AS A TEN YEAR old boy, I joined the children choir that constituted strictly of primary school kids from St. Boniface Primary School, Idah. We were groomed by our Headmaster Mr Akagu, a very good disciplinarian. It was our privilege to sing in the huge St Boniface Cathedral on Sundays.
With that background, it was natural for me to join the school choir when I got into secondary school.
The school choir membership made Rev’d Fr Coté the Parish priest at Anyigba to notice me.
He noticed that my young face was dotted here and there with patches of eczema. He called me aside one day after choir practice and asked what I was doing about it. I told him I didn’t know how to get rid of them. He took it as a personal concern. He told me to see him just before going on holiday. When I did, he gave me a letter to another expatriate in the town where my parents lived. The expatriate, a health worker, gave me a drug that didn’t quite succeed in getting the patches off.
Fr Coté wasn’t going to be deterred. He quitely searched for a drug that would permanently clear the blemishes from my face. I barely knew him beyond seeing him from a distance like every other student.
One day, he handed me a pack of Nixoderm cream and I began applying it. Gradually the stubborn eczema began going off. When the cream got finished he gave me another. Gradually, the skin infection became history!
What the great Canadian priest did for me is what God’s Word calls Love. Fr Coté showed me practical love. And this is one of the things Spouses need to demonstrate in their relationship: practical acts that are geared towards removing some dent, pain, reproach, heartache, tears, shame, ugly scars, etc. from one another’s life.
Just as I went into secondary school with a stubborn eczema, so do virtually every Spouse come into marriage with one thing or another that’s eroding or distorting their otherwise beautiful personality. As their spouse, it’s your duty to compassionately help them deal with those things that seek to reduce or mar their life.
If a priest took the skin infection on a student’s face as his personal concern, how much more should spouses who see one another’s full nakedness and get to know each other’s history through marriage take whatever uncomeliness they notice in each other’s body and life to heart and be concerned about getting them remedied? Sadly, what many do is to use what uncomeliness they see to insult their mate. Do you still wonder why some spouses don’t want to fully undress before their mate under light? Do you still wonder why some hide a part of their past from one another?
Our anchor scripture tells us to serve each other. That’s what love is all about: serving one another everyday.
As I began this devotional piece, I strongly perceived that a vast majority of married couples have not been taught what it means to love each other.
Dear Spouses, loving each other in marriage goes far beyond kisses and bedroom activities; important though these are.
Loving each other is basically about doing acts of kindness, mercy, compassion, servanthood and thoughtfulness for each other!!!
Yes, it’s good to make mountainous sacrifices for one another when there’s need for such. But a lot of times, it’s small needs that are really crying to be met and all they require is a bit of inconveniencing yourself now and then.
For instance, your wife soaked her clothes for washing and suddenly she’s down with malaria. You’d do well to roll up your sleeves and wash the bucketful of laundry instead of complaining that she’s fond soaking so much clothes for washing. You should know that she didn’t soak them for you to wash. She only became ill contrary to her own expectations.
And you’d have to also go into the kitchen, do the dishes and cook the meal that the children will eat and that you’ll take to her in the hospital.
Swapping roles with her when she’s incapacitated doesn’t make you less manly. It does so much more. It makes you saintly!
The sum total of Christianity is Love. And when you make loving each other in practical terms your mutual goal in your union, yours will be a Marriage that’s a colony of heaven on Earth! And that’s exactly what God wants it to be.
💕❤️Tonight’s Assignment In The Bedroom:
Reread today’s devotional piece together just before bedtime. Don’t discuss it. Act on it!
✝️ Jesus Is Lord Forever!
Only Jesus can save your soul from going to Hell.
If you haven’t yet received Him, please ask Him to come into your heart and save you and He will.
Please, don’t delay! Receive Him Today!
🎹🥁🎙️🎷🎸🎻
ANOINTED MUSIC SECTION