A New Husband

Visions and Future...

I am sitting here looking at post-it notes. It's a three pack of “page marker” sticky notes that J picked up at the store this afternoon. I didn't notice until we got home and I was putting away all the items. I looked at him with a strange look (I thought maybe someone slipped them in our cart at the store.) He said, “for my Bible study, to flag pages and passages.” This just made me glow. I know that may seem super weird, but considering where we've been, what we've been through, etc. seeing him grow in Christ is so exciting for me too.

Don't get me wrong, I have loved my husband from the start. He was gentle, kind, loving, and has always treated me like a queen. He was funny and encouraging. We shared a strange sense of humor. I loved who he was then. There were small things that were hard for me to swallow. He didn't have a great deal of patience (I have a ridiculous amount of patience.) He would get frustrated with people for doing things differently, not sharing similar views, etc. He had HORRID road rage. We never fought, but we would disagree. He would get upset when I would give “scenarios” of why someone was driving slowly, what had made someone react that way, etc. in order to show why patience was necessary. I think this frustrated him a great deal at the time. It was my passive way of telling him to cool his jets. He was, well, wishy-washy about faith. He believed in God but didn't have a personal relationship with him.

I've not always went to church, practiced what I believed, or lived a Christ-like life, but I've always had a relationship with God, even when I was red-mad at him. I prayed for a change in the anger and hurt in his heart. I prayed that God would touch him and that He would show me how to help J get there. We tried out several churches over the years, but never felt at home there. We went to a couple Methodist churches because I grew up in a Methodist church. I'd been to a United Brethren church, a Christ in Christian Union church, a full gospel church, and several others. He had went to a Baptist church for a while as a youngster. We never found a home at church. We'd even went to the church we go to now once or twice before but felt like outcasts.

One week, we'd been through a lot. We had been try to get pregnant for about a year and a half. ((TMI to follow..)) I have yearly pap/pelvic exams and they usually come back abnormal the first time so then I have to have a biopsy that is more invasive and painful. I had went to the biopsy and bled like a stuck pig. The doctor actually made me lie and wait while she wiped it up because she was worried it would freak me out. She said she only ever sees that kind of bleeding in women who are pregnant so she felt that there was a good chance I was a few days pregnant. So we were worried about the results of the biopsy while being cautiously optimistic about pregnancy. We were on the way home and he said “we really should go to church Sunday.” Well, Saturday night, I asked him where he wanted to go. He was a little taken aback and we decided on going to his Uncle Jack and Aunt Kay's church. For some reason, this time was different. This time was right. This time we felt comfortable and at home.

The change I saw in my husband in that service was-incredible, unbelievable, unexplainable. It was like he suddenly saw the world in a whole new light. I saw tears in his eyes that weren't tears of sadness. He finally FELT God in his heart. He knew that God was there and he knew that Jesus was what kept him going. On the way home, he was an abundance of child-like questions. I say this in an endearing way. We talked for days about God, Jesus, and the Bible. We went to church that Wednesday too.

In the time since, he has lost his knack for the anger and grudges. He has found forgiveness and peace. He is a different man than the one I married, but I love him just the same, but 5 years more than I did then. Knowing that he was a new man and the change in our marriage was nothing short of Godly. We have grown together and TRULY became one heart. We talk about compassion, love, patience, Jesus, eternity, and all the other wonderful things that we know in God. He no longer has a heart full of anger. Hearing his prayers, watching him bow his head in reverence, seeing him sing, watching him cry tears of joy for our Lord is the most miraculous thing I have ever seen.

You always read where people get divorced because the spouse “changed.” To be married and expect no change in the person is an incredibly flawed idea. Unless one never wants to mature past the age they were married or adapt to new life experiences, they should expect change. The important part of change is changing together and walking through change in honest communication.

Post-it notes. Just makes me ponder on the love I have for the new man that I have been given as a partner in this life and prayerfully the next. He's seeing the world through Christ's eyes. He's praying before meals. He's excited about Christmas. He's reading and studying the bible. He's a Godly man. He's my husband. I am abundantly and unimaginably blessed. I don't feel as though I have done anything to deserve such greatness, but I will not question His work, only praise Him for it. I will praise Him in the good. I will praise Him in the bad. I will praise Him all the days of my life.