From a reader. THANK YOU to this precious wife for sharing her story and to God be all the glory!!!!!
BAD NEWS
I can’t even begin to tell you how my heart sank when I heard my husband say that he was planning to take a trip to Las Vegas with a single guy friend from work. You’d have to know a great deal of our relationship history to fully understand why this hit me the way it did, but nevertheless I was distraught over it. I think most wives would feel a little uncomfortable with the idea of their man going away to a place like Las Vegas without them. I felt VERY uncomfortable, given my husband’s past issues.
THINGS HAD BEEN IMPROVING SO MUCH LATELY!
Things had been really looking up for our family, especially within my marriage. I was finally coming to a point where God was really showing me so much about what it means to be a respectful and submissive wife. I was effectively putting it all into practice, and I was really watching the changes happen. My husband was again warming up to me, after I had made him flee, so to speak, with my controlling words and behavior in the past.
Our marriage had been very broken. Once I stopped trying to force him to get close with God and backed off, he began to take an interest in God again. He started to really step up as a leader of our family in many ways I had never seen in all the previous years of our marriage. He wanted to have a pure life like I did, and after all the years of struggling, for us to be in a place where we both wanted the same thing was really amazing. What was even more amazing was the fact that I was able to understand so many new things about what to do and not do as a wife. I really felt like things were finally going to be okay, and I wasn’t going to have to deal with the same old behaviors from my husband.
As it turns out, I might always have to deal with those things, and just maybe, he might always have to deal with me struggling to be a respectful wife and messing it up more often than not. Unfortunately, we are sinners. This is the reality of all marriages, and I am learning A LOT about this. That is not to say that God can’t transform our hearts and make us more like Him everyday, but we will always struggle with our flesh. It would be foolish to believe that our husband’s are not going to make mistakes and hurt us.
MY FEELINGS ABOUT HIS PLANS FOR THE TRIP
When my husband told me about wanting to go to Las Vegas, I did not take it well. I tried very hard to respond as best as I could with many of the tools I’d learned from God and from April’s site, but it was hard. I was so confused. I thought my husband wanted to leave these ways behind.
- Why would he want to run off and be in a place like that with his single friend?
- Was I being judgmental by thinking this?
- I thought he didn’t want to even drink anymore.
- Why did he have to pick Las Vegas?
- What would happen there?
My mind was racing. I should also mention that my husband works two jobs everyday so I can stay home with our sons. I am eternally grateful that he does this for us, but it can be very difficult, because we hardly see him at all during the week. It felt so wrong that he would take vacation time and be away from us by choice. It also hurt my heart deeply that he didn’t pick me to come along. I wanted so desperately for him to want to whisk me away on a romantic trip and be his first choice as a companion.
All of these emotions were flying around in my head, and it was so painful. I knew in my heart that I really had been doing the things God asked me to do in my marriage and as a wife, so I couldn’t understand why this was happening. I would have understood him wanting to go with someone else if I were still being controlling, manipulative, and disrespectful, but I knew I wasn’t. I was actively making sure I wasn’t.
WHAT I DID
I did tell my husband all of the different emotions I was feeling. That was also hard for me, because in the past I had really worried about how he would react when I shared negative feelings with him. God helped me through this, however, and I was able to share all of the issues I had more calmly than I would have in the past. Instead of demanding him to respond to everything I said, I let it be. This is also very different for me, because normally I’d be asking a million questions like what do you think or are you mad I feel this way… but, I didn’t. I let him take what I said into consideration and then I had to let God do the rest.
GOD WORKED IN MY HEART – A LOT!
Over the course of a month I struggled with trying to accept that he was going on this trip and trying to mold my feelings to accompany that as a truth. I still felt like it was wrong though. I kept praying that God’s will would prevail, whether it was for my husband to go or not.
This was a pivotal time for me in my relationship with God, because I started to realize that my motives were not necessarily right when it came to what I was trying to achieve as a wife. I wanted to be a good wife, but I also expected that my husband was going to be a good husband as a result. That is not always the truth. God really showed me that I need to be a good wife for Him. I need to make sure I’m being submissive and respectful for God regardless of what my husband is doing/not doing.
That was VERY eye opening for me. It was also a giant test, because I had to blindly trust God through it. I didn’t know how I’d survive those days he’d be away not knowing what was going on, but I had to just keep handing those fearful thoughts and feelings to God.
GOD WAS AT WORK WITH MY HUSBAND, TOO – UNBEKNOWNST TO ME!
Last week my husband came home from work and told me we needed to talk. My stomach was in knots, because I assumed he wanted to go over when he was leaving and all the details of the trip. Instead, he told me he realized that it was wrong to go with his friend. He said he left the whole trip in God’s hands and it was completely falling through. When they went to book the flight, the website would not accept their credit cards for some mysterious (GOD) reason. I guess his friend kept changing his mind as well.
My husband acknowledged that it was definitely the hand of God. He said he was very sorry, and that he wanted to make the family more of a priority. He then informed me that he wanted to take me on a trip instead! We will be going on vacation together at the beginning of next month!
I really am in awe of what God did with this situation. It’s hard for me to even express in words how thankful I am. The lessons I am learning are priceless.
MY MESSAGE TO WIVES
What I really want to say to wives is that you need to expect that your husband is going to mess up and do crazy things, but you can’t let that affect how you behave as a wife. Keep seeking God. Keeping asking Him to give you the strength to be the wife He wants you to be. He will equip you, and when things look grim, He is there, and you can most definitely trust Him. He will use your behavior and your faith to bring about positive changes in your husband, but it won’t always be in the way that you want or expect. It may just be a two steps forward, three steps back type of thing, but take heart, God is at work!
God works everything together for the good (of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose Romans 8:28). When I was struggling with all the confusion of this situation I felt like I couldn’t see what good would come from it at all, but then I remembered who God really is, and I knew I could trust Him with this.
If this hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t have realized my focus in seeking to be a godly wife is to be God and only God. I learned that we can’t get stuck on the plans and ideas other people have. God can definitely step in the way and change things into how He wants them to be. As wives we need to fully and completely fix our eyes on God, and not have our focus on everything that is going on around us. God is in control.
So, this was really hard, but it was also really amazing and good for me. I think so many of the things we go through as wives are like that. Lessons are hard, but so very valuable. I pray that we keep close to God so we can grasp all the wisdom He wants to give us, and that we can be that godly loving example of Him to everyone around us. 🙂
FROM PEACEFULWIFE:
PRAISE GOD!!!!!!!!! He IS able! He is sovereign – even over our husbands. We can trust Him. And He will truly use all things for His glory and our ultimate good when we yield to Him and put our faith in Him. WHAT A STORY! It just gives me chills all over. THANK YOU, LORD!
OTHER WIVES – if you have a story about how God worked in your marriage, or is working in you and your marriage – please let me know!