CONTENTS
Just Visiting
Dr. Robert Rigdon is a friend from Sylva, North Carolina. For many years he served as a professor of counseling at Western Carolina University. Bob has done some significant work in applying Maslow's hierarchy of human needs to a Christian context. He sees every need identified by Malsow not only as a legitimate need, but as a need addressed in Scripture. To Maslow's hierarchy, he adds the need for play, laughter and humor. I believe Bob is correct in his assertions and in this week's feature article, I attempt to show the importance of "fun" in a marriage. My marriage is fun. I hope yours is.Are You Fun
to Live With?
While browsing through the marriage and family section of a book store, I came across this intriguing title, Are You Fun To Live With? I didn't read the book, but I started asking myself the same question. I consider myself honest, respectable, serious minded, devoted, loving and caring. But am I fun to live with? Well, I guess you'll have to ask my wife, Ann, to find out the answer to that question. However, I don't think I can let myself off the hook quite that easily. "Should I be fun to live with?"
The answer is "yes." Under the Old Testament law, a newlywed husband was exempt from military service for an entire year for the purpose of making marriage fun. At least that's the way I read Deuteronomy 24:5 - "If a man has recently married, he must not be sent to war or have any other duty laid on him. For one year he is to be free to stay at home and bring happiness to the wife he has married."
Most newlyweds I meet seem to be having fun. Oh, I don't mean they are taking ski trips to Colorado, enrolling in hang gliding classes or even making weekend trips to Texas Stadium in the fall so they can watch the Cowboys play. Fun is a more fundamental thing. Watch newlyweds at the grocery store. Sometimes they have a blast just selecting the food they intend to consume the next week. They have fun planning the decor in their apartment, sharing a picnic in the park, even shopping for a pair of socks. ("Are you serious? You would actually go out in public wearing green and gold argyle socks?") The process of learning each other's likes and dislikes ("I wouldn't serve oatmeal to someone I can't stand, much less eat it myself) is an exciting and sometime times playful adventure in mutual discovery. My wife began to wonder what kind of man she married, when she learned that I like peanut butter and sweet pickle sandwiches.
Unfortunately the thrill of mutual discovery fades after a while. He knows she adores the color purple and she knows he wouldn't eat prunes even if he were starving. The focus of their attention is aimed away from the fun things to the necessary things - raising children, washing clothes, mowing the yard and a gazillion other essential activities. In the process, we forget to have fun. Is it important to bring the fun back? I'm convinced that it is. According to Proverbs 17:22 "A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones." When your marriage fades into drabness, it's time to take steps to bring the fun back. If you've been married a long time, one of the most serious questions you can ask yourself is, "Am I fun to live with?"
From the E-Mailbag
Dear Christian Friends,Greetings in the precious Name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Two weeks ago I joined the internet. I believe this is the direction the Lord has led me in - I don't know why, or how, or where....but here I am! Then last week I began to use the fax facility on the modem - wow! And today I have at last found Christian companionship from somewhere out there in cyberspace. But it's not by chance that I'm here....
Physically disabled by poliomyelitis when I was two weeks old, I was abandoned by my [unmarried?] mother. God protected me and undertook for my needs: He placed me in the care of a Christian institution, where I was reared and educated until the age of 16. During my time here I was hospitalised on a number of occasions for major surgery related to the effects of polio: for example, straightening of spine and legs, etc. Strenuous efforts were made to help me walk with the aid of calipers and crutches, but these were finally abandoned at the orthopaedic consultant's recommendation: the bones that kept breaking through my frequent falls were one day going to be non-repairable! And so I am confined to a wheelchair (now electric) for mobility. Although I do not remember doing it, apparently I asked Jesus into my life when I was very young; accordingly I grew up as a young Christian - sheltered from the influences of the world.
In 1967 I was employed as a telephone switchboard operator at the local hospital. . . . I went courting the world into deeper and deeper pits. Some members from the Nurses' Christian Fellowship invited me to various meetings: I went, and heard the Gospel faithfully proclaimed - but no, my companionship was well and truly settled in sin....
Working as a telephonist was very rewarding and very fulfilling: meeting new people, chatting with old friends, comforting the distressed, taking ambulance requests, being on stand-by relief should another hospital in the province find itself temporarily short of staff, etc, etc. And then one day on the phone with the Salaries and Wages office, I met Evelyn....and that was to change the rest of my life!
We have grown steadily but not dramatically in the faith: God has blessed us with all spiritual blessings and has undertaken to supply all our needs according to His riches in Christ Jesus. The cross we must bear is not an easy one (I would have worried if it had been); but we take comfort in knowing that the cross Christ bore for us was exceedingly heavier, and in this context ours is so much lighter.
For very many years I have been unable to work: I've since had two heart attacks, fell over a wall from my wheelchair and lost the sight of my left eye (from perfect vision), developed ulcerative colitis and diverticulitis, and endured poverty at the highest level. It's not an easy life; and when we see so many prosper around us, we ask "Why, God; why?" So many can have their homes beautifully decorated and carpeted and furnished: and yet we know that He is faithful to His Word, and will keep us right to the very end of time and eternity. We have a peace that surpasses all understanding - even our own! Thus saith the Lord: I will never leave you, nor forsake you! Praise to His wonderful Name. Only a fool fails to comprehend the magnificence of His promise! Read it forwards: I will never leave you, nor forsake you. Read it backwards: you forsake, nor you leave, never will I! The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God.
And so to today. Our church bought a computer for me to use: compiling the weekly announcements bulletin, corresponding, dealing with baptismal enquiries and searches - and Evelyn bought the modem for my big 5-0! That accounts for my new-found interest in the internet and e-mail! It's a route I believe God has brought me along: I know not why, how or where....but here am I!
May God bless you in your ministry. I look forward to receiving your e-mail magazine each week, and I'm sure we at this end will be as richly blessed through the reading of it as you will be for the sending of it.
Yours in that Name that is above all names, and in His service,
Alwyn. alwynr@globalnet.co.uk
NEXT WEEK'S FEATURE STUDY: "The Language of Love"