Finding Safe Harbor At Home

Finding Safe Harbor at Home

Encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.

Hebrews 3:13, NIV

On a recent summer trip to the New England coast, we discovered a little lighthouse that has been a source of encouragement to many lonely sailors over the years. Minot’s Ledge Light, near Scituate, Massachusetts, was first lit on November 15, 1860. Its cost of $300,000 made it the most expensive lighthouse ever constructed in the United States at that time. Its special encouragement to sailors comes in the fact that it signals nautical code, a 1-4-3 flashing cycle, to spell “I love you.” Wives in this sailing town originated this message to encourage their husbands out at sea and remind them how much they were loved.

Several years ago the Coast Guard decided to upgrade the light by replacing the old equipment. They announced that for technical reasons the new machines would be unable to flash the “I love you” message. Both the people of Scituate and the sailors protested. The Coast Guard finally weakened. The old equipment, noticeably out of date, was reinstalled and remains in Scituate to faithfully send its encouraging message to the sailing husbands.

Every spouse—sailor or not—needs an encouraging word. More than that, we need a marriage that serves as a kind of safe harbor, a place where we can count on being encouraged and loved. Is your marriage such a place? Do you “encourage one another daily”?

It is astonishing how little one feels alone when one loves.

—John Bulwer