"It doesn't take a good man, or even a saved man, for a woman to have a heavenly marriage, but it does take a woman willing to honor God by being the kind of wife God intended."
~ Created to be his Helpmeet, Chapter 5: The Gift of Wisdom
We must remember, in loving our husbands God is not asking anything of us that He has not already done himself for us. Even if we believe our husband is horrible we need to remember how many times we've been horrible to God, basically spit in His face and turned from Him. Even so He chose to faithfully love us anyway and serve us by giving His life for us, by continuing to pursue us with His unconditional love.
He will give us the strength and wisdom to love our husbands the same way He loves us, if we but ask.
"You serve Christ by serving your husband, whether your husband deserves it or not."
~ Created to be his Helpmeet, Chapter 5: The Gift of Wisdom
God calls us to love him first with all our heart, mind and soul. After that His next commandment is to love our neighbor as ourself.
Who is your neighbor? Anyone with whom we come in contact. Not just our friends and those who are easy to love - but everyone. Even our enemies. Especially our enemies! God tells us to pray for our enemies and He tells us our battle is not against flesh and blood.
If we can't love the person we share our home and lives with, who can we love? Some women unfortunately see their husbands as the enemy. I honestly have done so at times myself. But God wants us to see that He placed our husband's in our lives for a reason, and it was not to be our enemy. But if that is how we do see them, then the first step is to pray for our enemy and ask God to show us how to love our enemy. Ask Him to show us how to see our husband through His Eyes. Show us how to have His Heart for our husband. That is the beginning of a heavenly marriage in this imperfect world.
"Women who have difficulties in their marriages usually follow their feelings and just react. But you must stop trusting your hurt responses or the advice you receive from the world, for today's media communicates a worldview that is skewed at best."
~Created to be his Helpmeet, Chapter 5: The Gift of Wisdom
Until recently this was me, reacting to my husband and situations in my marriage based on my hurt responses. Some of them were legitimate, some were not. Regardless, reacting based on the hurt only harms my marriage. I'm slowly learning to serve Christ through my marriage and to react in love towards my husband in all situations. Everyone we know and are close to will hurt us at some time, especially someone you live with and are intimate with. The key is how we respond. I will admit I still have times when I revert back to my old hurt responses (happened this last weekend in fact) however, when that happens we need to ask for forgiveness, ask God for His wisdom and His heart to continue on and start afresh.
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