By Sandra Palmer
At the 1936 summer Olympics, Helen Stephens helped secure a gold medal for the United States by anchoring the American 4 x 100 relay team that upset the heavily favored Germans. Despite a strong, well executed race, the Americans still trailed as the anchor runners were approached. In the final analysis, the reason the Germans lost was because of bad execution – they dropped the baton during the final exchange.
In Titus 2:3-5 we read “… the older women likewise, that they be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things – that they admonish the young women to love their husbands …”
This has been a favorite passage of mine for a number of years, so every opportunity I have, I try to learn from the teachings of the older women. Lately, it seems, however, that the “older” women are looking younger and younger, even to the point of looking my age! I have come to the realization that I am no longer the younger woman to whom Paul is speaking, but the older! I have often wondered why Paul, through inspiration, thought it necessary to tell us to “teach” the younger women how to love their husbands. After all, love is considered a natural instinct. But is it always “natural” or is it a learned process? While love is an emotion, it is also an action and an attitude. I Corinthians 13 is often called the love chapter of the Bible, and if we read it carefully, we will notice that love is something we do.
“Love suffers long, love is kind, love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things and endures all things. Love never fails.”
Everyone who is married has “fallen in love” first, right? If true, it seems then we must already know how to love our husbands – and yet divorce in our country is at an all time high. Women are “falling out of love” with their husbands and discarding them like yesterday’s news. Thanks to the influences of feminism, many women feel it is okay to be disrespectful to their husbands, making fun of them and even telling less than flattering jokes about them. Is this what God had in mind when He created woman? I think not.
In Genesis 2:18 God said it is not good for man to be alone. Therefore, He made an helpmeet suitable for (a helper comparable to) him. Is the beauty of Jesus seen in us by the way we treat our husbands? As older, Christian wives, younger women will look to us as an example of how to treat their husbands. Our children look at us and develop their understanding of what constitutes a loving relationship. We need to ask ourselves—are we a helper or a hindrance?
Wives, we know our husbands, and we know what our husbands want and need to be in order to please God. Let us be a helper who will pray with our husbands and for our husbands, so that we can help one another get to heaven.
Robert Sexton once wrote, “And when we grow old, I will find two chairs and set them close each sun-lit day, that you and I in quiet joy may rock the world away.” Solomon put it even better in Ecclesiastes 4:9-10, “Two are better than one. If one falls down, his friend can help him. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him.” Wives, both young and old, when we truly understand what it means to help our husband when he falls, we will truly know what it means to love our husbands.
As we consider the blessing and responsibilities of marriage, may we understand that if the ’next generation’ is to be one that is godly and influential for Christ and His church, we must start at home. We must address the fundamentals. We have to work on our execution of God’s plan. Our reward is much greater than a gold medal. As older women, let’s not fumble the exchange.
