Sanctuary

Your love is more delightful than wine. . . . Your name is like perfume poured out.

Song Of Songs 1:2, 3

NANCY BELCHER AND HER HUSBAND, CHRIS, ARRIVED IN ITALY TO RUN THE Venice Marathon. They registered in a town called Mestre, which, like many Italian cities, doesn’t allow cars in the city center. Nancy told Chris she’d jog to the registration area, pick up their packets, and meet him back outside after he found a place to park.

But after Nancy picked up the race packets and left to look for her husband, she found herself surrounded by six thousand runners and their family members, most of them drinking, laughing, and talking in different languages. Nancy spent a frantic hour looking for Chris; they hadn’t planned a meeting place, nor did they yet have a hotel room. They intended to just meet and then check in somewhere, but everything felt so new and so disorienting that Nancy had no clue where to look for Chris—and it was all so crowded!

Finally, Nancy remembered Chris had a cell phone, so with the help of an Italian desk clerk, she called her husband. Initially, Nancy felt reassured to hear the dial tone, but her heart sank when she heard a ringing in her purse—she had Chris’s cell phone!

It was now 9:30 p.m., the night before the marathon, and as Nancy noted, “I had no dinner, no car, no hotel, and no husband.”^a

Nancy wandered back into the registration area, milling around aimlessly until finally she heard her husband’s familiar whistle. At that moment, it was the most beautiful sound she could imagine: “I felt so relieved I hugged him and started to cry. My reaction so surprised him that he started to laugh. There we stood, among thousands of partying marathoners in an unfamiliar foreign city, crying and laughing.”

I love this story because it’s a picture of the sanctuary that marriage can become. In a foreign land, the one familiar face Nancy wanted to see more than any other was that of her husband, Chris. We may walk in a crazy world, but if we’re married, we have the privilege, the refuge, the sense of security, the sense of comfort pictured in Nancy and Chris’s embrace.

Of course, we don’t have to leave home to appreciate this sanctuary. A man with whom I hadn’t had a significant conversation in more than ten years once publicly attacked me. Though the charges later proved silly, it certainly felt sobering to become the focus of such venom. One night during this ordeal, my wife snuggled up to me, kissed the back of my neck, and said, “I love you, Gary.” Earlier in the day she had told me how a woman had apologized to her because when they first met, the woman had said, “Oh, you’re Gary Thomas’s wife! I heard him on Focus on the Family.” The woman said she was sorry she had defined Lisa by her spouse, but Lisa told her, “You don’t have to apologize. I love being known as Gary’s wife!”

When you’re attacked, it does something wonderful to your soul when your spouse glories in your relationship. Lisa knows me better than anyone else. She knows more of my history, more of my temptations, and more of my private devotion than any other human. She has spent more time with me, shared more words with me, and eaten more meals with me than anyone else.

Even so, she loves me. In fact, she even loves being known as my wife!

Her affirmation in the midst of such an ordeal, the reality of being deeply loved by the person who knows me best, provided a wonderful sanctuary where I could find shelter.

A few weeks later, the roles got reversed. A woman who didn’t understand Lisa’s situation misread her motives and erroneously applied a Bible verse to back up her rather blunt opinion. Lisa cried as we talked on the phone. “Honey,” I said, “I know you better than that woman ever will. She doesn’t understand your situation, and furthermore, biblically, she’s just wrong. You’re doing the right thing.”

“You really think so?” Lisa asked.

“I know so.”

There is great leverage when the person who knows you best can encourage you most.

In a good number of these devotions, I’ve talked about some of the struggles of marriage—how it’s worth the pain, how it calls us to sacrifice, commitment, and so forth—but please, let’s not forget the great joy and blessing of being known and being loved. Our marriages can become sanctuaries, sheltering us from a world that hates us. We might be lost in a foreign country, attacked in our hometown, challenged in our own Bible study, but what a joy to find refuge in the arms of a loving spouse!

Our marriages can become sanctuaries, sheltering us from a world that hates us.

The Bible is honest—evil people exist:

• “The wicked plot against the righteous and gnash their teeth at them” (Psalm 37:12).
• “And pray that we may be delivered from wicked and evil people, for not everyone has faith” (2 Thessalonians 3:2).
• Jesus said, “Blessed are you when [note: not if, but when] people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me” (Matthew 5:11).

There are those who will tear us down, assume we have evil motivations, be inclined to think the worst of us, and even misrepresent us to others. They will gossip, slander, and ridicule. But God has given us a mate, a shelter in the storm, who knows us better than anyone.

When that mate loves us, adores us, and respects us, what it does to our souls is without question one of the most gratifying experiences in all of human existence. It is a powerful, powerful ministry to honor and adore your spouse, to become his or her sanctuary in a world that often seems predisposed to hate, to wound, to hurt, and to tear down.

When Lisa said she loved me at just the time I needed it most, when she made a point of telling me how delighted she is to be known as my wife, she won my loyalty for life. She already had it, of course. It’s what I had promised on the day we got married. But in those words, uttered when I needed them most, she unleashed a new torrent of thanks and affection to accompany that original commitment.

Lisa and I have faced our share of trials and troubles—but I would cross this world on Lisa’s behalf. I would face all the demons in hell to defend her. She has been my sanctuary—and I will adore her for all of eternity.