Page 9 - MyFaith Mag March 2017 flipbuilder
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entertainment
A Q&A WITH GARY THOMAS
1. When did you first get the idea and prompting to write husband was really and truly repentant and was duly ac-
the book Cherish? countable, and cherishing was thus an appropriate and ef-
Not intending to sound too mystical, but I honestly believe fective remedy to rebuild their marriage.
the thought of focusing on “cherish” was a call from God.
It dawned on me that though we pledge to “love and The reality is, we all want to be cherished, and we all want
cherish” in our wedding vows (at least in the United States), to cherish the one we marry. When that happens it can cre-
99.9% of marriage books focus on love, not on cherish. I ate an entirely new marriage. In the book, I tell the story of
lived with this idea and practice for a couple years in my a man who was married to a woman who died of cancer.
own marriage and began writing down my thoughts when He then remarried a second wife who also died of cancer.
I saw the fruits. Terry tells me his second marriage was much richer than his
first not because his second wife was more excellent than
2. Why do you think that the wedding vow “to cherish,” isn’t his first wife—he doesn’t believe that at all—but because his
widely concentrated/focused on? attitude in his second marriage was so different. In the sec-
Love really is the backbone of marriage, so it’s reasonable ond marriage, he learned to cherish his wife and it made
for us to focus on love. But love without cherish can be- all the difference. It led him to a much closer, happier, and
come like a ballet that focuses on the strengths and athlet- more fulfilling marriage.
ics without the grace and beauty. We need to keep cherish
in mind so that we don’t lose the wonder of what God calls 4. Can you share an incredible testimony from one of your
us to in marriage. readers of their marriage being healed?
I think the one that moved me most was when a couple
3. Do you believe that once a married couple truly knows lifted up their baby and said, “We call her our ‘sacred mar-
how to cherish one another that there could be 100% heal- riage baby.’” The wife had decided she wanted a divorce
ing after such devastation as an affair? and had procured an apartment to move to. The husband
In the face of true repentance, yes. I just talked to a couple went to his pastor, who gave him a copy of Sacred
last week that overcame an affair. The wife told me that Marriage. As the wife was packing her things, she knocked
while they hate what happened and wish it hadn’t hap- her husband’s copy of Sacred Marriage onto the floor and
pened, they also would never want to go back to what it landed face up. She read the subtitle, “What if God de-
their marriage was like before the affair. In this instance, the signed marriage to make us holy more than to make us
