Who is Your Adviser on Marriage Issues?

I can’t tell if it’s just a coincidence, or probably the Lord is opening up our hearts to the decay in our world and the grieve He feels as our God. Even as Christians who claim to know and profess God, we are not acting differently from those who don’t claim to be born-again Christians. I belong to a handful of women groups on Facebook, say about 4 of them and I always take kin interest not just in the issues posted on these groups but also on the comments shared by the countless commentators on the issue.

One major topic that surfaces most on almost all of these social media groups is abuse in marriage. For every one post shared on a successful marital experience, there will be almost 8-10 shared on abuse in marriage. The ratio between successful and unsuccessful marriage is almost 1:10 based on my own observation; and then you wonder why people are still getting married every day when all that is in it is bad and evil all the time. You then ask yourself how God feels about this ratio concerning an institution he created and ordained to bring ease to the man and woman He created. If I feel this bad about what I read daily on social media platforms with regards to marriage, then I wonder how God feels about it.

In the course of this week I pray the Lord will give us His word, and help us reach a lot of people; defining to them the truth of marriage, the laws of marriage and the seed that needs to be sown in marriage for us to be able to reap a harvest of peace, love and joy in a marriage.

For every issue raised concerning any form of misunderstanding in marriage, no matter how minute that disagreement was as long as the owner of the issue is careless enough to share it on the these group platforms the comments that follows are almost always “leave before its too late” and for some when they come on to share that they quickly walked out the marriage before things got worse, you will read comments like “I am happy for you for taking the bold step of walking out of their marriages; walking out of the duty post that God assigned for them; doing what God says He hates and yet they are being congratulated.” We aren’t talking about courtship here; we are talking of people who are duly and legally married. And you will have up to 5000 comments in some cases, 80% of which are applauding negativity in marriage and among these 5000 commentators are Christians, Muslims, freelancers, Idol-worshippers, Pagans and so on. And do you still wonder why the world we are now is as evil as it is?

Getting to the roots of this decay is gross rebellion against God and His words. We claim to know God but act, speak and think contrary to His words and instructions for our lives. We quote bogus Bible verses yet we don't apply them in our inner being. We are diligent church workers, missionaries in the field working for God, pastors and leaders in God’s vine yard, yet we know nothing about submission to your husband. Yet Jesus said if you have failed in one law, you have failed in all.

Some women are so diligent for God that wearing make-up and wearing female trousers is a sin as far as they are concerned. They are even against the use of hair extensions or nail polishing, yet submission and reverence to their husbands is not what they want to hear. That command from God is not practicable in their world and worse even if their husbands and not yet born-again or as spiritual as they are. For some they abstain from earrings and all forms of jewelry, yet they disdain their husbands from the depth of their hearts. A woman will encourage another woman that once your husband slaps you once you better carry your bag and leave the marriage before he makes it a habit. Forgetting that against all odds, the woman that you have asked to leave her marriage is actually leaving her primary duty post in her assignment for God for which she will give account to God on her performance. Forgetting also that with prayers and right attitude her husband will not make the mistake of being violent to her and yet she does not have to leave her marriage for which she is accountable to God. 

Now, have you bothered to ask that lady why her husband hit her? We all don’t face the truth of the matter. If you expect the husband to be civil and matured enough to keep a check on his temper, why can’t we expect the wife to be civil and matured enough to keep her tongue tamed and submit to her husband as unto the Lord. In truth what we will and hear is the husband who beats his wife, but what we should see is a wife whose untamed tongue and bad attitude has dealt her beating through her husband.

If a man is not high on drugs and he is not under the influence of alcohol, I am finding it hard to comprehend a husband waking up in the morning and the first thing he’ll do is hit his wife for no reason. There must have been some form of conversation that must have led to an argument the eventually turns to violence. In as much as I hate a violent man and I won’t excuse their bad habit, but everything in life is cause and effect. When there is violence in a marriage the first thing is to understand the cause of the violence. Something originated it and that thing should be identified and removed. Marriage is to be enjoyed and not endured, but there are seeds to sow in marriage that will yield a harvest of joy and enjoyment for you. It is not an automatic occurrence no matter the level and degree of chemistry between you and your spouse. Just as a woman can retain and sustain her husband’s love for her through good attitude, submission and reverence for her husband and prayers, so also can she lose her husband’s love for her through negligence and bad attitude.

For the so many commentators on social media who applaud evil and encourage disobedience to God instructions, do you bother to ask the owner of the problem about the quality and quantity of her investment in her marriage for it to yield negative results for her. We sow seeds, but God makes them grow and produce fruits for us; but in truth we can’t deceive God, it’s what you sow you reap. When you aren’t reaping the desired result in your marriage, check the quality of your seed. No matter how many times you change spouses, if you don’t change your seed you can’t reap the fruits of a successful marriage.

