What My Marriage Took from Me
Originally posted on A Wife Like Me https://awifelikeme.com/why-marriage-is-hard/ Marriage has taken away some really deep parts of me.It keeps taking away. It keeps cutting out parts of me and leaving big, gaping holes.Marriage has removed things in my life I didn’t even know were there. It has severed deep roots and killed off so thick weeds.They tell you the point of marriage is sanctification, and boy is it. My relationship with my husband has sharpened me and made me more like Christ, and it hasn’t been easy.My marriage has taken away many selfish desires, hurtful words, and petty concerns.It has removed my need to always be right, my perfectionist attitude toward my home, and my controlling nature.Matrimony opens your eyes to the behaviors you have always performed and maybe haven’t realized. Your husband becomes a bit of a mirror for you to look into and reflect on. If eyes are a window to the soul, his eyes can be a window to how your soul is treating his.Mark 10:8 tells us, “... the two become one flesh, so they are no longer two but one flesh.” (NIV) Because we become one flesh, we have to shed the selfishness of our old flesh so we can mesh with his.Please don’t read this and think you lose yourself when you get married, because you don’t.YOU DON’T. If anything, you find more of who you are because you find more of who Christ wants you to be. You walk side-by-side with a mananother believer and dive deeper into your relationship with each other and hopefully, The Father. It’s beautiful.Marriage takes a lot from you so that God can fill the voids with something new, something good, something for His glory. He replaces selfish ambition with unified Kingdom goals. He removes those harsh phrases we often spew out and adds words of life for us to shower over our spouses. God takes those immature fights and destroys them in order to carve out time for you and your man to pray and fight for your marriage and for the lost souls around you.And if you and your husband aren’t on the same page when it comes to Jesus or your marriage, continue to let God prune your soul as you pray for the fruit of your mate’s heart. God can and will work your marriage for good.When we allow God to pull out ugly roots, He plants a bountiful harvest in their place. Here are three verses I meditate on when it comes to asking God to clean up my heart in my marriage:
- Psalm 129: 23-34 “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” Psalm 129:23-24 (NIV)
- “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” Psalm 51:10 (NIV)
- “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” Ezekiel 36:26
Our Father loves to clean up the gardens of our hearts and bring them back to life. He loves to see our marriages bloom and proclaim His glory for all to see. Marriage is not for our own personal gain, but for the gain of Heaven. We are called to holiness in our homes.Allow God to take away the bad and turn beauty into ashes inside your marriage and inside your soul.