“I think you should call an ambulance,” he said. Little did I know what the next day would bring. We had enjoyed a lovely Friday evening. A special dinner of scallops and angel hair pasta. A good movie. Getting ready for bed,  Blair complained of a headache and asked me to call an ambulance. What was going on here? A lovely evening was dramatically changed in one moment.

If you know my story, then you know that one day later, they diagnosed my husband with a brain aneurysm and they told me nothing could be done for him. On January 31, 2010, sixteen years ago tomorrow, Blair died.

I had no idea that Friday morning what would transpire that coming evening. I was thinking it was the weekend and we would have two days of no work or schedules except going to church on Sunday.

That’s how life is. One moment everything’s fine and then it isn’t fine.

Three and a half years after Blair died, I met Jim and we’ve now been married twelve years. But those last two days of January in 2010 were dark and cold and full of grief.

Dark days will come to each of us. Often when you least expect them. I learned from both from my first husband and then my second husband, how life can change very quickly. In just one moment.

We’re approaching Valentine’s Day, the day of love. But I don’t think we should wait for once a year to express love and affection to our mates and those we love.

Jim and I wrote a book about remarriage and I like the following statement from the book:

We often say, “We’re standing on the shoulders of our previous spouses,” because our previous marriages have benefited our present marriage. Although not perfect, our marriage is as very close to perfection as life can be on this planet (From Second Chance at Love).

Second Chance at Love Book

We listed eight important items on how to have a charmed marriage. Here are the first two:

  1.  Pray together. Did you know that in a marriage where a couple prays together daily they have a 99% chance of their marriage succeeding? I read this statistic from author Craig and Amy Groeschel.

Before Jim and I met, I asked God to bring someone in my life who loved Him–God–more than me. God answered that prayer about two weeks later when I met Jim on a blind coffee date. On our first date, we prayed together out-loud.

If you haven’t prayed together out loud, it’s ok. Today’s a good time to start. If you feel uncomfortable praying in front of your mate, perhaps you can just start with a simple prayer like, “Thank you for this day, Lord.” You can expand from there. Most likely, you’ll begin to feel more comfortable and pray about other things.

2.  Communicate. I’m not talking about, what we should have for dinner, or plans for the following day, but when there’s a disagreement, a misunderstanding, an important family discussion. Here’s what I learned from my first marriage:

… It took years in my marriage to Bill for us to learn to communicate. We struggled for twenty years, went to counseling and, after months of counseling, attended a couples communication class recommended by the counselor. I honestly didn’t think anything would help because counseling so far had not made a dent in our struggling marriage, but this class did the trick.

Here are some things we learned from those two months of the class and what Jim and I use in our marriage now:

♥ Keep voices level

♥ If your partner is confronting you about something, repeat what they said. Keep the statement-and-repeat-cycle going until both parties understand.

♥ Don’t wait until you become really upset about something—or apologize right away if you know you spoke with sarcasm or angry voice.

 ♥ Keep the communication open by not getting defensive.

♥ Avoid the words “always” and “never.”

Perhaps in your marriage you never prayed together–and I’m not talking about a mealtime prayer, but genuine, going to the Father in prayer. It’s never too late to start. I confess, in my first marriage, we really didn’t start praying out loud together until the last six months of Bill’s life. But those prayers even in that short time made a difference in our relationship and were precious memories after he was gone. I urge you to take the time to do this special thing. I promise, it will enrich your marriage. Remember, 99% of all marriages that pray together, stay together.

Could your communication between each other improve? I hope you might consider the simple ideas I learned so many years ago now. Next week, I’ll share another couple of tips.

In the meantime, be sure to tell your mate you love them–to the moon and back–or some other loving statement, you choose! Remember in one moment, things can change.

What about you, whose mate is gone and you can’t tell them you love them, that you’d like to pray with them? Well, you can thank God you had them in your life. If you marry again, you can remember to incorporate those things in your marriage. I like the verse in 2 Corinthians, “This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” (2 Corinthians 5:17 NLT).

Enjoy this beautiful song about prayer:

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