FAMILES...With Children

Moment with our Mentor
by Cindy Powell, a MOPS Mother

I sat in the tub with bubbles up to my neck, and prayed desperately. Our marriage was a mess, and things were coming to a crisis. For the hundredth time, I reviewed my actions, and couldn't see any fault on my part. As tears ran down my face, I prayed earnestly that God would save and restore our marriage, and show me if there was anything I could do.

My eyes fell on the book I brought to read in the tub—Created to be His Helpmeet, by Debi Pearl. My ladies' Bible study leader had given me a copy. As I picked it up, an expectant hush fell on my heart. I knew God was about to speak to me…

During the next several months, our ladies group studied this book a chapter at a time, and did the exercises at the end of each chapter. The first exercise was on joyfulness. We read many Scriptures on joy, and I learned that joy was a command. "In everything give thanks." It was a choice. "This is the day that the Lord has made. I WILL rejoice and be glad in it.

All that month I worked on avoiding complaining, and speaking words of contentment, and choosing every day, minute by minute, to be joyful. I learned that when I complained, my husband felt rebuked. It was his goal to make me happy, but I had been frowning and worried and mournful around him for a long time. He began to feel that nothing he did would ever be good enough, so why should he try any more? When I began smile at him with shining eyes, when he saw my face glowing and satisfied, he said in his heart, "There IS hope that I might do a good job as a husband after all."

The next lesson was gratefulness. Our class learned about a husband's deep need for respect and honor. "Let the wife see that she reverence her husband." (Eph 5:33) We learned that God gave each husband an instinctive knowledge that he is supposed to be the leader of his home. He craves from his wife an affirmation of that position. When it is threatened, he may be angry, withdraw, become unreasonable, become uncooperative, or worst of all, he may look elsewhere for affirmation. We learned that God places in a man's heart a deep desire for his wife's approval. After all, she knows him best, and if she fails to admire him, what hope does he have of succeeding anywhere else? I began to see that perhaps I WAS responsible for some of my husband's behavior. Instead of honor, I had given him complaints and disapproval.

For our project that month, I was to make a list every day of the things I was grateful to my husband for, and TELL him. My heart was still aching and raw from all the hurts of the past. It was beyond me to speak the words. So I decided to WRITE DOWN my list. I bought a small notebook. Every day I wrote the date and listed the things I was grateful for, and left it on the kitchen counter for him. The first day, I had to work 30 minutes to come up with three things (the daily goal being seven). I had focused on his few faults for so long, I was blind to his many positive traits. The second day, the list was longer, and came a bit more easily. By the end of the month, it was a cinch. I was learning to watch for things to approve of. The faults that had troubled me before were still there, but I was less and less aware of them. My focus had changed.

And did my marriage change? Of course it did! Slowly, slowly, I began to notice small changes in my husband. He remembered to hold the door for me, and to pull out my chair at the table. He brought me flowers. He followed me around, held my hand, and began to say endearing things. He abandoned habits he knew irritated me, and was suddenly interested in the list of things that needed doing around the house.

I don't have space to tell you the other exercises and lessons learned. Maybe another time. Or, better yet, maybe you might like to do some exercises yourself, and give your husband the best VALENTINE'S gift of all—joyfulness and respect!