Some years ago, a young well-educated man was interested in getting married to an equally young well-educated lady. The young man had a dog as a pet. The dog loved him. Somewhere along the line as the relationship between the man and the woman progressed, the dog did something, which the man did not like. The man instantly killed the dog and threw it away.
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This should have been a signal to the lady that she was in a relationship with an unkind person. A few years later into the marriage, he became cruel to his wife. The marriage ended in divorce after producing four children or so. And guess what, the man contributed nothing towards the feeding and the education of the children. That a man could mercilessly kill the dog he claimed to have loved was enough sign that he was a wicked man whether he professed to be a good tongue-speaking Christian or a good Muslim who did not miss praying five times a day.

Certain things I have witnessed in many people’s marriages, families and relationships recently made me to dig deeper and deeper into the advice my father in-law, Bishop Michael Marioghae (now with the Lord) gave to his daughter, Carol (who is now my wife) at the age of 16. I have mentioned this before and I will never be tired of mentioning it again.

When Carol was 16 years old and still in secondary school, her father called her and told her to start praying for a good husband. He told her that the kind of man she should ask God for in her prayers should not just be a Christian, who speaks in tongue, prays very well and can be used by God to heal and perform all manner of miracles. Instead, he told her to pray for a Christian who is naturally kind. It sounded funny to Carol why she should start praying for a husband at such a tender age of 16.

Well, she took the advice of her father. It was when she was 28 years old that I met her and proposed marriage to her. Before she said, “yes” to my marriage proposal, she intentionally and unintentionally, knowingly and unknowingly installed what I may call “a kindness thermometer.”

Having being raised by a father who was kind to her mother and by a mother who was kind to her father, she had no difficulty in knowing the true meaning of love and kindness. One of the marriage cases I recently handled is that of a girl who has a wicked father and an unkind mother.
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This lady does not know the meaning of love and kindness because she never experienced any. So, when one of the kindest men you can think of kindly and lovingly came to ask for her hand in marriage, she turned it down after being extremely rude to the man.

The point is this, when you know that you are a naturally kind person, before you agree to marry whoever you are interested in, let your “kindness thermometer” be in place and intentionally and tensionally know the kindness capacity of the person. Genesis 24:12-67 makes us understand that the “kindness thermometer” was what the man God used to find a wife for Isaac. 1 Corinthians 13:4 says: “Love is kind.” I seriously suggest that if the family, the education, the relationships and the work somebody who wants to marry you have to be thoroughly examined, I want to seriously universalise the truth that the kindness capacity of who you or a member of your family wants to marry should also be kindly investigated through the “kindness thermometer.” Love you!
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