A Joyful A-Fair

I went to a bridal shower last night for my husband’s nephew’s fiancé. She is a lovely young lady who I don’t know well but hope to have the opportunity to get to know as they have purchased a home down the road from us. We’ll be neighbors. I’m so excited! Such a wonderful time with about 80 women all gathered to celebrate the coming day when the two will be one and share their life together.

We did an interesting thing for door prizes, no, we didn’t stick bows on our heads, lol, we wrote marriage advice on cards and then wrote our name on the outside of the card so she would know who it was from. What a thoughtful “game”. Truly someone was thinking in this family! Marriage is hard, when you try to combine two personalities, two preferences, two people and then become one…it can be hard at times. But so very worth it. Initially I jotted down something silly, I won’t bore you with my first bit of advice, but then after I put it in the basket I couldn’t leave it there. There was something I had to replace it with. Something of real importance, something that if I had known when I was a young bride it may have saved me some heartache. Here is what I told her…in a nutshell.

In every marriage you will have arguments and when you do it’s human nature to go to someone and “vent”. Be very careful what you say about your spouse. Because long after you’ve forgiven him and it's forgotten and the two of you have made up; the person who you’ve vented to may still look at him in a negative light. They may be looking to undermine your relationship because they only hear the bad things because they are the one you vent to and don’t see the good things about him. Pretty soon you may start to see him as they see him, and that is a dangerous thing. Besides, you don’t want your friends to think badly of the one you love so dearly. It’s easy to tear someone down but so hard to build them up.

“Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit.” Proverbs 18:21

Words have power. God created the world with the spoken word; we are created in His image. Our words have power so we should be very careful what we say.  I don’t think I wrote all that I put in that paragraph up there, it was a little card but that was the essence of it. Anyway, I hope that they have a long and happy life together.