Home at Last
Spring wedding season always makes me reflective. This beautiful poem was written by my husband, Jeff. It was waiting for me on the mantel of our small two bedroom apartment in NC after our honeymoon. 35 years later, our eldest daughter, Anna was married and what a celebration it was! We sometimes forget that marriage should be an image of our union with Christ: full, lifegiving, selfless, total, faithful, and true. It is a blessing indeed. A school to practice love, charity, holiness, self-giving, patience and forgiveness every day! Marriage is a sacrament, “a holy thing, something sacred. It is a means established by God for our sanctification. Matrimony then, being a sacrament, is something that sanctifies, something that makes saints.” 1 May we all get busy this wedding season working on sanctifying our marriages and relationships with the help of the grace of our good, gracious, and merciful God! AMEN.
Home at Last
by Jeffrey A. Howe January 1, 1988
Scripture to live by:
He answered, “Have you not read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one’? So, they are no longer two but one. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder.” Matthew 19:4-6
A good wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels.
The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain.
She does him good, and not harm, all the days of her life. Proverbs 31: 10-13
He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord. Proverbs 18: 22
Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. Even so husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no man ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This is a great mystery, and I mean in reference to Christ and the church; however, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. Ephesians 5:21-33
Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, and patience, forbearing one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, as you teach and admonish one another in all wisdom, and as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them. Colossians 3: 12-19
Photo: Anna & Will Keffler, December 10th, 2022. Credit: Heather Dettore Photography. Holy Trinity Catholic Church, Peachtree City, GA
Jeff & Beth Howe, January 9, 1988. LaGrange, GA
- Suarez, Federico. Mary of Nazareth. New York, Scepter Publishers, Inc., 2003.
