Main Main Text: Eccl.3:1-7
Memory:
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: (Eccl.3:1)

It is not the way your spouse is looking now that she will be in decades to come. Age will take its toll on the present look, shape and movement of your spouse. In fact, there are several things that your spouse is doing now which will not be done the same way in decades to come. There are ways of doing things now which are perfectly acceptable, but which in the years to come may surprisingly become detestable to you due to current realities at that time. Often, it is when you are comparing your spouse with another person’s spouse or when there are unresolved conflicts that you start noticing depreciation.
Remember the following always:
Marriage Is For Life
Marriage is a lifetime relationship. If you are praying to live for ninety years before death and you got married at the age of twenty five, it is better for you to make up your mind that you are going to be together with your partner for sixty five years. Now, if you have only been married for twenty five years and already you are complaining about the look of your spouse, that means you have not really put things in proper perspective. Prepare your mind that he or she is still going to become really old and make up your mind to love him or her despite the changes. There is an adage that says, ‘Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder’. It is really what you have in mind that your eyes will translate. If within you your spouse is appreciated, what you see when you look at such spouse cannot be anything but beauty. Don’t also forget that it wasn’t the way you yourself were looking when you started the relationship that you are still looking. If anybody tells you that at fifty, you are still the way you were at twenty five, that person must be deceiving you.
There Is Appreciation Despite Depreciation.
If your spouse is no longer youthful as she used to be, don’t forget that there are other areas in which she has appreciated in value. She has become better in home management and she has appreciated in value because of the children who are now doing fine in their various vocations. In fact a closer look at her will even reveal that there is a kind of matured beauty that is reflecting in her life. In the case of a man too, if only you can think very well, you will be able to discover that he has appreciated in some vital areas despite depreciation in others.

Finally, never forget that there are seasons of life whether you like it or not. There is the season when you were a youth and the season of life when you will be deceiving yourself if you continue to feel that you are still young; so it is with your spouse. You should rejoice even when you discover that you are no longer youthful because it is not everyone that God gave the privilege.

Discussion Points With Your Spouse
• Think about it and tell each other where you have appreciated since you got married years ago.

PRAYER
May I continually discover beauty in my spouse throughout our lives in Jesus’ name.

QUOTABLE QUOTE
WHEN YOUR INTEREST IN YOUR SPOUSE STARTS DECLINING, IT IS USUALLY BECAUSE YOU ARE COMPARING HIM OR HER WITH ANOTHER PERSON’S SPOUSE.- Dr. Mike Oluniyi

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