Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
--William Shakespeare
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
--William Shakespeare
Sixteen years ago, this was my definition of love. Shakespeare is terribly romantic, is he not? And I was a girl in love with being in love. I had my life all planned out. But my natural inclination toward romance led me down some pretty dark paths.
Praise the Lord, I met R! I shared the story of our courtship & marriage here.
Shakespeare was part of our ceremony, along with this often used passage:
"Don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me." - Ruth 1:16-18
I wasn't a Christian at the time, but I chose to include this in our vows because I honestly thought R & I would be able to live up to that promise. Obviously, I was more than a little naive.
Less than two years after we were married, the testing of our vows began. For the next 8 years, we walked through the fires of hell. And, by the grace of God, we are still standing.
I can't claim that I've never tried change R when I found something that needed changing, or that we've looked on the storms and never been shaken. I guess by Shakespeare's standards, we fall short.
Still, I can say that, with the Lord's help, we've never turned our backs on each other. We've been able to understand the vow Ruth made to Naomi. R's God did become my God. And He is good.
Visit Christine to find out what others are saying in this week's Marriage Monday topic.
Melissa
4 comments:
Hi Melissa :)
Thought I'd pop around with a cyber cup of tea and a couple of cookies. Here, take a bite, LOL....
I read through your blog a little and was taken by your testimony. I had absolutely ZERO Christian influences growing up - nada. My Dad had been schooled Catholic but that all ended long before I was born.
As I grew older, I didn't associate with Christians. I didn't understand. I met (and married) my husband in this frame of mind. 6.5 years down the track and here we are. DH still holds his (dis)beliefs (confirmed atheist) but somehow, strangely enough, I just up and got 'inklings' to read a few verses, delve a little deeper into the Christian homemaking sites and blogs I liked to read. That was back in April (but it feels like forever ago already, LOL)
My husband remains unaware - it has really only been in the last month or so that I've moved beyond the 'I wonder if....?' stage and on to the 'How on earth do I tell DH?' stage :) It's a massive scary thing for me at the moment because I'm under no illusions as to what his reaction will be (to give you an example, he once said he considered Christians 'gullible'). But in all fairness, he is never mean or nasty and he won't be about this either. It just won't be plain sailing. And I'm terrified. He'll ask questions that I won't have the answers for, but he'll ask anyway. I love this man to bits, but I'd be lying if I didn't say I'm procrastinating about the whole thing.
(*forgive the in-depth bio there, LOL, its almost 1am where I am and I can't sleep because said wonderful husband is working late. His job is super-high stress and I can't sleep until I know he's safe here at home :)
Cheers,
Lizzie
http://lizzieshome.blogspot.com
Melissa,
It is awesome that you used the scripture from Ruth in your wedding and how profound those words are to me today.
Thank you for honoring your husband and your faith. L&H, me
You have such powerful stories to tell, Melissa. Your difficulties, your conversion (I had a similar one, and a similar non-Christian upbringing), your marriage all speak of God's neverending grace. Thank you so much for posting this today!
Praise God for His plan for you! Your post reminds me of the importance of perseverance. Thanks.
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