While his coaching prowess is well-known to most basketball fans, many may not know that his wife, the love of his life, preceded him in death on March 21, 1985, after nearly fifty-three years of marriage. Following her passing he visited her grave each month and then proceeded to write a love letter to her that he placed in a sealed envelope and laid on the pillow she used during their lifetime together. It wasn’t until his eyesight failed him in the latter months of his life that he stopped this practice. At the time of his death there were 300 letters that he had written to her since her passing.
Why does it seem so strange to hear a story like this in today’s culture? Where has the love gone that God intends couples to share in their marriages? Why isn’t there true loyalty in the marriage bond like the kind demonstrated by Coach Wooden?
Some days it feels to me as if a lot of married couples have little more than a “throw away” marriage mentality. Their promise of a lifetime commitment is like a vapor that appears for a time and then it's gone. Sadly, they expend very little effort in seeking to deepen their relationships with their spouses and assume that once they are married, their love will automatically continue till death does them part.
Someone told me before my wife and I were married that if it was love that brought us together, we wouldn’t have to work at love after we were married. That is one of the biggest LIES (!!!) I have ever heard in my entire life! I want you to know that if you expect to have a long-term, love-filled relationship with your spouse you will have to make it your priority to intentionally work on your marriage every day of your life, for the rest of your life, till death does you part.
I’m weary of hearing men say they love their wives and then treat them like an old pair of shoes that are thrown in the closet at the end of the day. (Actually, some men give more attention to their favorite old pair of shoes than they do to their wives.) Too many men will polish their guns till they shine, but spend a paltry amount of time working on their relationships with their spouses. They’d rather spend time with the “boys” (i.e., male friends that'll never grow up) than to be with the “treasure” God gave them in marriage. They’ll sit in a deer stand for hours waiting to get their next kill while their “dear” wife is dying for lack of attention from the one who promised to love her for the remainder of his life. They'll work untiringly at making a living, but hardly lift a finger to make a life with the wife of their youth.
Tell me again, why is it that some of you men would rather spend time with your X-Box than with your living, breathing life-partner with whom you are supposed to be sharing life? And, could it be that your own immature, self-focused ways are part of the reason you’re headed to calling her your x-wife?
Give me a break! I’ve never seen the like of lazy, disloyal, selfish, and uncommitted married men as in this present age. Once the two of you said, “I do" at the marriage altar, that didn’t mean you could move on to your next “mountain to climb.” Your wife isn’t supposed to be sitting at home wondering, “Will he favor me with his presence today?” If your wife has to question whether you truly love her or not...it’s your fault! And, if she isn’t treating you very well, it may just be that she's reflecting back to you exactly how you’ve been treating her.
Hey, guys! In marriage, love is a verb...not just a noun. That means it is to be demonstrated to her every day by your actions and your words. It’s not just an occasional, passing response to the incessant question she keeps asking, “Do you really love me?” It’s the time, tenderness, and talking that you give to her even when she isn’t asking about your love. You married her to share every part of your life...not just the "marriage bed."
Let me just say it like this, men: if you don’t love and treat your wife like Christ loves and treats His church, you’re not acting like a Christian, nor are you honoring God. It’s time to repent and return to your first love!
Lest you wives think you’re off the hook in my interminable rantings, let me ask you a question, too. Since when did your favorite reality TV show become the standard by which you measure godly romance? I know you ladies understand this, but it isn’t “reality” to have a camera following your every move while trying to establish a relationship with someone you think might be your life mate. Tell me exactly, how do those lust-filled, TV dates advance your own personal holiness or improve the marriage God intends you to enjoy with your husband? Since when did a raunchy romance novel become the maxim your husbands must attain, if he is going to be your knight in shining armour?
There are a lot of wives that need to get out of Hollywood's fantasy land and live in the “real world” where men are really men. Surely you don’t believe that all those "hunks" on your favorite show are like that in real life. Just ask "reality stars," Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries, about their 72-day marriage, if you want to see how life is lived in one of the most corrupt, air-brushed cities in America. Does it really surprise you at the number of TV/movie stars that by-pass marriage all together or add up marriages/divorces like notches on a gun? They have no idea what “real” love is all about, let alone "real" marriage commitment!
