Hey many people wonder how you do it for 24 years. Well my answer is God! The waitress at the restaurant tonight congratulated us on our 24 years of marriage and said her husband and her had been married since December. She said marriages these days just don't last. I thought about what she said and couldn't let her get away without knowing the secret. When she came back I told her our secret was God and if it had not been for Him we would have been divorced. That is the truth!
Within 2 years of our marriage we were separated. Yes, I would have been a single mom. However, we rededicated our lives to Christ and started living our lives for Christ. What a difference that made. Once we made that decision, God began to surround us with some godly couples and strong believers who were sold at for Christ. We also got planted in the local church, attending small groups, fellowshipping with other believers and serving every opportunity we could. We did not miss a church service or event.
We began to be open and honest with those close to us about our marital struggles and they held us accountable. Did we have to be vunerable? Yes, but we wanted to keep our family together. God put people in our lives who we could be transparent with and it made the difference. We allowed God to lead us on who to share with of course. Honestly, I didn't care what my husband told people about my issues, I just wanted help for our marriage. If it would help our marriage so be it! We learned what God wanted for our marriage. We began to grow in our relationships with God. Did we have struggles and still have days we wanted to quit...of course!
I found people who specifically prayed for my marriage. I even had one friend that I got together with regularly and we prayed specifically for our husbands and kids. Our children would play while we were on our faces before the Lord. I see the fruit of the prayers that we prayed today.
One of the big things for me was choosing to love my husband as he was. I learned to see him the way that Christ sees him. I had tried for years to change him. It did not work, so I began to just ask God to change me. It is amazing as he began to change me the things I wanted God to change about him did not seem so big. God began to do a work in me. I learned to pray for my husband not that he would change, but that God would make him the man that he wanted him to be. I had been praying very selfishly before. I wanted God to change him into the man that I wanted him to be so that all my needs would be met. My husband could not meet all my needs, only Christ could. He couldn't make me happy only Christ could give me joy. I had to come to a place where I knew who I was in Christ Jesus. Once I began to find satisfaction in Christ I began to change and so did my marriage.
I began to see him differently and speak differently to him. I began to keep short accounts. I would not allow things to just fester in my head about him or things he had done. He isn't perfect and neither am I. I learned to forgive quickly. Harbouring unforgiveness is wrong. There is no reason for it. It causes so many other problems like bitterness and resentment. Christ has forgiven us we must learn to forgive others. I got over the I can't believe he said or did that to me syndrome. I learned to not be led by my emotions. My emotions had caused me too much pain.
I also learned to say I was sorry. I learned to take responsibility for my part. No matter how wrong I felt my husband was I learned that God would take care of him. I was responsible for me. Oh how freeing that became! At one time I thought that by saying I was sorry, I was admitting that he was right and he was wrong. I felt like he had won. I learned that it wasn't about being right or winning. It was about loving my husband the way that the Lord wanted me to. God showed me that it was about obeying Him. Pride keeps us in a position that we have to be right. Christ even humbled himself.
Another thing I learned to do was to not react to things my husband said. I learned to respond. There is a difference! For years I reacted and it turned into huge argument. A reaction is fast and through the filter of the flesh, a response allows time for the Holy Spirit to speak to you. It is filtered through love.
Prayer played a big part in our marriage! I have prayed a lot for my husband. There are times when I didn't even respond to certain situations I just PRAYED! I have a strong personality so sometimes the best solution for me was to talk to God. Some of those times I would not specifically pray for my husband but I would begin to pray for myself and just worship God. Thanking Him for what he was doing in my life. Asking him to change me. It was amazing to me how my heart and the atmosphere would just change.
Sometimes in the morning, I would pray out loud in the shower for my day, my marriage and my children. I began to recognize when our marriage was under attack. I was determined that I would not allow him to use me to destroy our marriage. I began to see that the accuser was against us and that God was for our marriage. He wanted to destroy our marriage so that God's plans would be thwarted. He is a liar! We are still standing firm and our marriage is growing stronger each day.
You know I believe that marriage is one of the ways that Christ helps us to love like him. We learn to love selflessly in marriage, we learn about forgiveness, grace and we learn to put someone elses needs above our own. We learn to obey the voice of God!
I felt like sharing this with my friends on our special day! I pray this helps someone.
