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Homebodies
Experts > Inspirational
Moments
for Mom
There
are five factors that are in play in your marriage that will
determine its success or failure. You have an obstacle,
an ally, an outsider, an enemy and an advocate.
When
D.L. Moody was asked which group of people caused him the most
grief over his pastoral career, he replied, "I've
had more trouble with D.L. Moody than with any man alive.” The
obstacle, my dear, is you. You have the ability to trip yourself
up at every turn, to miss chances to serve willingly, to jump at
opportunities to get in the last word, and to speak in anger and
without putting any thought into what comes out of your mouth. You
are an obstacle. But you don’t have to settle for that
as fact. If Christ is your Forgiver and Leader, God wants
to work on your heart to change you. Ask Him to show you
the plank that is in your eye…ask Him to reveal to you where
you’re falling short…and my new favorite prayer – ask
Him to guard your tongue. He will help you to remove yourself
as an obstacle in the equation of your marriage.
You
also have an ally…the man you married. Perhaps
it has been a long while since you’ve thought of your husband
as your partner or even simply as one of your friends. We
must think back…unless a gun were involved, you chose your
husband to be the man you wanted to spend the rest of your life
with. You willingly chose him. Think back to why. Make
a list if you have to…anything from, ‘he goes to work
every day to provide for us’ to ‘he plays with the
kids’ to ‘last month, he brought me flowers’. Thank
God for all the good things about him, asking Him to help you see
him though His eyes. And ask God to simply strengthen your
friendship. In the din of daily life – the mortgage,
the kids, the laundry – we tend to forget about the friendship
aspect. Enjoy your husband as your closest friend and ally
in this long race called married life.
Then
there is the outsider. These are people who don’t
uphold the value of marriage; who drag you down by husband-bashing
as sport; who aren’t in strong marriages themselves and secretly
wish others could feel their pain. An outsider can also be
another man who has qualities that you wish your spouse had…and
you feel yourself developing feelings for. You must protect
your marriage from outside sources that can bring harm to your
relationship and even hurt your attitude toward marriage in general.
And
you have an enemy…satan himself. Satan does not
want your marriage to succeed. With every divorce, he celebrates. With
every marriage that is mediocre, he is thrilled. It took
me awhile to realize that Kevin was not my enemy, but that satan
is. Just the other day, a young woman that I have spent time
mentoring called me up to meet for lunch…she’s getting
married soon and she’s having some jitters. That same
morning, as I was packing up a few marriage books to loan her,
Kevin and I were bickering like nobody’s business…and
as I’m stacking up those marriage books, I was muttering, ‘How
ironic! I have to go tell Lindsay that marriage is great when all
I want to do is to tell her to run for the hills!’ I
have no doubt in my mind that satan wanted to undermine my confidence
in my ability to encourage Lindsay about her upcoming marriage
by making me feel like Kevin and I were doing far worse than we
actually are. Thankfully, I recognized that and we patched
things up before he left for the day…I wasn’t going
to let satan have even that small victory. He is our enemy
and he is doing all he can to make your marriage difficult, with
the intent to make it fail. Don’t give him any ground.
But
the best news – we have an advocate…Jesus Christ. He
intercedes to the Father on our behalf. And He loves marriage. Marriage
is to be a beautiful representation of the relationship between
Christ and the Church, so of course, He is standing by willing
to help us in any way we need to bring Him glory and to bring peace
into our household. Lean on Him. Count on Him. Bring
Him into your marriage in little, simple ways --- pray for your
marriage, for your husband, and for yourself as a wife. Ask
that God will place a hedge of protection around your relationship. Ask
Him to help both of you make your relationship your number one
priority, after, of course, your relationship with Him. Pray
with your husband. This is Marriage 401 here --- something
I think Kevin and I have only done maybe ten times in our marriage,
but when we have, man, what a difference it has made --- before
sitting down to resolve a heavy conflict, stop and pray together
asking the Spirit to help you both have softened hearts and help
to work it out.
There’s more than just you and your husband in your marriage
equation. But you can pray to be less of an obstacle, you
can pray for your alliance to be strengthened, you can pray for
protection from outside influences, you can pray that your enemy
will not be able to successfully interfere, and you can pray that
your Advocate join you as the third, and most integral, party in
your relationship. Afterall, He created the concept --- He
will move heaven and earth to help you heal and succeed and love
as He loves you.
******
©
Elisabeth
K. Corcoran, 2004
Elisabeth
K. Corcoran is the author of Calm in My Chaos: Encouragement
for a Mom’s Weary Soul. She is wife to Kevin, and
mom to Sara, 7-&-1/2, and Jack, 6. Her passion is encouraging
women and she fulfills that through heading up the Women’s
Ministries on staff at Blackberry Creek Community Church in Aurora,
IL and writing and speaking as much as she can. Calm in
My Chaos (2001) can be purchased directly through her publisher,
Kregel Publications at #1-888-644-0500 or www.kregel.com, at
amazon.com, or through your local Christian bookstore. This article
is original and not excerpted from her book.
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