And for the many issue owners, I will lend my words here. Many people will give you counsel, but against all counsel good or bad, the word of God will stand sure. You can be advised right or wrong, but ultimately the decision is yours. When you decide wrong you alone will face the consequences of your decision. You can’t give God the excuse of wrong advice as a reason for failing Him. When you have issues in your marriage, rather than leave the marriage or run to men for help and social media's faceless entities for advice, please run to God. He is just as real and practical as the wrong advisers you have on social media and everywhere around you. 

Another Story to Share

Hello wonderful people, I trust that by the special grace of the living God, this new month of March will be a month of divine uplifting for us as we remain daily in the love of Christ.

I saw a post on one of my social media platforms and the post was about marriage; someone had brought an issue that bothered on her marriage to a group I belonged to and before I could lend my thoughts on the issue and pen my comment, the comments icon had been disabled so I decided to share my thought via this blog. The very few comments I read on the issue broke my heart; to know the mindset of a lot of people concerning marriage made me realize why we have this high rate of failed marriages. So here is the story:

My mother-in-law’s first advice to my husband (I was seated beside him) was, “Don’t show too much love to your wife.” Please note that during the wedding, she did not come with the engagement requirements (dowry and traditional marriage rite gifts for my family) and she acted aloof and negative throughout the ceremony. She did not sit with parents in the front seat, but sat at the back. My husband’s action since then has been as follows:

·         Verbal and Physical abuse

·         Continuous disregard for my need

·         Utmost disregard for me before his family

·         Once there is disagreement, he leaves the house to go stay in his family house for days. His mum stays there

·         He doesn’t call my parents or siblings even after they call severally to check on him. He said I must not give him the phone when my family members call me and he’s beside me.

·         He does not pray with me.

Please what do I do?

I feel terribly maltreated. I developed these bad palpitations after I got married and these things started. I have lost two pregnancies. My monthly salaries go to his expenses.

Looking back, I had more joy as a single lady compared to after I got married. It’s been sadness-ridden 27months. I want out.

My Response

My darling sister, I want to wish you a big welcome to the examination room of life. Every stage in life comes with its own challenges and hurdles to cross as you grow, now you are in mid-life stage of life’s hurdles and with God on your side you can come out of it stronger and victorious.

In your first stage of life, you learned to grow from being a baby to being a toddler, you learned to talk, walk, run, sit, and stand and all that. Then you began to learn to read and write and began to learn to move from a child to a girl, then to a lady and now to a woman. Now you are learning to be a wife.

The first thing you need to understand is that you own your happiness. Never let your happiness depend on anyone but you and God. Allowing your emotions to be controlled by any one including your husband is giving such a person too much power over your life and such a person can use that power as he/she wishes even to your own detriment. The ability to control your own emotions is a powerful tool that God has blessed you with and you need to use it wisely and not give it to anyone.

You should not be miserable in marriage just because your husband is not seeing the value in you. When you look in the mirror, what do you see? Do you see a powerful woman whom God has made in His image and likeness who has been fearfully and wonderfully made? If not, then begin to look deep within you and dig out the giant in you. Know your own worth, value yourself first. It is the value you place on you that your husband sees and appreciates. Don’t let the value your husband has placed on you or that which his mother has placed on you be above the value you place on yourself. Value yourself and in no time your husband and his family will value you.

Then in Genesis 2:24 we read that “for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife,” if your husband does not know this, you should know it. So your mother and father or his mother and father have absolutely no significant contribution in your marriage. Whether he relates with your family or not is of no significance at all and that should not cause you sleepless night in any way. If he does not want to talk to your family members, simply explain to them that he is not available at that moment and drop it. When he is ready to talk to them he will talk to them. He is currently not giving value to your family members because he has not placed value on you. It is the value that he place on you that he extends to your family. So the family value is not important at this point. Let's work at him building value for you first.

What should be of uppermost concern to you is how to get your husband’s attention and how to dig out the love that God has placed in his life for you. That love that he possesses belongs to you as his wife and not his mother or anyone else. The word of God says a man should love his wife as himself (Ephesians 5:25-29). So your assignment is to dig out that love that God has ordained for you that resides in your husband and that you enjoy it to the maximum because it’s there for you.

You cannot dig out that love with force, not with nagging or with a fight, and it cannot be bought with money. But you will effectively dig out that love by obeying the law of the Lord for your marriage. It is then and only then will you invite the intervention of God into your marital situation and when He intervenes, positive changes begin to take place. Note that you cannot change your husband, neither can you change his mother, the only person that you can change is you and make sure that the change is a positive change in line with the will of God for your marriage.

