The Man She Married

Please welcome my guest blogger, my husband, Scott.
********************************************************


You think a man who found the Love of his Life would be married happily ever after. This is the rest of the story in “Happily Ever After, Doesn’t Just Happen."

Many years ago, while in college pursuing enough degrees to look like a thermometer, wondering what I should become when I grew up, the Lord allowed me to meet the Love of my Life. From that point on, I believed that since I had finally found the girl of my dreams, I would cherish her, be kind to her, always be there for her, love her with all my heart, and most importantly, love her as Christ loved the church.

Sitting in the library together one day while dating I asked, "Do you ever wake up in the morning and you DON’T feel the warm, gushy-mushy, lovey-dovey feelings for me?"

She said very quickly, “Of course I do, all the time."

In utter dismay, I asked, "How do you deal with that?"

Her response sticks with me to this day, “I know love is a commitment."

At that moment I was ready to commit myself to her for a life-time; Lord-willing, I would marry her, for better or worse, richer or poorer. I just wanted to be with her. Little did I know, that was the easy part of marriage; falling in love and saying, "I Do." Later I would learn there was more to marriage than saying those two words.

After graduating from college and having our first child, we moved to Kansas and I began my teaching career. We had the role model marriage; love, affection, contentment, and happiness.

Then the disease started. The “Take Her For Granted Disease” began slowly with the expectations that a wife should clean, take care of kids, cook, do laundry, you know, and all that “wife” stuff, while I was out “playing” in my free time because I worked all day. This went on for several years, during which my loving and caring wife cherished me and her children and was faithful to her calling from the Lord to love, honor, and submit to her husband. Wouldn't you think after seven years one would learn to pick up after himself, carry the baby into Church, be kind, gentle, patient, loving, and really treat his wife as the love of his life?

Seven years later, we moved and I was hired by a company that required significant travel. Travel is not a good ingredient to make either a successful marriage or a godly Christian life. My career was taking off, award after award, raise after raise, city after city, but I was racking up miles across the country, and miles between my best friend and me. For another seven years, the airplane, hotel room, and the next city were my best friends. In this phase of our lives, I’d roll out of bed at 4am, kiss my wife good-bye, and say, "See you in a week."

The first few years were tremendous, for me that is. I was able to see cities, meet many people, and live the dream that so many wish for. All the while my wife was at home missing me deeply, trying desperately to hold all things together, wishing she had a husband at home, leading, guiding, and loving her as he once did. (Remember, love is an action word)

My perspective of travel: I was doing exactly what God wanted, making money and providing for my family. Traveling got to the point that if I was away for a week, the first 4 days of the trip she would miss me, then the last 3 days, I wouldn’t be her favorite person. The worst part of traveling all those years: I had become blind, numb, and calloused to the needs of my wife and kids. I thought I was fulfilling her needs with “things” when all along she wanted me.

One thing my wife never gave up on during all those years was prayer. Her prayers and desires were to see her husband change, to become a spiritual head of the house, to love her as Christ loved the church, to be involved in the children’s lives. But, she was watching the love of her life spiraling down the path of deception the world's successes and riches had to offer.

Until one day . . . God got a hold of my heart, in the strangest place, with the strangest circumstances, but with a voice from Heaven that could not be mistaken. I was in the middle of the week on a trip to who knows where, for who knows what. I got into my hotel room late one night, the familiar stink had become a nauseating smell and the familiar sight represented loneliness. I turned on all the lights, and needing noise for company, turned on the TV and began to unwind like I had done a hundred times before.

The TV was on some singing video station, and in front of me was Kenny Rodgers, singing a song, called "Buy Me A Rose." The words of the song sunk in quickly and deeply, and as his story began unfolding right before my eyes, God spoke, "This is you." At the end of the song, there is a turning point in the marriage, and he begins paying attention to the “little things that mean the most in her life." That became my turning point. God was clearly speaking to me to love my wife not in word only, but in action.

I called her that night, and though I don't remember what I said, but I remember how the story ended.

So, I bought her a rose and have made things right, by doing the little things that show her, she’s the Love of My Life.

