I am reading a book which a man wrote three days following his 14 years suffered in and out of communist prisons.
What prompted him to lose precious years of his life, besides the love for his Savior?
The words of his beloved wife.
"Sabina told me, 'Richard, stand up and wash away this shame from the face of Christ! They are spitting in His face.' I said to her, 'If I do so, you lose your husband.' She replied, 'I don't wish to have a coward as a husband.' "
He endured torture beyond what his heart can even bare to retell.
She waited, endured years apart from the love of her life. She herself was imprisoned and endured unbelievable evils. But she waited. She loved the very ones who ripped him from her life. She risked her life to love her enemies for just a chance to share Christ's love.
She loved. She loved her husband, her son, her fellow persecuted believers, the blasphemers, the torturers, and the very men and women who mocked and devoted their lives to destroying the truth of God, but above all, she loved her Savior. For Him alone, she lived and loved.
She knew the depths of God's heart of love by living it. She did not give in to despair, and she WAS reunited with her beloved many years after.
I do not wish for suffering, unless it is to be refined by the fire-to love as Christ loves, to know Him more intimately than I could apart from suffering.
Oh, if I were to be as this sister was... if I were to be asked if I would choose the easy path, or hard one... by the grace of God I wish to say neither, just the path that the sovereign God has ordained me to walk... the path that brings me ever closer to His heart, His ways, His truth!
I desire to be the one who loves my beloved so deeply and purely, I would tell him to stand up and be a bold warrior for the namesake of our Savior, than to be a coward and hide in the mist of safety that so easily falls away.
Soli Deo Gloria.
