What does Valentines day mean to you? For me, it never really meant much. It was a day created by the greeting card companies for people to spend more money on the idea of “love”. But what is love? IT is defiantly a word that is easy to say, but not so easy to mean. IT is so easy to love through the easy times, but what about the hard times? What about the times that test a relationship? Times like job losses and addictions, child rearing and financial hardships? How easy is it to love through those times?
It may be easy for some to say “That’s a peace of cake to love my spouse during hard times” but what about acting in love? I love my husband more than anything in the world and by my own admission, I do struggle at times, with showing him love. In the 14 years we have been together, we have experienced some really hard times. Often, we ask ourselves how we have made it this far when most of our circumstances have been identical to what has caused other relationships to end in divorce and hatred and spite.
I can only contribute this to God. My husband isn’t a Christian and I am. In this Christian world, this is known as being “unequally yoked”. I had been a Christian but never acted like one. It wasn’t until 6 years into my marriage that I started to grow on my relationship with God. As I grew, things changed in me and what I didn’t realize, as I was changing for the better, I was leaving my husband behind. My hobbies and music changed, my lifestyle changed and my level of anger changed. Even though we had a lot of things in common, the things we enjoyed doing together started to change and we started drifting apart.
Eventually, I got to the point where I felt like I was done. We became hurtful to each other and just not the people who had fallen in love so many years ago.
My husband loves me with a passion, but my passion seemed to be gone. I was hurt and I felt not good enough and not like I was the woman he was meant to be with. However, what I was forgetting was that God brought me to him and him to me. God said I was the woman for him and he was the man for me.
Rather than turn my hurts and pains and sorrows over to God, I absorbed them and fed them. I pushed them down inside of me where they would stew and stew and stew. However, as I had started growing in my relationship with God, I was also learning. I was starting to hear that conscience deep down inside of me. I was learning from the Word how I needed to be and what I had to let go of.
I did ok for a while but started doing life again, my way. I started to give up because my husband said something hurtful and spiteful to me. I knew I would never get an apology for it, so I would just feed that emotion. Where I had promised to make my marriage a priority and help him through his hurts, habits and hang-ups, I gave up. However, God didn’t give up on me. He hasn’t give up on us.
He has shown me what I need to do and how I Can be the wife that my husband enjoys coming home to and how I can help my husband to become the person God created him to be. The man I can see deep down inside of him.
I have made some choices this past week that although seem good and productive to the outside world, would actually be destructive to my marriage. Thankfully, God has been able to reveal this to me before it’s to late. I emailed my recent employer and let him know that the only way I would be available to work would be during the times my husband is at work and my daughter is at school. If this job is of God, they will work with that.
My trust is upon God. I need to do life his way, not my way. I can’t lean on my emotions or let my hurts guide me. I have asked my husband for forgiveness and have been honest with him. And guess what, the world hasn’t fallen apart!!! The day is still going on and I am still breathing. Even better, my husband still loves me and we are still married.
On a day that was created by greeting card companies to celebrate love and make a buck off of it, God has given me a new beginning and a beautiful marriage. IT may be rough around the edges, but it is pure solid gold inside.