Thankfully, I’m not the man she married.

HAPPILY EVER AFTERS Don't Just HAPPEN

Everyone, especially women, adores love stories with the Happily Ever After Ending. They have this fairy tale idea that the Happy Ever After begins right after the honeymoon.

We've all heard the saying "The Honeymoon's Over." That saying isn't without cause. When the wedding planning, the ceremony and the honeymoon are over, it is time to roll up the sleeves and WORK on the marriage. Sometimes I wonder - if brides put as much effort into planning their marriages as they did their weddings, would our divorce rate divebomb instead of skyrocket?

There is a delusion that a girl's loneliness, problems, and inner struggles will be solved IF she can just marry the prince.

Truth be told, issues will only be magnified by the marriage until they can be resolved. They aren't resolved by the signing of the marriage license or by saying "I Do" through a misty, romantic lace veil. Marriage isn't a band-aid to put over owies. Marriage is the union of two people committed to stay together to love one another, heal one another and help one another be transformed into a more Christ-like image.

A few days ago, I blogged about my husband. Young singles may have sighed and longed for a spiritual man such as my husband. Young brides may have been inwardly disappointed that their husbands aren't quite like mine. Older women probably smiled knowingly, understanding what was written between the lines. Because, I didn't tell you the whole story.

That isn't the man I married.

I didn't marry a perfect man. I married a man with a Perfect Savior and one who allowed trials, older believers and the Word of God to transform him into the man he is today.


Happily Ever Afters Just Don't HAPPEN.

This isn't to indicate that I was the perfect wife, that I upheld the marriage single-handedly and transformed my husband into the man he is today. We both had faults, we both were immature, we both needed to grow. But, we loved one another fiercely, we were committed, and we were best friends. I don't want to sit and list all of his mistakes, they are as far as the east is from the west. I don't want to talk about mine either, at this time. I just want to talk about my role as a HELPMEET during our formative, growing-up-together years.

1. I loved him. No matter what, I chose to love him. Titus 2:4
2. I prayed about each character issue, fault, or sin I thought I saw in him. I purposed to not say anything about the issue until I had prayed about it at least three times. That reduces the fleshly tendency to nag. It reduces irritability. It forces you to be humble before the Lord; as you begin to confess your husband's faults, you get convicted about your own. Sometimes you begin to see the log in your own eye. Matthew 7:3

3. I purposed to be a helpmeet. In Genesis 2, Eve was created to be a "help-meet" to Adam. In the Hebrew it simply means "one who helps." Are you willing to help with all areas of your husband's life? We only think of helpmeet in terms of household chores and spiritual ministries. What about besetting sins? What about weaknesses? What about sins of omission? It is still your job to help. Remember the old-fashioned vows - for better and worse?

4. I submitted. This is not a word the world loves, but since the Lord uses it, we should understand it, love it and honor it. I learned to submit with a pure and loving heart, not just gritting my teeth and displaying outward physical obedience. I knew submission had to begin inwardly and I understood I was following the Lord as I followed my husband.

5. I trusted the LORD to continue the work He began in my husband. Philippians 1:6 Women sometimes think they can marry any man and make him into the man they want him to be. An older woman, Ann, once warned me, "You get what you marry." It wasn't my job to change him, it was the Lord's.


The overall goal in our lives for our husbands has to be for their good and for the glory of the Lord, not for our own benefit. Do we want our husbands to grow so they can be intimate with the Lord, or so they don't irritate us as much?

Around our 20th anniversary, my husband planted a beautiful red rose bush in our front yard so he could bring me red roses often. We learned we had to prune correctly to force, not hinder growth. We were warned to pinch off and pick up all leaves with fungus and bugs, to keep damage from spreading. We fertilize and water. Even when we do all these things and the roses bloom month after month, there are still the thorns. But, because of the beauty of the flower, we continue to put diligent work into the bush, even though we often get scratched. Sometimes we bleed.

A beautiful rose just doesn't happen. Neither does a marriage.



Soon, my husband will blog his side of the story
- and why he bought me a rose.