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Beth is a Christian wife, homeschool Mommi of 4 (29, 27, 20 and 14), and Grammi of 3. She is passionate about pursuing an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ, and feels a clear responsibility to live out the Titus 2 mandate to teach younger women. One way she does that is through her blog.Her goal is to show women how to live a Godly, holy life – fulfilling the unique role that God created us for, as Christian homekeepers, helpmeets, mothers, and friends who are passionately pursuing Christ and putting Him first in our lives.
My husband and I will be celebrating our 21st anniversary on the 20th of August. In a day and age when the divorce rate in America is between 40-50%, many people have asked me what the secret to our marriage has been.
There are a few of those secrets that I share with young women in mentoring them, now I’d like to share them here.
Commitment – I had to smile this morning when I looked up the definition of this word. (You have to understand, I have a “weird” sense of humor.) With definitions like “the act of being committed, as to a prison, mental institution, or grave” – yeahhhhhh, okay…..totally hilarious.
Seriously, though, I am totally blown away by the people who commit to, “till death do us part” and, “for better or worse”, but then leave because they aren’t being “treated like they think they should be”.
I mean, why don’t they just say what they mean in their vows, “I’ll stay with you until someone better comes along, I get bored with you, you do something that annoys me, you don’t change into what I want you to be, or I stop having “feelings” for you”.
Now, I’m not talking about an abusive marriage – that’s a different post…. What I’m talking about are the small things. The things that we allow to eat away at us, making us bitter towards our husbands, chipping away minute by minute at the love and devotion we have for them.
My husband and I have always said that this marriage is “it”. We are in this until death do us part……..we’re just not sure who will shoot whom first! (Yes, we both share this twisted sense of humor!)
Seriously, though, what I’ve learned about commitment is that when you take the “I’ll leave if….” option off of the table, out of the picture…., you are left with “this is where I’ll be forever”.
When you understand, “I’m here forever”, you make “here” a better place. You do all that you can to make it a pleasant place for both of you.
Forgiveness – I once had a very wise older woman tell me that her secret to 60 years of marriage was that on the day she married him, she looked at her husband and said, “I forgive you.” When he asked her what she was forgiving him for, she simply replied, “Everything.” What she was saying was everything that he would ever do to break her heart, hurt her feelings, anger her or betray her was already forgiven.
Since that is what Jesus Christ does with us, it’s what we are told to do for others. When we do that with our husbands, it frees our relationships from one of being afraid the other will leave, to the reassurance that they took their commitment to you seriously, and that they are not going anywhere.
This freedom, as with our Christian freedom, isn’t a “license to sin”, an excuse to “need” that forgiveness. It’s a huge incentive to live a life that is worthy of such unselfish forgiveness.
Submission – This is not an option, ladies. I’ve had women tell me (and yes, even thought this myself – in my younger years, of course!) that they will submit to their husbands…….as long as………… They would end this sentence with things like, “they don’t tell me to do something that I don’t want to do” “I feel like it” or the ever popular, “it doesn’t go against what God tells me to do.”
Okay, here’s the thing with submission in a Christian woman’s life – it has more to do with our relationship and obedience to God than it does to our husbands, and it hinges solely on how big we see God.
Let me explain. When you understand that God tells us to submit to our husbands (Ephesians 5:22; Colossians 3:18), and you understand that God blesses obedience (Exodus 19:5; Exodus 20:6), and that God is capable of changing people’s hearts (Exodus 10:1), then we can safely trust that if we will just be obedient to what God tells us to do (submit to our husband), and that God is capable of making sure that our husbands won’t tell us to do anything that goes against what God teaches us.
When we put conditions on our obedience to God, it’s like our kids putting conditions on obeying us (only on a larger, more important scale). We would not allow our kids to say, “I’ll take out the trash, as long as I can do what I want later.” or “I’ll wash the dishes, if you buy me a new phone….”. So, why do we think it’s okay to do that to God?
True Love – I’m not talking about the “true love” of fairy tales. What I’m talking about is much less glamourous and beautiful (at least on the surface). I’m talking about true love, God’s way. Let’s look at what God tells us that love is, and what it isn’t.
Love does: suffer long, show kindness, rejoice in truth, think no evil, bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, endure all things.
Love does not: envy, parade itself, is not puffed up, behave rudely, seek its own, is not provoked, rejoice in iniquity.
When we exercise this type of love (as we are clearly told to), the end result is something that is truly beautiful – a relationship with our husband that flourishes out of our relationship with God.
I’m not saying that all of this is easy, but it is simple. It simply requires us to look to God as the Center of our marriage, just as we should as the Center of our lives.
Above all, remember that we were made to be our husbands “help meets”. Look for and seize every opportunity to help, encourage, love, and support your husband in the everyday. – Remember, you chose him as your “Prince Charming” – so don’t treat him like a “toad”!
What is one thing you do to ensure your marriage will last forever?
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