Is it funny how we spend hours, days, months planning our weddings and not a whole lot of time planning our marriages.
Honey’s when I planned my wedding I was more concerned about how eye-catching my invitations were and how festive the hall was gonna look-way more than what I was going to do when things like fights, selfishness, impatience and major struggles came up.
Shoot I thought major problems weren’t going to happen to us to be honest. I thought we were that “couple” that was so in love and happy we were going to be just like in the movies and live “Happily ever after!”
Good Lord Jesus how you must have been shaking your head up in Heaven and scared to death for this naive bride!
When I married Chad I thought it was his job to make me feel happy, secure and whole. Isnt’ that what a good hubby does? Yes, but not the hubby your thinking. (we’ll get to that in a minute.)
So as the days, months and years passed, Chad was not making me happy, in fact he was frustrating the crap out of me and driving me nuts half the time. I couldn’t figure out why when I looked at him all I saw were his flaws and what he wasn’t doing for me. I nagged and complained A LOT. (Proverbs 27:15- A quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping on a rainy day.) Good Lord I think our house was flooded.
It seemed every day there was another thing I was telling him every thing he was doing wrong and not doing right. This was NOT the happily ever after I signed up for.
Then someone close to me gave me a book, The Power of a Praying Wife by Stormie Omaritan. I thought Yes! This is it! I can learn how to pray to make my husband what he needs to be! I was so excited! I thought, “Whew! Finally I can shape this man up!”
BIG FAT WRONG on that one. As I read the book it was in fact the opposite of what I had been hoping for.
It was an invitation to see that my husband was never meant to be the one to make me happy, secure and whole and to see the one that was: Jesus. (Hosea 2:16 “In that day, declares the LORD, “you will call me ‘my husband’, you will no longer call me “my master”.)
Jesus was the only husband and still remains the only husband that can make me whole. (even you single girls aspiring for marriage, if you can learn this before you get married, you will be ahead of the game sisters!)
My earthly husband is my help mate that God has given to me to help me along on this journey of life, but he is NOT to be my LIFE. He is not be my Savior.
As I continued to read I also realized I had never once asked God to show me what I was doing wrong in our marriage, what I was doing that drove my husband crazy and what God wanted to change in me as a wife. The big finger I had pointed at him was pointing directly right back to me.
Stormie Omaritan also talked about praying and asking God to see our husband’s through His eyes and not our own. That was one of the most powerful prayers I ever prayed in my marriage and still is.
Friends, we are broken people. We come into our marriages broken people. Yet somehow between Hollywood movies and Disney Fairy Tales, we think the person we marry is going to make everything all right and complete us. (beware of romantic movies if you are already feeling empty in your marriage-because you will leave the theater with Satan whispering lies that your husband will never measure up. That is why I am very cautious of movies like that.)
And when we believe those lies or our spouse gravely disappoints us- it’s the perfect time for the enemy to come in and whisper “the grass is greener on the other side.” But like my old pastor use to say, ” The grass is not greener on the other side, that’s Astroturf!”
John Eldredge in his book Love and War says that marriage is a divine set up from God to make us more like His Son. I couldn’t agree more. I don’t know anything more than my marriage that has pulled me, plucked me and drove me to my knees and crying out to God asking how, why, and what now?
But on my knees I have found God’s love, healing and redemption. For me and my marriage. I have found when I put Christ first and let Him heal me, I see my husband in a new light. God’s light. I see his growth, his potential and the image of God in him. I see that even though we are both broken, messed up and have a way to go, God is renewing and changing us and we are growing together.
If you are reading this and you feel there is no HOPE for your marriage and your saying, “Holly it’s too late for us, because of __________. I don’t care what your fill in the blank is or what the enemy is whispering in your ear, there is HOPE sweet sister, and there is NOTHING to big for our God to deal with.
I could tell you all the bumps, rocks, mountains, and gory details about what my husband and I have been through-but that would be only glorifying the pain instead of glorifying the one that has healed the pain and continues to. Jesus is our healer friends. For our hearts and marriages.
So does happily ever after exist? Yes, but not this side of heaven. We will have happily ever after one day when we’re all made complete with our Lord in Heaven. So what can we have now? Realistically?
Prayerfully at the end of our lives and marriages the end of our stories will read:
And they lived a happily, but sometimes painfully frustrating, up and down, in a rut to exhilarating, fabulously challenging, broken to restored, but, worth it in the end ever after.
If you are interested in some good marriage books to help you and your spouse in your journey I recommend: The Power of a Praying Wife and/or The Power of a Praying Husband by Stormie Omaritan, Love and War by John and Stasi Eldredge, The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman. But word of caution: my husband is not a reader so I basically read these books and shared with him what I read and we learned together through discussing the topics. Don’t freak out if your husband is not ready to read or is not a reader, just let the books minister to you, obey God and let Him lead you. Also would love to know your thoughts on this topic, leave me a comment!
