DFO139511/6/76

1. (MARIA: SOME OF OUR GOOD MEN FRIENDS WHO OUR GIRLS HAVE SHARED WITH WANT TO KNOW if they'd have to continue to share their wives with others after marriage if they married into the Family.) My answer is, "Of course"!

2. Marriage makes NO difference whatsoever when it comes to sharing each other with the Lord & His work & others. Our whole life is sharing! The whole principle of our whole Family is that we share! Do you mean to tell me that marriage means an end of sharing?—That sharing, which means our love for others, our love for each other‚ is to cease at marriage? Hmm? Do we stop loving others just because we get married?

3. Well, you may not HAVE to share your wife in THAT way‚ but why should I be willing to set you the example of sharing mine—the utmost sacrifice, laying down not only my life, but my wife, for you—& then you turn around & be so selfish that you don't want to share yours with anybody else? That's a hard saying!

4. But I'd say don't worry about it right now, just wait. When the time comes, God will give you the grace & the courage & the faith & the anointing.

5. THERE'S AT LEAST ONE NICE THING ABOUT OUR IDEA OF MARRIAGE: It is permanent & forever. No matter how many times you might share your wife with somebody else, she's always going to come home. She's not going to run off with somebody else!—She loves you the most! You're the one she wants to live with, you're the one she sleeps with, you're the one that her life is joined with in the children, even if you might loan her out sometimes. (Except in cases where a change is needed.)

6. Besides, we're one Family.—We are one! There are so many verses on this, it's almost unbelievable. (Gal.3:28) Jesus prayed, "I pray that they may be one". (Jn.17:21) He wasn't just talking about two of you‚ He was talking about all of you. So why shouldn't you share if you love each other & a brother has need?—Why shouldn't you?

7. I'm usually HAPPY to share! If I love another man enough that I want to help him all I can, & if he needs my wife, I'm willing to let him borrow her—as long as he doesn't keep her. That's the only form of private property in which we can believe.—She's mine forever!—But she's not all that private that I couldn't share her once in awhile!

8. If you love someone, He says that you should be willing to lay down your life for them. (1Jn.3:16) "Yes, but not my wife!" Isn't she your life? Well, that's one of our beliefs that is hard for some to understand because they cannot comprehend that much love. That is the ultimate sacrifice in love! Some people would rather die first, lay down their life, than share their wife!

9. SOMETIMES A WOMAN MAY ALSO HAVE TO SHARE HER MAN, & that's not always easy either. But you don't have to do it, nobody's making you‚ we don't force anybody to share, nobody. When Maria feels like sharing sometimes, I say, "It's up to you. It's your choice, whatever you want to do. You don't have to if you don't want to."

10. Of course GOD may expect you to & He may want you to & you may feel bad if you don't, & sometimes she's been sorry she didn't & we lost somebody or offended somebody or somebody's needs were not met. But nobody's going to force you to love God or your brother or your sister or anybody else!

11. You don't HAVE to do it‚ nobody's MAKING you, nobody's going to FORCE you, nobody's going to COMPEL you to share ANYTHING! You can get up & take off anytime you want to!—You can take off with your wife too, providing she wants to go. But as proven in quite a few cases, the wife didn't want to go, because she loves us & the Family more than she loves you!—And she should, because this is God's Family & I am God's man‚ & she should love us more than she should selfishly love just you!

12. So you'd better be thankful to have what you have, even if you have to share a little once in awhile. As Mrs. Billy Graham said when they asked her‚ "How can you stand to be married to a man who's gone most of the time?" She said, "I'd rather have a little of Billy Graham then a whole lot of somebody else!" Amen?

13. Maybe you'd better be THANKFUL for what little you've got, that God gives you, or He may take it all back! He will probably take away from you the things you're not willing to share, because they weren't yours in the first place, they were God's.—He gave them to you & if you're not willing to share them, He'll take them back‚ amen?

14. I THINK MARRIAGE SHOULD BE AS EQUAL AS POSSIBLE, AS SHARING AS POSSIBLE. I don't think the man should do all the ordering & bossing around & make all the decisions. The best marriages I know of are like ours: We talk things over & try to agree together. Only under the most very disagreeable & rarest occasions have I ever had to say, "Well, now you just do what I say because I told you to do it, that's all, whether you understand it or like it or not."—That's a very rare, rare occasion.

15. Most of the time we make decisions TOGETHER, we talk together, we pray together, we love together, we discuss together & then we decide together & agree together. Sometimes we cuss & discuss‚ but we always wind up agreeing somehow. And that's the way marriage should be, especially the way it should be in the Family, amen?—GBYA!

Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family