Reflections on 11 Years of Marriage

My husband and I celebrated 11 years of marriage this weekend. Many women have been married much longer and have much more wisdom than I have to offer. One elder's wife in particular offered me some wisdom a year or so ago that really ministered to me. Even within the last month, a not so old elder's wife who had a good five to ten years on me in marriage spoke pointed truth to me that God has deeply used in my heart. All that to say, I have more to learn, but I have also learned a thing or two over the last decade--things I wish I had known earlier in marriage. At the same time, I think they are things I couldn't learn any other way. Here are some of them.

The first thing that I have learned is that, despite being raised in a Christian home and going to Bible college, taking missions trips, and doing all the things good Christian girls should do, I wasn't as good a person as I thought I was. That has taken me a long time to realize and has been a hard pill to swallow. When we have had conflicts, my first reaction has always been how much my husband was wrong. But I have come, slowly but surely over time, to realize my selfishness and insecurities. My way of doing things is not always the best way. My gut instincts are not always godly. And my facial expressions and tone of voice often communicate the truth of my character though my words try to portray something altogether different. Nothing makes me madder or threatens me more than for my husband to confront me on my sin. But the truth is that I am a sinner, and it is to my great benefit to aknowledge my sins and deal with them through the gospel.

The second thing I have learned is that men are very different from women (I don't have any brothers). My husband comes to most everything in life from a totally different angle than I do. It took me many years to realize that my female way of looking at things was not the only way of looking at things. It took a long time for me to stop seeing my husband's differences as threatening and to start really listening with a sincere desire to understand his point of view. I highly recommend For Women Only by Shaunti Feldhan to any newly married woman. Shaunti's book was a gift to me from God that the Spirit used in conjunction with the Word to radically change how I thought about my husband's manly ways.

Another thing I have learned is that my husband often shows me his love in the ways he finds loving. If you've read The Five Love Languages, words of affirmation and gifts are my love language. Acts of service are my husband's. He isn't big on cards or gifts, though he knows they mean something to me and has certainly worked over the years to give me gifts that I would find meaningful. But I didn't realize for a long time how many other things he did for me on a weekly basis to actively love me. I get up with our boys and let him sleep in whenever I can, and that act of service means much more to him than an emotional card ever would. And on Mother's Day when I didn't get a big gift like I did on my birthday, I realized that he had gone out of his way to serve me in many other ways that were genuine expressions of his love and appreciation of me. It's been huge in my life for me to understand his methods of showing love.

But maybe the most important thing I've learned is that grace is powerful. I thought I was a gracious person when I got married. But I wasn't really. I was nice. I was polite. I was generally kind and tried not to talk badly about others. While all good traits, that's not Biblical grace. Biblical grace is letting go of your right to retribution and then returning good for evil. When I felt that I had been done wrong, I was not gracious about it at all. I'm not one to yell and scream, but I can definitely pout. I can put out the vibe that you have done me wrong as long as it takes until you make it right. God has taught me much of His grace to me and His demand that I show it to others. And there is nothing that has transformed my marriage more than laying down my rights and bearing long in love, learning exactly what God means when He uses the term grace.

On paper, these are 2 dimensional concepts. I can't really explain the depth of what I've learned. I can't fully articulate the 3 dimensional circumstances in my marriage through which God has taught me these things. I can only say that God has changed me these last 11 years. He's exposed a lot of sin and wrong thinking on my part, and He has taught me that the gospel is much deeper and meaningful to my marriage than I could have ever understood without walking this walk. Marriage has truly been God's instrument of sanctification in my life.