Hold Fast to Your Husband ~ Your "Beloved"

"The way to love anything is to realize that it may be lost."

~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

Embrace your husband today, right now if he is home. Let him know you love him, you appreciate him and that you need him. Tell him how important he is in your life. Praise him for his good traits.

You don't realize the weight that these words of encouragement hold.

We don't know what temptations he is facing at every turn.. We don't know how many times he says "no"… We don't know how many times he may be tempted to say "yes"…

Give him the love he needs to be satisfied with you, his family, his lot in this earthly life.

May your sweet love bring him back to your welcoming porch every evening.

And when he steps out of that door each morning, whisper a strong prayer for him.

It is dangerous and rough and tempting out there. There are many needy people in this world that will take what is not theirs.

Brand your love on his heart so everyone will know that he belongs to you.

"I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine…"

~ Song of Solomon 6:3

Some Advice from the Victorian Era:

"One of the problems of her wedded life—is to retain this charm for her husband's eyes as long as she lives, to appear lovely to him even when the color has faded from her cheeks and when the music has gone out of her voice. This is no impossibility; it is only what is done in every true home. But it cannot be done by the arts of the dressmaker, the milliner and the hair-dresser, only the arts of love can do it! The wife who would always hold in her husband's heart the place she held on her wedding day—will never cease striving to be lovely. She will be as careful of her words and acts and her whole bearing toward him—as she was before marriage. She will cultivate in her own life whatever is beautiful, whatever is winning, whatever is graceful. She will scrupulously avoid whatever is offensive or unwomanly.

She will look well to her personal appearance; no woman can be careless in her dress, slovenly and untidy—and long keep her place on the throne of her husband's life. She will look well to her inner life. She must have mental attractiveness. She will seek to be clothed in spiritual beauty. Her husband must see in her ever-new loveliness, as the years move on. As the charms of physical beauty may fade in the toils and vicissitudes of life, there must be more and more beauty of soul to shine out to replace the attractions which are lost. It has been said that "the wife should always leave something to be revealed only to her husband, some modest charm, some secret grace, reserved solely for his delight and inspiration, like those flowers which give of their sweetness only to the hand which lovingly gathers them." She should always care more to please him—than any other person in the world. She should prize more highly a compliment from his lips—than from any other human lips. Therefore she should reserve for him the sweetest charms; she should seek to bring ever to him some new surprise of loveliness; she should plan pleasures and delights for him. Instead of not caring how she looks—or whether she is agreeable or not when no one but her husband is present, she should always be at her best for him! Instead of being bright and lovely when there is company, then relapsing into languor and silence when the company is gone—she should seek always to be brightest and loveliest when only he and she sit together in the quiet of the home. Both husband and wife should ever bring their best things to each other!"

~  J.R. Miller (1840-1912)

You may also be interested in reading other Matters on Marriage.

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