Changed By Love

I visited someone I greatly respect, an elderly saint whose husband passed away some time ago. This couple has been such an encouragement in my life, and I let her know how much they both meant to me.

Her daughter, also present, let me know that her father wasn’t always that way.

“What do you mean?” I asked. He had been one of the godliest people I know.

It turned out that when he came back from World War II, he wasn’t such a nice man. I don’t know what he saw or experienced over there, but whatever it was changed him. He was surly and withdrawn. He wasn’t the man that I came to know later.

I asked what changed. The daughter pointed at her mother. “She changed him.”

The love of his wife helped him heal. I don’t know how long it took. I know it must have been hard. A veteran with what we’d now call PTSD and this war bride figured it out together and became the godly couple I knew later, two people who modeled grace and godliness to me.

I learned a couple of things that day.

First, saints weren’t born saints. Sometimes we see godly men and women and think they’ve always been that way. When we think this, we make a fundamental error: we attribute their godliness to them rather than to the Lord. True godliness isn’t a matter of personality. True godliness turns sinners into saints. Look at any godly saint and you will learn that they weren’t always that way. God grew them, and it took years, decades, for them to become who they are today.

Second, I learned the power of love. Marriage sanctifies. It sanctifies as we suffer together. Our sins are exposed. We learn to be patient. We’re challenged through having to figure out how to live together. But love changes us too. Somehow God worked through the love of this young war bride to break through the impenetrable defenses of someone who had seen unspeakable things, and slowly, gently, and with great difficulty, he was dragged back to life.

I’m glad I got to know this man at his best. I’m glad I got to see the difference that the Lord and his wife made in his life. As long as I live, I’ll be marked by the kindness he showed to me, the way he believed in me when I didn’t deserve it, and by his sincere and passionate love of the Lord.

But I’m glad I got to know the rest of the story. I’m glad to have learned that he wasn’t always that way, that he once was a shell of the man that he one day became, and that God can work to bring healing and growth to someone who could easily have shriveled into nothing. I’m glad I learned something about the kindness and grace of God who gives us exactly what we need to grow into who he wants us to be through the kindness of his grace and the love of a good and godly woman.