REWIND WINSDAY WISDOM
Do you think your spouse has ever had thoughts of murder?
Our wedding night was stormy, literally. We departed from the church alone, under a tornado warning. All the wedding guests moved to safety while we tried to make it to the nearby hotel.
My beautiful bride confided to me she had often prayed that she would be granted at least one day of marriage before she died. Maybe this was the end. I had secretly prayed for at least one night.
The new morning skies were clear for take-off and the post-wedding trip was everything we hoped it to be. My princess bride and her knight in shining armor stormed the East Coast like Hurricane Sally.
The travel itinerary began in Washington, D.C. for site-seeing visits of our national monuments highlighted by cherry blossoms and the Smithsonian. Well, that was the plan.
This was a whirlwind celebration. After a couple of days, we caught the shuttle flight to Boston to walk Freedom’s Trail, picnic on the hallowed grounds of the educational elite, and dine amidst the city’s rich and famous. Well, that was the plan. I did introduce her to New England clam chowder and Red Sox baseball.
There was still the coup-de-gras for any newlyweds from Redneck country. A trip to Six Flags. However, this is the place where the story moved from bliss to fear. It was not my wife’s fear of returning to the real world with this stranger she married; it was a greater fear. A deadly fear.
Upon our arrival at the Dallas-Ft. Worth airport, I grabbed our bags and hailed a shuttle taxi. The driver seemed confused and spoke with a heavy foreign accent which confused me.
While we waited in the van, the driver went inside the airport where we saw him make a call on his phone. That seemed strange at the time, especially when he appeared agitated and began to make stabbing motions with his raised hand as if he were reenacting the shower scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho movie.
The honeymoon murder plot began to unfold. Little did we suspect that we might be the victims.
We were the only passengers on this twenty-minute trip to the hotel. My beautiful bride and I held hands and told stories. We acted like newlyweds.
Suddenly, the driver turned onto a gravel road, not what one would expect to travel between a major airport hub and a large marquee hotel. It seemed quite odd, so I questioned the driver. His foreign accent sounded like “Shortcake.” Surely, he meant “Shortcut.”
An intentional wrong turn has sparked many murder mysteries.
Soon, greater darkness surrounded our taxi traveling the unpaved road. The metropolis lights were hidden from view. This was straight out of Film Noir murder movie scripts.
“Where are we?” I asked. “Shortstop” was all the stranger shouted in reply. That was not even close to “Shortcut.”
Car lights suddenly appeared behind our vehicle. The trailing car moved closer to ours and never attempted to pass, even on this desolate road. I had seen this scene in The Fugitive.
I suspected the car behind us might be the person the driver called from the airport. I have always entertained conspiracy theories.
We both sensed this was very strange, if not dangerous. My wife asked if this might be a trap or robbery. I was thinking the same thing, but I privately feared worse, perhaps physical assault and murder.
I might have suspected my new bride as the planner of this murder plot if this had happened after the honeymoon. Her repeated enjoyment of husband-murder-movies such as Double Indemnity (Barbara Stanwyck) and Double Jeopardy (Ashley Judd) leave me a little uneasy. Her beautiful eyes definitely brightened after hearing the news about the increase in my life insurance benefit.
I have always been worth more dead than alive.
We were scared. Afterall, she had prayed for at least one day of marriage before exiting this earthly life, and now we were into the second week. This might be it, for both of us.
My wife is drop-dead gorgeous. I have always preferred gorgeous to drop dead. She is kind, caring, a great cheerleader, awesome cook, and brilliant. I would still love her even if she were as stupid as many claimed her to be for marrying me.
The most important attribute at this point in the honeymoon saga was her athleticism. She was fast. Amazingly fast. A track star in college.
We held hands and developed a plan for when the taxi stopped. I would attack the driver and she was to run as fast as she could to safety. At least she might have a chance at escape.
These circumstances demanded she star as the Runaway Bride. I urged her to flee like Lot’s wife and not turn back to look for me. If I made it, I would join her at the hotel. If not, she needed to know she made me the happiest guy in the world.
Our escape plan was in place. The next few moments with our strange driver along that gravel road and the car in pursuit were agonizingly frightful. This was a horror movie ending to honeymoon bliss. The cast of The Princess Bride were on a shortcut down Elm Street to Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
The van began to slow. Our driver turned and so did the car behind us. I reminded my Pretty Woman to run fast, faster than her record time in the track trials. She nodded as she squeezed my trembling hands. Even in the best days, she never mistook me for Walker, Texas Ranger.
This was it. Do or Die.
My girl pledged to always love me, her knight in shining armor, shaking in his boots and about to wet his pants.
I am not the first in my family to shake in his boots. My great-great grandfather on my mother’s side of the family fought in the Civil War. For both sides!
However, that is not the most distinctive part of his war record. He spent most of the battle for the soul of our country as a prisoner of war. On both sides!
Our family never knew if:
- He simply could not make up his mind.
- He was just really bad at fighting.
- The Yankees and Confederates thought it was better for their cause for him to fight for the other side.
- It was safer for both sides if they just kept him locked up.
Apparently, in every significant skirmish, Captain Morrison either surrendered or was captured.
