"This is my beloved and this is my friend..."

Song of Solomon 5:16 I can never read this verse without thinking about an incident that happened while my husband and I were dating.

When it became obvious that our relationship was getting serious, his parents decided that it was time for them to make the trip up north to meet my family. They picked us up from the college we were attending and the four of us headed out for Iowa. Somewhere along the four hour drive, I glanced back to where they were sitting and found them all cuddled up. My father-in-law-to-be looked at me and said, “Joyce, this is my best friend.” Up until this time I had never thought about husbands and wives being best friends. I thought they just had to get along. This struck a chord with me and I decided I wanted my marriage to be more than just getting along. I wanted us to be best friends, too.

I had the best of intentions. For the first year things went very smoothly. We were still in college and life could not be better. Then we graduated and we entered what I call “the real world.” The world where the husband goes to work and the wife becomes the “keeper of the home.” I was not used to staying home and keeping a home, to put it mildly~I was very frustrated. I found out it was a lot easier to “be in love” than to “love a husband.”

When we were in love~he was eating someone else’s cooking. If he didn’t like it, he wasn’t commenting on my efforts.

When we were in love~someone else was doing his laundry. If he didn’t have the clothes he wanted or needed~it was either his fault of the laundry’s fault for not getting them clean or pressed on time. Now it was mine!

When we were in love~he lived in the dorm with roommates. If something was out of place or he couldn’t find something-he didn’t ask me what I had done with it.

And the list could go on and on.

There were many times I did not feel like I was his best friend~and there were many times when I knew he wasn’t mine!

This troubled me.

Then I thought about my in-laws. I thought, “If I could love my husband the way she loves hers, maybe we will become best friends, too.”

I set out to find out what she did that made her husband consider her his best friend.

This is what I came up with~

1. She got along with his family.

My mother-in-law loved her husband’s mom and dad, his siblings and their spouses. She got along with them and had a good relationship with each of them. You say, “They must have been easy to get along with. They can’t be like my in-laws.” Take my word for it. They had their issues! But they were her husband’s family. He loved them and she did too. When Grandma Anglea passed away, I heard my father-in-law thank her for being so good to his mom.

2. She cooked for him.

It didn’t take too many trips to the Anglea home to find out that meal time was a very big deal. Cooking good breakfasts and evening meals were a top priority. She hovered over every meal preparation. Everything had to be cooked to perfection or she wasn’t happy. Needless to say, her husband was a very happy man!

3. She appreciated his hard work.

My father-in-law worked at the GM plant for 35 years. It was a 40 minute drive through the heavy Atlanta traffic. Many times he left at 4 in the morning and did not get home until 6 at night. Every evening when he came home, she met him at the door as if he were a conquering hero. She often talked about how hard he worked. When he sat down at the table to eat, she waited on him hand and foot~she didn’t want him to have to get up to do anything. When he had to work late, she never complained. She appreciated the fact that he went to work and provided for her and their family.

4. She took care of his person.

For as long as I have known her, my mother-in-law has always made sure her husband has everything he needs to take care of himself. Her bathroom cabinet is always well stocked with every personal product he uses. He never runs out of anything he might need. She makes sure his clothes are clean and pressed. He always looks nice~all because of her.

5. She was affectionate with him.

Although they are not overly affectionate, she uses verbal expressions of love like, “honey, sweetheart, darlin’, (they are southerners) etc, etc.” There are plenty of hugs and kisses~all initiated by her.

In Titus 2:4 the Bible tells us that the older women are to teach the younger women to love their husbands. When I looked up this word “love”, I was surprised that it was translated from the Greek word “Phileo” which means friendship love.

I don’t remember my husband ever saying to me in our early years of marriage that I was his best friend. Now, he says it all the time. I don’t know when it started, but I do know it wasn’t until after I started following the example of my mother-in-law in these five different ways.

There’s an old song that says, “Love is a many splendored thing…” Truly it is~and one of those many splendored things is being your husband’s best friend!

#marriage #love #friend