There’s a radio station that my family listens to that plays classic country and bluegrass… and there is this one song that plays and I cannot listen to it with out my eyes welling up and my heart rising into my throat… it’s called Young Love by The Judds.
The line that says, they’re gonna make it through the hard times, walk those lines, yeah these ties will bind young love… that’s where it gets me every time… I hear those words and my eyes begin to well with tears and I look over at my husband and see that his are doing the same…
…and then when it says, well, from that day on you couldn’t keep them apart, they were side by side, heart to heart…
My husband and I have been together going on sixteen years… and within those sixteen years we have never gone one full day without talking to one another… even if we were oceans apart… and even if we were spittin’ mad at one another…
…and then finally the words, and that night as he held her he couldn’t believe, that God had made a girl that he’d never ever leave… I knew this the first time my husband held me in his arms… that he was different from anyone I had ever known before… when I looked into his eyes I saw my future and when I was held by him I felt protected and safe and I wanted to stay in His arms from that day on. To this very day when he wraps me up in the strength of his arms and I close my eyes and bury my head in his chest and breath in his scent it doesn’t matter what else is going on around us I find that we are, for that small moment, in our own little world just me, him, and God… that three cord strand tightly woven.
The years that would follow that first time would come with some very hard times… but just as the song sings, it has been the hard times that have made the ties that bind. It has been the hard times that God has used to dig deep into our prideful stubborn selfish selves and refine us with fire… and this fire has been like a welders fire.
Welding is a fabrication or sculptural process that joins materials, usually metals or thermoplastics, by causing coalescence. This is often done by melting the workpieces and adding a filler material to form a pool of molten material (the weld pool) that cools to become a strong joint, with pressure sometimes used in conjunction with heat, or by itself, to produce the weld.
~ Wikipedia
As we walked through the fire, it was hot and it was fierce, but as the fire melted away those parts of us that needed to go, God was faithful to pour into us the fire of His Spirit that unites and bonds and as the fire cooled we found that we were even stronger than ever before. Joined together through the heat and the pressure, no longer two… but one.
I have no doubt that both of us have at times gone toe to toe with our demons and God allowed them access to us so that he might use them to destroy the deep rooted sin and fears in us… to tear down walls that we had built to protect us… yet our God never left us defenseless. He had given us His Spirit and His Word.
But now, thus says the Lord, your Creator, O Jacob,
And He who formed you, O Israel,
“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name; you are Mine!
“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
And through the rivers, they will not overflow you.
When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched,
Nor will the flame burn you.
“For I am the Lord your God,
The Holy One of Israel, your Savior;
Isaiah 43:1-3
I look at this man that I fell head over heels for sixteen years ago and I believe and trust in him more today than I even imagined that I could when I first said “I do“. As I have watched God transform him before my eyes and have had the privilege of growing up with him… I can’t help but smile… and it’s a heart smile… a smile that warms my soul as I see in our lives the beautiful testimony of the power of the gospel and the grace of God. His mercies really are new every morning and His lovingkindness really does endure forever and He really can change hearts and minds and redeem souls and He really does hear us when we pray and love really never fails.
Love… bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails
1 Corinthians 13:7-8