The Good Wife
I recently came across a post on a social media page about taking your spouse to the altar and praying for them. I didn’t know the poster personally but something about it bothered me. It wasn’t the idea of praying for your spouse; it just made me wonder if the person who posted it was praying for herself.
This November my husband and I will celebrate 18 years of being a couple, 11 of those as a married couple. We started dating when we were 17 and after nearly two decades we’ve been through a lot and changed a lot. In some ways the changes have been subtle – our temperament, our spirit, etc. Others have been more obvious – our waistline, his hair color, etc. Through it all, the one thing that hasn’t changed is our desire to be better people to each other.
One thing that strikes me is that often times, as I’m about to pray for God to fix something that I think is ‘wrong’ with my husband, I get this ache in my heart. It’s as if God is trying to force me to stop and think about what I’m about to say. And I realized, more clearly after coming across the post I first mentioned, that I need to be praying for myself first and foremost.
I think sometimes in marriages we want to make our spouse be the one with the problem, or the one who needs fixing, or the one that needs Jesus. We think we’re the good wife. But if we really stop and think about it, if we’re praying as fervently for God to work on us, we don’t have time to be so concerned with what’s ‘wrong’ with our spouse. That’s not to say we shouldn’t be praying for our spouses. We most certainly should be a spiritual covering over our partners. But when all the prayers about our relationship become more about what’s not right about our partner, than what is, we’re on the wrong side of things.
I don’t know it all. But what I do know is that I am a constant work in progress. That each day I have to work hard to allow the Holy Spirit to take over the Corliss Spirit. Sometimes I fail. But when I succeed, the prayers for my husband are less about what I think is wrong and more about what I know is right. Try it sometimes and let me know how it goes.
Until next time…