Wives, you have much to do with making your marriage a place of respect and honor. You should make it your life-long mission to live in a fashion that deserves to be honored by your husband. You can’t wallow around in the cesspool of sinfulness, day-dreaming about the "sexiest man in America” and expect your husband to show you the kind of respect that makes for a strong relationship. The Scripture is clear that a husband is won by the “respectful and pure conduct” (1 Peter 3:2 NLT) of his wife, not by the sleazy, taudry corruption you see in the movies, on TV, and hear from your “emotive friends.”
Wives who love their husbands and demonstrate the character of Christ in their marriages are usually the ones that become magnets that draw their husbands’ hearts to them. Dressing up to be stunningly beautiful is a wonderful thing to do, but it will never replace the holiness of the heart that makes you what you really are at home. Believe me, you can fool the people you see in public, but you'll never fool your husband or your children who see the "real" you every night at home. And, excusing yourself by saying, “Well, this is the way I’ve always been and this is the way I’ll always be,” is nothing more than a cover for your own indifferent and insipid Christianity.
Wives, it’s time to start honoring your marriages by becoming women of God that carry yourselves as such. Instead of wishing for the illusion you've been watching on the screen or imagining from your book, why not let God do a "make over" in your own heart so you'll become irresistably beautiful from the inside out!
Whatever you do, don’t run down your husband in front of him or behind his back. Build him up every time you get the opportunity and make him the hero of your home. Please...stop talking to your girlfriends in a derogatory fashion about your man. No, he’s not perfect and he’s never going to be. It may be that he has a long way to go to become the husband he should be to you, but you aren’t going to change him by ragging on his mistakes and shortcomings. And, what if God is using him to make you holy, rather than to make you happy? What might God do if you actually became holy? You might find your husband becoming all you ever dreamed he could be in marriage, which would make those phony, mannequin-style Hollywood fakes look more like the scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz.
I know, I know!! Some of you think I should be raving about the joys of marriage, rather than decrying marriage failures. The problem is that I see too many marriages falling apart because of nothing more than sheer neglect. They’ve let the proverbial “sands of time” pass through the "hourglass," while doing little or nothing to invest in their relationships that are falling apart. Don’t tell me all the problems you have and how it would never work out no matter what you did to change your marriage. It’s not about changing your marriage, it’s about changing you!
Most of the people that give me that line (or one similar) have never even tried marriage the way God intended it to be lived. They're much too engrossed in their own little world to really think about anybody but themselves. They're the center of their own universe and everybody else has to revolve around them. And, sadly, the only thing they really know about marriage they’ve learned from TV/movies or from the sensual portrayals found elsewhere in our hell-bent world.
Marriage is the creation of God and trying to do marriage in any other way than God’s way is foolish and nonsensical. He wrote the instruction manual and as long as you ignore His basic guidelines, your "marital engine" is going to eventually grind to a painful halt for lack of any fuel to power it.
Husbands and wives, it's time to forget finding some imaginary "soul mate" who's out there somewhere and pour every ounce of your soul into the mate you married on your wedding day. Strange how you couldn't live without him/her back then, but now you say you can't live with him/her now. Fight for your marriage and refuse to give up on your spouse. Love doesn't just happen (except in the make-believe world of Hollywood). You have to make it happen and that's what you promised to do on your wedding day for the rest of your life!
One final word: it's not my desire to add any pain to those of you who've already suffered the horrors of a divorce proceeding. I’ve walked that deep valley with enough people to know that the pain it causes is not soon or easily healed. I also know that some people are left with no other option but a divorce because of the refusal of their spouses to do the right thing. Please understand that my purpose in this marriage epistle is to admonish couples still united in holy matrimony to try marriage God's way before seeking divorce. I'm not looking to condemn anyone who is divorced or imply that in your particular situation you didn't try to work out your marriage with your spouse. I just want people to know that marriage is a wonderful creation of God and it works, if couples will work at it. Just ask Coach Wooden...
