This reader wrote me right before her wedding day last month, so she is now married, but could use your help.  She didn’t want me to post her question, but I think she could use encouragement being a newlywed.

She’s had a bad example with her own parents marriage.   What words of advice would you give her to assure her that her marriage does not have to be like her parents, it can be so much better!  Thanks for your help!

My first advice to her was that communication is so important in a marriage.  To not wait until Satan has let things fester in her mind for days or months before she reacts to them.  Calmly communicate her feelings to her spouse.

In my wedding ceremony, we had a friend read the passage from 1 Corinthians 13

13 If I speak in the tongues^[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,^[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

⁸ Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. ¹¹ When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. ¹² For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

¹³ And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

If in every action, every thought, every gift, in everything you do for your spouse, you do it in love, even if love is not shown to you in return, you are fulfilling God’s will.   Love one another is the greatest commandment of all, but love others as you love yourself was the second.

Good luck sweetie!