Mom Heart Moments #325

Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another.

MOST MARRIAGES START OUT with at least some idealism and romantic expectation. Mine was no different. Clay won me with bouquets of yellow roses (I was his yellow rose of Texas), romantic cards, and lots of dinners out.

And then . . . there was life! Seventeen moves, six internationally; four children, three miscarriages; deaths of family members; car wrecks; financial challenges; illness; a fire and three floods in our house; church splits; ministry problems . . . and lots and lots of stress. Nothing quite prepared me, as a very immature, untrained young woman, to know how to bear all of the stresses we would face just being a family.

One evening, I was sitting on my bed in the darkness, venting at God about Clay and how he had hurt my feelings. I was rehearsing the injustices of our relationship because, from my point of view, he was much more the problem than I was!

Yet, as I sat there pondering these things, tears streaming down, it was as though God whispered, “What if the most profound work you ever did to please Me was to love Clay? If he never changes, can you worship Me in this place and release your expectations to Me?”

Early, I learned that my marriage was a place of worship into which I could bring God’s love, healing, and grace every day, or I could just live as a hypocrite saying that I was committed to God and would serve Him, except in my marriage because that was just asking too much!

I think there is a point when a godly woman in a marriage must say, “This is the reality of the puzzle I have been given in my life and marriage, and this is the story I must stay in and live to the fullest with grace.”

Are you working to keep fervent in your love for your spouse, even in spite of imperfections?