With every passing year (25 years of marriage so far) I become more and more grateful that I am the second love of my precious wife, Sunny. Her love for the Lord Jesus flows through her character as she blesses our family and strengthens our home with her heart to put God first in all things, and others before herself. There was a time, many years ago, when that wasn't true. We were both struggling through the early years of our marriage, demanding so much of each other and frustrated that we in ourselves were never enough to provide lasting fulfillment. And when I say struggling I don’t mean it was hard. I mean it was over...done...looking up divorce attorneys in the yellow pages kind of finished.
And then God did what He does so often, and so well. He intervened. Through good Biblical counseling, Bible study and prayer, God began to show us what it means to love Him first and the dramatic impact that has on our relationships. No longer did Sunny desire to love me well in order to make me happy, but she desired to be a truly Biblical wife in order to please the Lord. With her desires in their proper place she found the strength to not only endure the hard times but to love me in ALL times, regardless of how I make her feel on any particular day. And for that I am so grateful because I’m a real mess. No, really.
Our marriage is strong today because of the godly love, character and devotion of my bride, and her living out the things she shares in this book. Sunny has spent nearly 20 years teaching other women God’s plan of submission in their marriage. I have seen so many marriages saved, lives changed, real joy and contentment found in previously broken homes, including my own. It is truly a gift from a wife to her husband. This is the Lord’s way of love, and it is good.
The truths she covers in My Second Love are not new, they are the very precepts of God from his word, and Sunny has always had a way of explaining these truths in a way that brings everything into clear light. Light can be warm and comforting. It can also startle us and make us cover our eyes. But God’s truth is always good no matter how it makes us feel when we hear it; warm and comforting as it brings hope for our marriages, and sometimes painful when we clearly see the sin in our lives that corrupts our efforts to love. My prayer as you read this book and meditate on God’s word is that you will find the same comfort and strength it brought my dear Sunny, and that your husbands and children will be as blessed as I am by the transformation of your character, heart and devotion to God.
May your husbands always be your second love.
~Jim Shell