This law of the Lord begins with “wives submit to your husbands as to the Lord” (Ephesians 5:22-24, Colossians 3:18 and 1 Peter 3:1-7), so apply this law to it's tiny detail in your marriage. You will find the code of conduct for a godly wife in Proverbs 31:10-31, apply this codes too; they are very effective. When you prayerfully submit to God by submitting to your husband and imbibe the code of conduct of a wife of noble character, God will cause the impossible to happen in your marriage.

Your mother-in-law and her manipulations are no match for the power of God when you allow God to intervene in your marriage through your prayers and deeds which are in obedience to His instructions for your marriage. Never allow your husband’s negative attitude or your mother-in-law’s manipulations make you deviate from doing God’s will for your marriage. Don’t focus on your husband or his mother, focus on God. Your focus on God will enable you to do the right thing and doing the right thing will help you win the battle over your marriage.
And lastly, you mentioned that your monthly salary goes to his expenses and I would have loved to know why that is so? I am an advocate of a wife financially assisting her husband when the need arises because that is what God has instructed us to do, but your responsibility is to assist and not to be a permanent breadwinner. Is it that your husband is not working? If yes, what effort is he making at earning income? If he is working, then he should take care of his own expenses if he can't be husband enough to take care of yours. With prayers and wisdom, you need to tactfully discontinue carrying his financial burdens IF your husband is making money or earning income.
But be mindful of the fact that obedience to your husband in everything includes the submission of your money if he demands it. But if he has not asked for your money, please don't carry his financial burdens if he is working and earning income it just amount to a waste of your hard earned income. Never think that you can earn his love by spending your money on him. It does not work that way. Love is not bought with money unless you are on a self-deceit and wasteful venture. You can only earn his true and genuine love and respect through the God approach which I have already highlighted earlier.

Be sure of this truth, your marriage will be sweet again. Joy will be restored in your home and love will reign in it as long as you are willing to fight for it.

I Cheated on my Wife and She is the Cause

I am thanking God for another month ending on a praise note. With the gift of live comes also the gift of hope. So as long as we are still breathing God is not finished with us yet.

So tonight I will share another story and a very interesting one too. I pray that this story does not just bless us with information, but with lessons that will help us be better spouses in our marriage to the glory of God.

The Story

A wonderful young wife discovered after several years of waiting on God for the fruit of the womb that she cannot conceive due to some medical issues that has affected her womb. This devastated her a great deal but for whatever reason she chose not to share this with her husband of several years. Rather than open up to her husband, she concealed the information and recoiled to herself and became a zombie wife literarily. She would not communicate with her husband and always had several reasons and excuses to avoid sex with him. Though she became close to God, yet estranged from her husband. 

The husband on his part noticed the drastic change in his wife and several entreaties to make her open up on what was wrong with her fell on deaf ears. Soon they became two complete strangers living under the same roof with absolutely no attachment between them. And months after, the husband stopped eating at home and the wife just didn’t mind, yet she will cook his food and the husband will not eat and she won’t even persuade him to.

With days running into months and no light seem to be at the end of the tunnel of their marriage, the husband began an extra marital affair. Though he loved his wife very much and would want to know what was eating her up, yet he needed a companion; he needed to be loved too. So there was this lady offering herself to him effortlessly and even with his initial rejection, she wouldn't give up and there is his wife on whom he is hocked but who seem not to bother about his feeling at all. So he succumbed to pressure and started an affair with this lady and got all the attention he needed, but still his love remained with his wife.

On this faithful night the wife was out of the home on an outing they were supposed to be attending together but which the husband missed out on carelessly. Noting that he had hurt his wife’s feelings by not attending the function with her, he decided to impress her by cleaning the house in a manner he knew would impress her. In the course of his cleaning he discovered his wife’s medical report, read the doctor's diagnosis and then realized why she had been estranged from him for close to a year. Rather than get angry, he felt relieved that finally he knows what the big issue was.

On the wife’s return he sat her down and asked her why she kept such vital and sensitive information from him. It was a matter that concerns them both and it was a mutual problem that he should have been a part of from the onset. He made his wife realize that he didn’t marry her just for babies and there is still a God who make impossible possible. That night they made up and the husband began his search for a cure or any possible solutions to his wife’s ailment. He searched on the internet to know more on the diagnosis of his wife and it became more of his problem than that of his wife.

But there remains the outside mistress. Now that the internal problem between the husband and the wife has been resolved; the husband arranged a final meeting with the outside mistress to dissolve the relationship between them. But the mistress will hear nothing of such. She is now threatening to reveal their affair to the wife and later came up with pregnancy report stating that she is pregnant for the husband.

