I grew up fantasizing the “white wedding”. It was beautiful in all the movies I watched. The white dress, flowers, music, food, the speeches from the loved ones, decorated aisle and the walk down the aisle was my favourite part. All of it appealed to me in such a deep way that as a loud mothed teenager I declared to only marry if I had a ‘white’ wedding. I knew nothing about Jesus then.
My first white wedding in reality was one I attended in Delhi. I attended this as an unbeliever who had heard of the name Jesus. What stood out to me at that wedding was the contrast between the ‘I do’ I had watched in the movies and the ‘With God’s help, I do’ that I heard over and over again.
What did that mean? ‘With God’s help, I do’.
A few years later, I did walk down the aisle in a white dress towards the man I had loved for over 5 years. This time, my lips declared, ‘With God’s help, I do’.
This time, I knew of the Jesus everyone seemed to love and I was beginning to grow fond of Him too.
Over the past 6 years, this Jesus, whom I have grown to know and love so much has stripped my heart away of immense filth and instead has come to live with me and do life with me. He has given me multiple opportunities, most of these through marriage with my husband, not only to know Him by name but to seek Him out through tears, to cry out to Him in pain, to relate to Him in suffering, to be filled up by His love and strength in weakness, to be thankful for the crushing of my pride and to have no sense of control over a situation and yet find myself in peace that surpasses all understanding. (philippians 4:7)
This Jesus, my Jesus, through marriage, gives me multiple opportunities each day to submit my desires, efforts, hurt, failures, actions, thoughts, plans and words, and everything in between to Him by saying ‘With God’s help, I do’.
A Christians marriage ought to honour God and bring glory to Him, much like any other aspect of a Christians life. I have found more success in turning my heart towards having this attitude through intentional means of growth within every relationship. Here are some ways my husband and I have worked intentionally on our marriage in the past 6 months:
Praying together before going to bed-
3 months ago we started praying together for our children every night. As an extension of this prayer, we are often prompted to pray for ourselves and each other. We attached this new habit to our regular goodnight so we would remember to do it. Since we are sleeping in different rooms for this season(1 parent per baby) of life, this is a new way to end the day together. We have seen God use this prayer time in our own lives to reveal to us our own spiritual needs too.
Consider the interest of the other- (Phil 2:4)
We did a wonderful month of date nights every night (except Sundays when we were too tired). We split the week and chose 3 nights each. After the babies went to bed we would take turns to pick a date night activity. Some nights I would choose to do the dishes together, or read or listen to an audiobook or a sermon together.(I am that easily pleased!) These would be activities that might have been met with some resistance if he did not get to choose activities the other nights too. So this way, we both spent time together approaching new activities with a desire to be excited for it, for the interest of the other. Over the month, I realized I had grown to enjoy my husbands company even through activities I did not enjoy much.
Maternal fear-
The reason ‘maternal’ fear is on a marriage blogpost is because this fear has been such a hurdle in our marriage(due to the blame shifting) since having babies and God has only recently enabled me to handle this fear in a way that honors Him.
This is a story about maternal fear. A few weeks ago, as I did usual monotonous chores of motherhood, I saw my infants diaper with something other than poop, something she should not have eaten. But here it lay, in her diaper, after the journey through her insides, smeared in poop, the evidence of possible neglect.
Most babies require supervision most of the time when they are awake and that in itself poses a massive challenge to parenthood. Surely it couldn’t have been me who neglected my baby! I am always with them unless in the shower or cooking in the kitchen and even then I’m intermittently watching them and connected through conversation.
‘It had to be my inattentive husband! He never watches the kids the way he should!’
Thankfully, God’s grace allowed me to deal with those wicked thoughts before my husband came home and no unwholesome talk came out of my mouth. My husband, with my toddler, took an hour longer than expected to get home that day and my baby was in bed. This gave me an hour to think through and pray for a God honoring way to deal with this seemingly urgent and pressing conundrum.
Here’s where He led me. Upon my husband and toddlers return, we all sat on the couch, held hands and prayed to Jesus. We asked Jesus to forgive us for our failure to protect our baby and asked Him to help us do better, be more vigilant and more involved. We thanked Jesus for protecting our baby even though we failed and for His mercy to allow us to see this consequence and work towards not repeating it. We were one unit as we did this. Those wicked thoughts did not divide us and lead us to point angry fingers and harsh words at one another abdicating the responsibility we all ultimately have in differing capacities. Instead, God helped us grow closer in this united purpose through this failure and depend on Him alone for growing us in areas of need.
That night, I knew God had shown me the better way to deal with maternal fear. I did not have to blame my husband when I was afraid anymore. I knew I could go to God and ask for forgiveness and strength.