She does him good and not evil...

"She does him good and not evil all the days of her life"

This verse from Proverbs 31 I think is the most straight forward and easy to understand but can be the most difficult sometimes to live out. We live in a culture where love is understood to be an emotion and when we don't "feel" love we assume we aren't really in love anymore, hence high divorce rates. Love is not an emotion it is a choice. If we want to know what love is we need to look to Christ who is the source of all love. What was Christ's supreme act of love? He died on a cross for us. Do you think he "felt" good at that moment? Of course not, so love is not about how we feel. Love is a choice to do what is best for the beloved. I know that there will be times in marriage when love will be tough. I am sure some people look at my blog posts and say "they are still in the honeymoon stage of love and she has no idea how tough it will be and how hard it will become to live out the things she writes about (actually I have already had people tell me this)." I agree that we are in the honeymoon phase of love (and I love it!) and I understand that life long love is a challenge but I do not agree that means I won't be able to live out the things about which I write. If a woman really loves her husband than she will work at every moment to act in ways that are best for him. Out of love for us God humbled himself, became man, and died a very painful death. God is not going to ask me to hang on a cross for my spouse but he is going to ask me to die to myself for him. Will this be easy? If I try to do it on my own it will be impossible; if I do it with Christ it will absolutely be possible. At every moment God gives us the grace we need to do His will  and to love others the way he loves them. My future spouse is not perfect and neither am I but in our imperfection God perfectly love us. With the grace of God helping us we can chose at every moment to love each other. One great piece if practical advice I recently heard that has helped with this is whenever there is tension stop and pray the rosary before you discuss the issue. Through that prayer Our Lady will help clear your mind, unite the husband and wife in prayer and center them on Christ before they discuss the issue at hand.

A good wife does her husband good and not evil all the days of his life. Lord, grant that myself and all women remember this verse any time we are tempted to nag, snap at, ridcule, or do anything with a lack of love towards our husbands. Help us to use you as our model and love even when the other does not appear worthy of our love. Give us the grace to persevere in love throughout our entire lives and never take for granted to love of our spouse. May we work every day to love our hubands more and better than we did the previous day. And when we fail to love help us to rely on you to seek forgiveness and seek your grace to avoid falling again.