Marriage Differences - part 6

As I prayed for more grace and a deeper and greater love for my husband, I saw God's love in new perspective. His love is so much more than affection. It is a love that sees great offenses and extends itself anyway. I saw my sin and God's grace toward me much more personally and I did more introspection about the kind of lover I was toward God and the kind of lover I was toward my husband. I had failed in both relationships. God asked for my obedience and I was a rebel through and through. Even when I could identify bad attitudes, it didn't stop me from executing them. I could say with Paul, "what a wretched person I am". (Rom 7:24). 

Love is patient. (1 Cor. 13)

At our marriage ceremony, Rev. Ary quoted these verses. They sounded all pious and well placed for the covenant taking place, but it was not a good descriptor of my character. I was anything but patient. I was hard driven, motivated to do and be something. We each entered marriage, I believe out of selfish desire. We looked for marriage to give us stability for the uncertainty of our future. Having lived in a home with the troubled marriage of my parents, I didn't have huge expectations except that I would not repeat their mistakes and by sheer will would make this marriage last. Patience did not describe me; neither did kind, humble, long suffering, forgiving, and all the other aspects of love listed in scripture. God would develop those within me one by one. I was all wrong for marriage. I didn't have what it took, but God saw fit to place me with a man who was just as hard driven and able to confront my strong will at every turn. Any other man would have given up on me and let me go my strong headed way. God didn't give up on me and neither did my husband. 

The drive of emotion. So many of us enter into marriage with great affection and devotion to our mates. So it was with me. I was committed to marriage and believed the differences we had would work themselves out in marriage and that we would become closer and closer. I wanted closeness with my husband. I wanted real intimacy. I wanted more. As I grew in understanding of my husband, there are moments of deep intimacy, but more often than not there is the daily routines that keep us passing each other wondering who is this stranger that lives with me?  I had to dig deeper to find my reason for marriage. When I listened to a Dr. Dobson program he shared the commitment of his parents in marriage. They made a choice that no matter what came they would remain committed to the other. They would place the needs of the other high and pledge their lives to the other's good. 

This idea that love is more than emotion, it is a choice struck me deeply. Could I, would I hold my husbands needs high. Would I work for his good. Would I give more than what the world gives to him?  Would I be faithful in prayer, service and devotion for him?  Would I honor his leadership of our home even when I felt that the choices were unwise?  Would I allow my way to be secondary to his?  Would I continue to point him to righteousness and never give up?  Would I be willing to become a sweet and gentle personality in my home. If I were to ever become sweet and gentle, it would have to be a work of God. It was definitely not natural to me. I have always been a fighter, a scrapper, defending myself at every turn. Could I stop striving long enough to let God have His way in my life?