walking together

I was walking through the large parking lot of one of our local hardware and construction stores the other day and spotted an older couple...perhaps in their mid-70's walking into the store.  He was a large framed man and she was quite petite.  They walked side by side and chatted...discussing, I imagine, just what they'd need to find at the store.  I was struck with the thought that they had walked side be side for decades, these two very different people.  He probably had carved out a living with his hands and his head to provide for his family.  She probably had labored with the sustaining love for him and for the children they brought into this life.  Who knows how many challenges they had faced...financial strains, health issues, heartbreak and breakthroughs for the children.  These two very different people and very separate personalities were obviously welded together and as they walked you were aware that they were strong together.  I think their obvious closeness...despite the marked differences in their physical stature...spoke volumes about the beauty of the Creator's design in marriage.   There is one kind of strength that comes from standing with other men, if you are a man, to work...to fight...to solve problems in the world.  There is another kind of strength that comes from women standing with other women, to work...to serve...to share problems in the world.  But there is a unique and almost inexplicable strength that comes from the lifetime bond of marriage, where two very different kinds of people join and then walk together through the years.   It is the strength of wholeness where, together, they are more than they could ever have been in a life by themselves.  We are wedded so that we might be welded so that God might wield something through us to His world.

 

Genesis 2:²³ And Adam said:
      "This is now bone of my bones
      And flesh of my flesh;
      She shall be called Woman,
      Because she was taken out of Man."

 

blessings (with thanks to the parents God "welded" in love to make a home for me),

Rob Smith