Love at Second Sight

This January has been a family emphasis in our congregation as we’ve launched a new generational ministry initiative.  This past Sunday we devoted our attention to marriage.  I preached a sermon for those who have been married awhile called Love at Second Sight.  (I’ll put a link below if you want to check it out.)  The gist of the sermon encouraged couples to keep plugging away at marriage and provided some ways to do it.  It’s a sad, sad thing when a marriage loses its fire for a season and husband or wife decide they should just chuck their marriage for a stab at it with someone else.  Isn’t it wiser not to look so much for the right person to marry as it is to work to become the right person once you are married?  We talked about stuff like that in the sermon.

But like all sermons, I have to leave some things out that could have been helpful.  In my preparation process I came across a poem by Ella Wheeler Cox that describes so vividly the way a marriage dies, particularly the way a husband drifts apart from his wife.  It’s called "An Unfaithful Wife to Her Husband."  It’s powerful.  It’s emotional.  It’s too often the truth.  Read at your own risk:

Branded and blackened by my own misdeeds

I stand before you; not as one who pleads

For mercy or forgiveness, but as one,

After a wrong is done,

Who seeks the why and wherefore.

                                                          Go with me,

Back to those early years of love, and see

Just where our paths diverged.  You must recall

Your wild pursuit of me, outstripping all

Competitors and rivals, till at last

You bound me sure and fast

With vow and ring.

I was the central thing

In all the Universe for you just then.

Just then for me, there were no other men.

I cared

Only for tasks and pleasures that you shared.

Such happy, happy days.  You wearied first.

I will not say you wearied, but a thirst

For conquest and achievement in man's realm

Left love's barque with no pilot at the helm.

The money madness, and the keen desire

To outstrip others, set your heart on fire.

Into the growing conflagration went

Romance and sentiment.

Abroad you were a man of parts and power—

Your double dower

Of brawn and brains gave you a leader's place;

At home you were dull, tired, and commonplace.

You housed me, fed me, clothed me; you were kind;

But oh, so blind, so blind.

You could not, would not, see my woman's need

Of small attentions; and you gave no heed

When I complained of loneliness; you said

"A man must think about his daily bread

And not waste time in empty social life—

He leaves that sort of duty to his wife

And pays her bills, and lets her have her way,

And feels she should be satisfied."

                                                                             Each day.

Our lives that had been one life at the start,

Farther and farther seemed to drift apart.

Dead was the old romance of man and maid.

Your talk was all of politics or trade.

Your work, your club, the mad pursuit of gold

Absorbed your thoughts.  Your duty kiss fell cold

Upon my lips.  Life lost its zest, its thrill,

                                                          Until

One fateful day when earth seemed very dull

It suddenly grew bright and beautiful.

I spoke a little, and he listened much;

There was attention in his eyes, and such

A note of comradeship in his low tone,

I felt no more alone.

There was a kindly interest in his air;

He spoke about the way I dressed my hair.

And praised the gown I wore.

It seemed a thousand, thousand years and more

Since I had been noticed.  Had mine ear

Been used to compliments year after year,

If I had heard you speak

As this man spoke, I had not been so weak.

The innocent beginning

Of all my sinning

Was just the woman's craving to be brought

Into the inner shrine of some man's thought.

You held me there, as sweetheart and as bride;

And then as your wife, you left me far outside.

So far, so far, you could not hear me call;

You might, you should, have saved me from my fall.

I was not bad, just lonely, that was all.

A man should offer something to replace

The sweet adventure of the lover's chase

Which ends in marriage.  Love's neglected laws

                   Pave pathways for the "Statutory Cause."  

If this strikes too close to home, someone in your marriage needs to raise a hand, call time, and focus on getting that thing back together.  It will be worth it.  I can tell from more than 36 years of experience that love at second sight is even better than the first time around.

Link to video: http://www.fbchsark.org/media.php?pageID=6

Link to manuscript:

http://storage.cloversites.com/firstbaptistchurchhotspringsarkansas/documents/Love%20at%20Second%20Sight.pdf