“One of the greatest gifts you can give your husband is your own wholeness.” – Stormie Omartian
“So let’s strive for the things that bring peace and the things that build each other up.” Rom. 14:19
Ok, so I started this great blog this morning. I was just getting going when I got a text from my husband asking if he could take me and the girls to breakfast. Sure!
Well, the little stinker was home about 5 minutes later. I was in the middle of the blog and me and the girls were still in our pj’s. I was feeling pressured to get done fast. He was getting irritable. I was getting stubborn.
Why is he pressuring me when I am writing about being a good wife? I mean really. The nerve. I heard the whisper, “write about it or be it.” Oh, but this was going to be a good one. I just needed a few minutes of quiet. A few minutes without kids and a husband breathing down my neck. I mean why is my schedule not important? Why doesn’t anyone see that I don’t get the privilege of doing anything I want to do when I want to do it?
Then it happened. I clicked refesh and the whole thing disappeared. This unprecedented move was divinely inspired no doubt.
So I scrapped it to go be a good wife.
It has taken me a long time to get there. And it still doesn’t come naturally, but I have realized I am the only thing that I can fix in this marriage. I spent years of my life praying for God to change him. God was waiting on me. God was waiting for me to give up my prideful spirit, my need to be right, my bitterness, my loud mouth and my resentment. I felt justified in the way I treated him because he was a jerk after all.
Then God led me to another truth. My husband was a good man. A good man who was deeply wounded and needed a soft place to fall. My own hurt and mistrust never allowed me to be his soft place. I was too broken. My heart was too scarred to help him. He was on his own. We both had wounds we weren’t facing. And “A wound that goes unacknowledged and unwept is a wound that cannot heal” (John Eldredge).
Finally, I asked to be healed. I decided give up my self-protective ways to be a good wife to my husband. I asked Jesus to heal my brokenness so that I could be. On that journey I had to face many of my own fears and risk my heart. I had to be vulnerable in ways that terrified me. Once I invited him, Jesus inserted his healing touch into my heart. I could be whole. I could be a good wife.
Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace. –Jesus
Whatever it is that is holding you back from giving yourself completely to your husband, ask Jesus to touch it and heal it. Maybe you can’t identify it yet. Ask him to show you. Ask Jesus to show you what is holding you back. Ask Jesus to take it, heal it and make you whole.
Lord of my heart,
Tear me open. Examine my heart. Reveal to me where I am wounded. Show me my scars. Give me the courage to face them. Give me the faith to invite Jesus to heal them. Let me be the soft place my husband needs. Let me love my husband recklessly and passionately. Let me love him with abandon, the same way you love me.
Thank you Jesus. Thank you.
