slavery rather than a woman’s highest calling! My mom was mom first and foremost, and would have gladly given up her job if she could. The love of a mother is far more important for society than any top CEO’s job! The idea that one of the acceptable times a grown man can break down and cry is when he lost his mom. That speaks to the importance of a mother in the human experience.
How do you explain Christian grandparents divorcing to your children? Our children have always been taught that marriage is forever. They don’t even know a whole lot about divorce, mostly that it is displeasing to God. In their young minds it is something that people who don’t know God may do. I’m also concerned that they will feel less secure.
It is really awful and I’ve done all I could to keep it from happening but I can’t control other people and this is a situation that is beyond reasoning.
They will see the destruction divorce has upon their family with their own eyes. Make it teaching moments about the sanctity of marriage and the reasons why God wants husbands and wives to stay together. God hates divorce for many reasons. You will be an example to your children of a godly marriage between two people who keep their covenant with God. They will clearly see the difference.
My examples of a loving marriage were my gparents. My Gpa’s adoration & love for my Gma was obvious every single day. And her treating him like a king was the same. Each and every thing they did showed that love so clearly. I’m so grateful to have had that because my parents were a train wreck of resentment & blaming.
God bless you Lori! This is what we woman old and young should want our marriage to be! Amen and Amen! May my home and marriage from this day forward always reflect the Love of God ! What an impact on our home family, friends and strangers we meet. ?
Thank You for this
This is timely. I was having this very discussion with my chiropractor who’s newly married with a young baby. He said that his parents had been married for 37 years, but his wife’s parents had divorced. I asked him, “So, do you think children are more secure who have come from parents that have stayed together?” He replied, “Definitely.” I then jokingly said, “Well, after 30 years I expect to see you with a houseful!” His response, “Well, my sister and I have always been competitive, and she has 4, so… you never know! ” It was a refreshing conversation.
Thank you Lori.
I have been a devoted follower of your blog for many months now, but I have been struggling to walk in Christ as you do and hope you are able to lend counsel to another Christian woman.
I was raised by a single mother, just like the ones in your post, to believe that women could stand on their own with or without a husband. Still, I dreamed of nothing more than being a wife and mother in a happy household. At 21 I met what I thought to be a Christian man in the church and married. We were blessed with news of our first child almost immediately. He did not feel as happy about the news as I, and within months I found myself alone with fresh divorce papers waiting on my signature. Since I believe divorce to be unGodly I have waited for him to return instead and have spent my days praying on how to best serve the Lord given my situation. I have learned through church chatter that he has taken up with another woman despite our marriage. After two year as, he has never seen our daughter and I worry about the model for a Christian home this sets for her. Still I wait and pray.
Lori, what would you advise a Christian woman in my situation to do? I do not want a divorce and struggle to create a wholesome environment for my husband to return to. Since he has not supported his family financially and his own parents are no longer with us, we have been living with my mother. My mother now says I must move on and find a career that will fulfill the needs of myself and my daughter, but I am afraid this will make me less appealing to my husband once he has found the Way. I have been praying on this for such a long time. Lori, what should a woman in my circumstances do?
My parents go divorced. I and my 3 sisters were cast into the dirt, to scrape like dogs for food and shelter.
That wasn’t the worst though. I didn’t mind that much, although it was difficult to see all your non-divorced kids sail off to a great college and careers, while you, with the same education, ended up working in a grocery store and seeing your dreams slip away. Everybody says “oh, it’s good for you”. Excuse me. No, it’s not. But I was young and could bounce back financially.
But the worst thing by far was: you look back and your happy childhood memories, when you were all driving in the car to go camping, or to the beach, and you realize “my parents were never really happy together”. Those memories are LIES. All your happiness as a child was a LIE.
Of course the counselors they hire to help the kids through the divorce…they always say “oh but your parents WERE in love, they just changed” — you believe that lie at first, but then you eventually see through it. Kids are more perceptive about their parents than anybody. Eventually the see through the lies and realize the truth: “My parents actually NEVER were in love.”
The fact they got divorced rips the illusion off.
Then as a grown up child, you look back and realize: Those memories are LIES. All your happiness as a child was a LIE. You remember each cherished memory that you loved so much, one memory at a time, and for each memory you feel that pang of fear and despair, as you realize that THIS memory, also, was a lie. One by one you sort through your happy memories, and each turns to burning dust in your mind. Then the young child in you, the most innocent part of your heart, is burned and disfigured, over and over again. You never heal.
Motives matter. If your parent gets divorced because their spouse is crazy and tries to kill everybody with a gun, the kids will realize that and they will grow up feeling ok, knowing that the adults did what was needed to protect them.
If parents get divorced for trivial reasons, as they do 90% of the time today, the kids will realize that too, and they will never feel safe again, knowing that at their most vulnerable moment as a child, the parents they trusted chose to sacrifice them, as children, so the parent could run off and have fun.
The entire Divorce Industry is institutionalized child abuse on a massive scale. Just like so many parts of our sick and disgusting society. We are rotting on the vine, like a diseased and pestilential fruit.