We met shortly after I was released from the ICU after my suicide attempt back in October 2004. Malachi was employed at the Crisis Stabilization Unit that I was transferred to for observation and treatment - and to determine whether or not I would be sent to the State hospital for further treatment/observation. I met him the very first night I was at the CSU after a kind elderly nurse attempted to comfort me in my confusion and despair about all that had taken place in the prior days. She escorted me to a bay area and asked me to wait quietly while she enlisted the aid of another colleague. The colleague was none other than Malachi! He sat and listened to my life's story through the tears and anguish, and gently encouraged me in the Lord. He was so thoughtful to sit and listen to me until about 4am the next morning, under the watchful supervision of the kind elderly nurse. He also shared with me some things that the Lord had recently brought him through and testified to the unspeakable reward there is when we trust and obey the Lord.
Through the weeks that followed Malachi and I exchanged over 100 letters. Letters that the Lord used to greatly encourage and edify me. Written words that flowed from two hearts that desperately desired to honor the Lord. Letters written that revealed just how wounded I was but yet how amazingly healed I was becoming through the Lord Jesus Christ. These letters are now affectionately known as our "Love Letters". They reveal the progression of a friendship that the Lord founded for each of us, that He also made blossom into a godly romantic affection.
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| The letters written between me and Malachi (over 100) |
Have you written love letters to your spouse? Do you write love letters to your spouse? I highly encourage every wife, no matter how silly it may seem, to take a few moments, sit down and thoughtfully and lovingly pen (not type) a letter expressing your love, respect, and devotion to your husband.
The book that Malachi and I are currently reading together is "The Sweetness of Love and Marriage in the Letters of Believers: The Christian Lover" by Michael A.G. Haykin with Victoria Haykin. It has been so sweet to read the letters that Martin Luther wrote to his worrisome wife, or the words written by John Calvin describing his utter heartbreak when he lost his beloved wife, Idelette. Upon losing his wife, Calvin writes to his good friend Pierre Viret:
"And truly mine is no common source of grief. I have been bereaved of the best companion of my life, of one who, had it been so ordered, would not only have been the willing sharer of my indigence, but even of my death. During her life she was the faithful helper of my ministry. From her I never experienced the slightest hindrance. She was never troublesome to me throughout the entire course of her illness; she was more anxious about her children than about herself."
Wow! What great affection and respect Calvin had for his Idelette. Will my husband speak so graciously of me should the Lord take me before him? I do pray it be so. I know for me, I have not one negative thing to speak of my husband. He has been the kindest and most lovingly person in my life. He has never complained about anything - but has always been a spring of encouragement and long suffering. I only pray the Lord would make me half the spouse my husband is to me. My life would not be the same without my darling husband.
If you have the opportunity to purchase the book I mentioned above, please do, you will be greatly blessed by it. I especially love the letters between Philip and Mercy Doddridge. I may post more on the two love birds later. But for now I leave you with this:
"the woman was created, and given to man in marriage, not merely for the purpose of propagating the species, but for that of promoting his and her own felicity."
~ Samuel Stennett (1727-1795)
Serving God and My Family,
Crystal <><
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