A BROKEN MARRIAGE RESTORED
We've heard it said that compatibility is everything in marriage. You hear that and assume that once you meet a man with whom you're truly compatible (at least to the extent that you're excited being with him), then you're bound to have a wonderful marriage.
What a lie!
Another one is, if everything goes very well during your courtship; your parents on either side are in full support of the marriage. They may even belong to the same YMCA/YWCA, or similar. Or you and your beau may have attended the same elementary school, high school, and even the university, shared same friends, etc.
And you conclude it's a marriage made in heaven?? You have another thing coming!
On the flip side, some say "opposites attract" and that opposites complement each other. In other words, your weaknesses are my strengths, and my weaknesses, your strengths so together, we make a winning team.
Sounds easy, right?
Yet, not quite so.
All this I learned when my marriage came crashing to a halt. I discovered that just as the Holy scriptures say it, "the race is indeed not to the swift". I'd add to that, 'lest anyone should boast of their own prowess".
So, I met my knight in shining armour for real and he, his queen (he'd say). Everything checked out on my list and his. We just couldn't wait to be husband and wife, so waited long enough to fulfil all righteousness and get wedded. Suffice it to say, "we were in sheer bliss". A few in-law issues here and there but we stuck to each other and protected what was most important; our union. My husband, my champion.
Then the babies began to arrive and we were enamored as parents, just doing our thing, taking care of the babies and running my husband's ministry, with me building a small online business on the side. At least I was working from home and could give myself to my growing family, just as I wanted it. Initially, we'd tried house maids but they just didn't work for us. That, we both agreed on. It meant we had to run our home entirely by ourselves.
Little by little, the chores started to take their toll on our marriage. To start with, I was always busy during the daytime and completely 'spent' by nighttime. The never ending routine of it all, began to get to my husband. The thing is, I didn't know it. Talk about being totally oblivious of your situation! That was me! I was finishing my husband's sentences and not allowing him say what he really meant, and was barely paying attention to him at all.
Was I pushing my husband away? Yes, quite unbeknownst to me, too.
So it was that one fateful day, "he broke it to me". He called me to a conversation and told me very matter of factly that he didn't love me anymore, hadn't for a while now, and wanted out of our marriage. To make matters worse, he wanted no intervention. He had thought this through long and hard, and decided this was the best way to go.
Was I shattered?? You don't want to know how so. I'd given 10 years to my marriage (we'd both given 10 years), and he was willing to throw it all away at the drop of a hat??
My, was I livid! At first. I threw myself into God's arms, pouring my many flowing tears right into His loving arms in total surrender and prayers, seeking comfort, desperately needed to make meaning out of it all. So I went to the only person I knew had answers for me. There, I found comfort, meaning, answers.
It was all strange to me. My husband was acting unlike himself. This was not the man I married. He was hurting even himself, making decisions that were out of character for him. Talk about chaos!
Where was my knight? Where was the love of my life who swore to do life with me? Was it midlife crisis? What the hell is that, even?!
In my blinding rage, an older friend of mine advised me once to calm down. She felt that if I calmed all the way down, I'd hear God better, hear even my intuitions better; I'd make better decisions and stop "tripping over myself".
It took a while for what she meant to sink into me. Once it had sunk in, boy did I calm all the way down!
Oh how wisdom came flooding in. Slowly but surely, I began to see how even a marriage made in heaven can falter. How indeed most marriages who fell apart, were actually once "made in heaven". Most, not all, mind you.
So what is it that cracks a marriage and causes it to begin breaking. What is it that births all that pain and anguish between two people who once loved each other till death?
Gradually, I'd say, the Lord literally took my hand, and began to school me. First, that it takes two to break a marriage. I began to see areas where I had totally gone wrong as a wife, like in my communication methods with my husband. Who was my husband? What was his personality type? Who was I? How was I rubbing him all wrong and vice versa?
Secondly, there was nothing I could do to change him but pray. However, I could change me; only I could change me for the better, as an individual. I began to work on areas where I wanted to be a better person character wise; not necessarily for my husband but for my maker, first off.
Thirdly, I began to see the possibility of a reconciliation even when it seemed far fetched. I heard several testimonies of worse cases reconciled and I'm like, "if that can happen for them, surely it can happen for us too".
Fourthly, this may sound out of joint to you reading this but the next tough thing I learned anyways, is that though it takes two people to break a marriage, it takes one willing party (not the two at first), to begin mending a marriage towards reconciliation. "In its time"; in due time, the other party will indeed come round.
Fifthly, you just have to believe in the miraculous; that there's such a thing as God turning the lemons that life throws at you, into lemonade. However, you have to be willing to cooperate with him to bring it about.
Was it easy? Hell no, but I'd say I learned to ride on God's strength through it and not mine. Soon enough, He shut the mouths of all the tempests and roaring lions around us. Peace that passes all understanding became both our experience right in the thick of our storm.
Truth is, we both hate to remember the full details for "we must look not at the things behind but set our faces as a flint to take hold of what lies ahead". And that's one thing we've learned so well.
Today, my family's long restored for years now, and we're better for the experience. Can you beat that?! What the enemy meant for evil, the Lord has turned around for good. Now we're learning daily, growing daily, committed afresh daily. The only difference is now, we have the required understanding, and the tools to handle. In other words, we know how to navigate our way around each other, a million times better.
Will you please rejoice with a sister! If He did it for me, He is willing and able to do it for you too, for our God is no respecter of persons. God bless!
A Grateful Sister.