The Civil War chameleon met his demise on the way home from the War when he was bushwhacked just one mile from his house. Apparently, he did not have time to change colors.
This honeymoon danger was my time to change colors. I exchanged the cowardice yellow for a scared stiff, whiter shade of pale. Emboldened by My Lady’s vow of eternal love, I was ready for action. I knew which side I was on. However, that wedding stuff about “til death do us part” arrived much sooner than I anticipated.
As the taxi slowed to a crawl, I had one hand prepared to throw open the taxi door and the other clinched in a fist to knock out the driver. My heart was pounding as I stared into the face of my teary-eyed bride. “Ready? Go fast. Run like the wind!”
Then it happened! Our taxi shuttle turned off the gravel road and entered the backside of the hotel parking lot.
The driver took us to the main entrance where our companion chase car stopped right behind us. The driver proudly announced, something that sounded like “Short-circuit!” Whatever English idiom he was using, this trip was intended as a “Shortcut.”
Honeymoon bliss. Murder by night. Six Flags in the morning!
THE LESSON FROM THIS LIFE ILLUSTRATION IS FEAR AND SHORTCUTS ARE ENEMIES TO HONEYMOON BLISS, NOT HELPFUL TOOLS FOR LASTING LOVE.
Fear can cripple love. Shortcuts send confusing signals to the relationship.
Fear, associated with the perception of real or imagined danger, has a paralyzing effect. Fear of the unknown. Fear of the unexpected. Fear of the “what if” the other person does not reciprocate? What if they say this or do that?
What caused you to fear last year? What frightens you about this next year and into your future? Sickness? Suffering? Loss? Loneliness? Poverty? Death? Fear of giving love or fear of losing love?
Plato wrote, “Courage is knowing what not to fear.”
Loving first takes courage. It finds strength in the face of challenges. “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear” (#1 Textbook).
Fear and love are motivators of contrasting behaviors. Fear freezes feelings and negates action. Love warms the heart and engages action.
The real threat to honeymoon bliss in any relationship is one’s own self-centeredness, not the other person. Honeymoon bliss is never dependent on a perfect spouse or perfect circumstances. It requires courage.
LOVE IN YOUR HOPES, NOT YOUR FEARS. LOVE FIRST. LOVE MOST.
Courage to love first conquers fear.
Courage to love most avoids shortcuts.
Love always travels the longsuffering, long-lasting road. The dance to share unlimited and unceasing acts of kindness outlasts any length of distance or amount of time. Love lasts longer than the challenges along the way.
Honeymoon bliss is not about perfection, but it is an investment of much time and effort. Just like dieting and marathons, there are no shortcuts in loving most.
The #1 Love Textbook combines the necessary love attributes of humility, gentleness, and longsuffering into the action of forbearance. These characteristics are all Love First, Love Most components.
Simply stated, forbearance is the supernatural love-infused ability to put up with a whole lot of stuff, or whatever you want to call it. The Achilles’ heel of honeymoon bliss is the absence of forbearance. To love most, one must be able to endure with love under the weight of the burden for the distance of a lifetime.
I repeat for emphasis, to love most, one must endure under the weight of any and all strain upon the relationship for a lifetime…til death do we part.
Love navigates through all the construction hardships, rough roads, and rollercoaster fears and thrills. There can be no shortcuts.
How do we be better trained in longsuffering, long-lasting, and forbearing love?
Our #1 Textbook encourages us to comprehend the incomprehensible concept of LIMITLESS LOVE.
“The Lord’s steadfast (stick-to) love endures forever…so we do not fear” (#1 Textbook).
It is imperative we get a grasp on God’s love for us to live out true love with our spouse. These “infinite and forever” dimensions are descriptive of the immensity and vastness and eternality of the love which makes two as one.
Nothing can ever separate us from the grasp of God’s love.
Not health and wealth or the lack thereof. Not critics and complainers or conflicts. Not despair, distress, or difficulties. Not our flaws, falls, and failures. Not even our wrong decisions and actions. No separation, the two have become one.
God’s love has no limits in time past, present, future, or eternal.
There are no love limits in space, whether inner or outer or far away or extraterrestrial. Not any galaxy or gravitational wave or black hole or anything seen or unseen rippling through the fabric of space-time can limit love. Not any bad person or bad thing or bad circumstance can separate the one loved from the one loving.
God’s love is immeasurable and invincible. It extends far beyond any height or any depth or any circumference. It puts up with a lot…forever.
God gives you that same desire and power to love others.
Honeymoon bliss? There is no place for fear or shortcuts. Flush the negative feelings. Trash your self-centeredness.
Embrace love with more kindness, more compassion, more forbearance, more forgiveness. Stretch yourself in love to God and others: always wider, always longer, always higher, always deeper.
The Spiral Starecase had only one big hit, but they got it right when they sang:
Every day’s a new day in love with you
With each day comes a new way of loving you…
Oh, I love you more than yesterday
But not as much as tomorrow.
The living Lord of limitless love lives inside of you to lead you to others he intends to love through you. That always starts in the home. No fear, No shortcuts.
Love First. Love Most,
More than yesterday, but not as much as tomorrow.
LOVE FIRST...LOVE MOST 