Love and Marriage: And Gave Himself for It

Every time we would visit him, my grandfather would give us girls each a quarter to walk down to the nearby 7/11 and buy ourselves a Slurpee, a box of candy, and a comic book. My grandmother would berate him with a mild “Now don’t spoil their supper, Walter!” My Grandpa Walt was the kindest, most patient man I have ever met and I haven’t found his equal yet. The true love of his life was his dear wife, my Grandma Edna.

He fell in love with and married his high school English teacher, a rather uncommon union back then. She was about 13 years older but the age difference never seemed an obstacle to my grandfather’s devotion and love for his wife. In their later years, my grandma began to forget things, and then she would show confusion about where she was or what day it was. Grandpa had to attend to her daily needs more and more until finally, he found a senior home that could specifically help with what we now know as Alzheimer’s.

He moved them there, 400 miles away from their little San Diego apartment. I can only imagine the difficulty of taking on all this at once—a practically unknown degenerative disease striking his beloved wife, searching for understanding about it, moving away from friends and neighbors, taking on the emotional, financial, and physical burdens of her constant care.

For many years, he faithfully and patiently ministered to her needs with very little direct pay back. He wrote to me at one point during that time, “It’s fortunate you two found your religion early in life. I never was interested until pretty late in life, but have been reading the Bible lots and strongly believe in prayer. God is so much more important than anything else.” My grandfather found his strength in God to love his wife and give himself for her. And to me, he has always exemplified a husband who “gave himself” for his wife.

Ephesians 5:25:
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it.

What does it mean to “give yourself” for another? Let’s have a look at some of the scriptures that describe how Christ gave himself for us.

Galatians 1:4:
Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father:

Galatians 2:20:
I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

I Timothy 2:6:
Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.

Titus 2:14:
Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.

In his life on earth, Jesus Christ continually set aside his own self-interests, his own needs and desires, and ultimately his own life for us because that was what God required of him to completely love us and redeem us out of the hand of death and sin. How could he possibly give all that? He trusted God for strength to endure in love so that he could fulfill his calling and accomplish his mission. And we do the same after his example.

Hebrews 12:1,2:
…let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,
Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Now husbands, do you want to change the world? You may not be a big name prophet, you may not have founded a Christian college or a worldwide ministry. You may find yourself, like my grandfather, alone in a senior home nearby your only son and his family where your earthly life finally ends in relative obscurity.

But if you have given of yourself in love for your wife as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it, you have destroyed the works of the devil in Christ’s name and provided an example of God’s perfect love to any and all in the body of believers still running their race here on earth.

Even now, my Grandpa Walt’s example will reach out to the ends of the world, to the forty-seven countries that now read our blog. And I’m asking God if I can be there when our heavenly Father bestows upon him those eternal rewards that he has earned with a “Well done, my good and faithful servant.”