Forever Beloved

I remember the exact moment those words flew past my lips.

I hope I’m not pregnant, this marriage is worthless!

I remember everything about that moment…where I was standing, what I had on, what the lighting looked like and more than anything I remember the look on his face.

In that moment my marriage felt hopeless and to be honest, not worth saving.

I want to tell you this, from my heart directly to yours, every marriage is worth saving.

Sometimes marriage is hard.  Really, really hard.  And by hard I don’t mean disagreements over where to go to dinner.  I don’t mean dirty, wet towels being left on the floor.  I mean in the trenches, fighting the battle to bring darkness into light, when satan comes at you from every direction to steal your joy and your hope because he knows he is loosing ground kind of hard.

Maybe in your marriage you are the only one fighting for it.  It is such a helpless feeling to have a sense that your marriage is slipping away and you cannot convince your spouse to work on the relationship.  That dynamic is common – one spouse is emotionally exhausted, and eventually withdraws from the marriage.  The other spouse responds too late, finally understands and then, out of desperation, frantically tries to talk their spouse into staying.

Perhaps your spouse has already filed for divorce and the decision is out of your hands.  That may be the end result for your relationship, though I pray not.  If it is, cling to God like never before and allow Him to carry you through it.

I cannot make guarantees about what will happen for you, but looking back at our history, and hearing the histories of others, I am convinced that God wants to save your marriage.  He wants to start with your soul, but He cares deeply about your covenant with your spouse.

When my husband and I went through a rough in-the-trenches season of marriage there were only two things that helped us survive…handing our marriage to God and clinging to hope.

A big thing to remember is God doesn’t work on our time schedule.  And that, my friends, was a hard pill for me to swallow.  I am a hard-headed, impatient girl.  But God had some work to do on my heart first.  And it wasn’t until I had learned those lessons that things would start improving in our marriage.

I needed to nurture my relationship with Jesus for my relationship with my husband to change.

When it feels like all hope is lost, hand that relationship over to God.  Pray for His direction, discernment and allow Him to lead you.  Oh, how many times I’ve hit my knees praying for the right words, actions that would please Him and a heart that follows His.  I’ve thrown myself at my Fathers feet in a teary hot mess heap more times than I can count.

Please, I plead with you, don’t make a rash decision while your heart is hurting.  Many days, divorce sounds like the best and sometimes easiest option.  Believe me, there were days that through my tears and brokenness I just wanted to throw my hands up, admit defeat and file for divorce.  But I heard God consistently telling me to stand for my marriage, regardless of what the world told me to do.  He showed me divorce extracted a high price, a price I simply wasn’t willing to pay.

When you hand your marriage over to Him, you open yourself to a beautiful reconciliation full of grace.  A relationship that, once it has endured the storm, will come out of it stronger and new. Through fighting in the trenches side-by-side, all the late night conversations, all the deepness, you now know each other differently.  This is the blessing of true healing from the hands of God.

But in the midst of the battle, God hears us.  He hears our cries. When you call out to God in your distress, He hears your voice. And it moves His heart.  He can see into the deepest depths of your heart and He knows exactly what it will take to restore Hope into your heart, into your life and into your marriage.  He doesn’t wait for us to “clean up our act”.  He meets us where we are and loves us just as we are, sinners.  He showers us with His amazing grace.  We have a God who not only knows our doubts and hopelessness, but our tears and pain break His heart.

At times, taking it day by day seems like such a big task.  Take it minute by minute if you must, and allow His grace to carry you through each one.

I know even reading this post made your heart ache and your eyes well with tears.  I wish so very much I could reach through this screen and give you a big hug and just cry with you.  One day the pain will be a little less, I promise.  One day your husband will walk past you in the kitchen, brush up against your arm and you’ll feel those butterflies again.  The good days will be more often.  And each week, there will be more glimpses of sunshine.  Eventually your good days will run together, and smiles and laughter will abound.  Trust me, you will get there if you allow God to heal your heart.  He brings beauty from the ashes.

His answers don’t always come as quickly as we hope.  It isn’t always the answer we want or expect.  And yet, He is faithful.  He is good.  And we will praise Him still.

You will move on past this.  You will hold your head high, knowing the storm may have knocked you down but it didn’t win.

By the way, I found out the next day that I was indeed pregnant.  And that was 20 years ago!  I am so thankful that our love story didn’t end there, that it did have many more God-scripted chapters to it.  The reward of restoration was well worth the wait.  And I am eternally thankful that our love was rescued by God!