Sharing Your Story, one of the components of Wisdom and Kindness, provides a place for women to anonymously share their stories.  This category was developed with the ultimate intent of emphasizing God’s faithfulness, even in the difficulties and struggles of life. Each story is true. Each story is anonymously written.  Each story is written to proclaim the hope that is found in The Lord! May The Lord bless!

Susan’s Story – A Crumbling Marriage

My story is neither flashy, nor extravagant.  It is a simple story of how the Lord has worked in my life.  Though there are many things that I could share, I would like for you to enter my life on the day that I got married. I married the man that I loved, though I would later learn that I knew very little about what God’s love in marriage is all about.  My husband and I had what one might call “a friendship marriage.”  I say this because we had been friends for many years before we entered the romantic stage of our relationship.  We enjoyed each other’s company, spent many hours together, and looked forward to being together.  Seeing him drive up in the driveway was the highlight of my day.  Most of our friends thought that we had the perfect marriage.  It wasn’t long, however, before a subtle, but serious, problem began to crumble away at our marriage .  The crumbling was so slight and so minute that, at first, it was totally undetectable.  However, as time passed, the crumbling continued.  Although there was very little arguing and were very few disagreements, the serious, but subtle crumbling continued through the years until our very marriage was about to fall apart.

What I came to learn and understand was that our marriage crumbled away ever so slightly because I did not know the purpose for which God had created me.  I didn’t understand that God had created me to be one flesh with my husband.  Neither did I know that I was to be a help to him.  You see, I lived my own life.  I had my own job, my own responsibilities , and essentially, my own life apart from him.  The more that I headed in my own direction, the farther my life took me from my husband.  At the same time, my husband, who had his own job, his own responsibilities, and his own life, headed in his own direction.  We moved farther and farther apart until the day that my husband no longer desired to be married.  I had not even seen the problem coming.  It so happened that my husband decided to stay with me “for the children’s sake.”

Perhaps the most interesting part of this story was that I had become a Christian about two years earlier. The Lord had been working in my life, but I was still plagued with fears.  By God’s hand, I began to study my Bible.  And then, I began to study what the Bible says about marriage.  My eyes began to be opened.  I began to see what God intended for me as a wife. I also saw how far short I fell.  Studying passage by passage, God began to change me and my understanding of my purpose as a wife.  Little by little, a new marriage began to emerge in place of that old crumbled marriage.  Several months into this “new” marriage, my husband decided to be honest with me about where his feelings – and life – had been and why he stayed in the marriage.  He asked for forgiveness.  The Lord was very clear, “Just as The Lord forgave you, so also should you do” (Col. 3:13, Eph. 4:32).

That is when the real test came in.  Knowing all that I now knew, could I walk in the truths that the Lord had taught me concerning marriage?  Day by day, an amazing thing happened.  The Lord, through His grace, and by the Word of God, began to fully rebuild my marriage.  Change is not instantaneous, but just as my marriage had slowly crumbled away, brick by brick, piece by piece, my marriage was restored.  I would never make this sound like an easy thing, but this I know: when you humble your heart and say that you will obey The Lord, no matter what, He truly blesses that humility and obedience.  As I sought, through obedience, to become the wife that the  Lord had designed and intended, He built my marriage into more than I ever dreamed that a marriage could be.

It has been many years since those difficult days.  My marriage has continued to mature and grow, as The Lord continues to remind me that I was created to be a help and also a companion to my husband, one flesh with him.  The Lord still applies those truths to my life in a multitude of ways, and I am repeatedly blessed in this precious calling as a wife.  The greatest fulfillment that I have ever known is being a wife to my husband.  My prayer for you is that if God so calls you to this calling that you will lay down your own life and pick up the life that God has ordained for you.

The above anonymous testimony was first printed in Woman – Precious in the Sight of God © 2002.  I, again, extend my thanks to ladies willing to share their story to the glory of God.