The dilemma in this story is that the husband does not want any shocks on his marriage again. He is scared to open up to his wife about his sins (his extra marital affair) to his wife knowing fully well that she will not be so forgiving. He is also aware that before he got married to his wife, she once had her heart broken by a guy she dated and that affected her health a great deal, so he is scared what effect this revelation might have on her. Now he does not know what to do.

My Take on This Story

In as much as I feel like excusing this husband for cheating on his wife, I will say that it’s unacceptable. Yes, he loves his wife and has tried so hard to understand the cause of the rift in their marriage and make amends, yet this story didn’t indicate that he prayed and fasted for God’s intervention in his dying marriage of which he didn’t even know its disease. Rather than pray he feel prey of the vultures in the desert waiting for a lifeless marriage to feast on.

Coming to the wife, I am still finding it hard to comprehend why she kept such information from her husband and then choose to react negatively to him instead. Was she blaming him for her predicament or was she trying to push him away? I still don’t get it. The Bible says in Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 that two are better than one and if one should fall his friend will lift him up. In all of her going to church and serving God, didn’t she learn this? I understand that fear of the unknown and not being able to determine what the husband’s reaction can be might make her hold up such a thing to herself for some time, but that should not be for too long, and she should not have sent her husband packing out of her emotional life for a thing that isn’t his fault.

But after all said and done, the first solution to the matter at hand is for both of them to go back to God in prayer. Forgive each other on misjudgment they have made and sins committed. The husband needs to prayer and seek God as he makes up his mind to approach his wife. We learned in Proverbs 21:1 that the hearts of kings and princes are in the hands of the Lord; He directs it like a watercourse wherever He pleases. So the Lord will direct the heart of your wife to forgive you when you have pray to God about this situation. You then take the next important step of telling your wife about your sins yourself. Trust me, it safer she hears from you in a sober mood and with a repentant presentation than for her to hear it from someone else. When you quickly cross that huddle you can face the major task ahead which is the diagnosis of the doctors on your wife's fertility.

I strongly believe in the recovery of this marriage and I pray that the enemy will not have room to steal their joy again. 

Answering a Question on Submission

Hello people, its another week, and another fruitful and satisfactory week it will be for us in Jesus name. I want to address a question from a friend on today’s post and pray that it will make loads of meaning in the lives of those who read it.

Her Question:

Hello Derin dear, may grace be on the increase in your life daily. Please, I would like you to give an insight on marital submission in the home. Does the command to wives to submit to their husbands in all things mean the wives should be doormat to their husbands or dumb? Does it mean a wife should earn salary and give it to her husband?

Response

In order to have clarity on this issue, we need to go back to those Bible scriptures were the command to submit are found and try to really understand what it is all about. Even though we have gone over this several times, we will continue to go over it until proper clarity is achieved.

Ephesians 5:22-24

Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

1 Peter 3:1-2

Wives, in the same way be submissive to your husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, when they see the purity and reverence of your lives. 

So we will look at this command bit by bit and understand the mind of God on this issue of submission. And the very first thing I want the wives to understand is that it is not the husband that requested for the submission that you are giving, but God; it is not your husband that gave the command to submit, but God. And obedience to God’s word is what we are considering now. There is no point affiliating yourself to Christ or calling yourself a child of God when you cannot obey His word because you have concluded within you that such a command does not make sense to you or it does not suit you. Just like God commands us not to tell lies, and not to cheat, and not to murder and to honor our father and mother, and to keep the Sabbath day holy, so also did God command us wives to submit to our husbands as to the Lord. If you can hold all the other laws and commands of God sacrosanct, so also should you hold the submission law sacrosanct.

When you faithfully obey God and do His will and commands for your life, then you can be sure that He (the Lord) will faithfully grant you the desires of your heart because He is a faithful God who keeps His promises. Psalm 37:4 says “Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.” So when you obey God in your marital life by submitting to your husband as God has commanded you to do, He will grant you the desires of your heart by blessing you with a beautifully joyful marriage.

The problem with a lot of wives is that they focus more on their husbands when it comes to the issue of submission in marriage rather than focusing on God as though it's their husbands they are accountable to in this matter. They then hold on to the negative attitude of their husbands as an excuse to disobey the word of God. It's not your husband that you will give account to when it comes to obedience to the word of God; you are accountable to God. And for these wives, when things are not working well in their homes, they either claim that God is unfair or take the law into their hands in some cases and walk out of the marriage forgetting that the answer to prayers for a loving marriage resides in their obedience to God’s word.

Paul said in Romans 12:19 that “Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay, says the Lord.’” It is only an ignorant husband that will turn his wife into a doormat, because any wrong done against you will be avenged by God if you are patient enough to let God’s process take its course in your situation. 1 Peter 3:7 and Malachi 2:16 tells us that a husband who does not treat his wife properly risk his prayers not answered by God. Now in your own understanding, can any man escape the wrath of God? If your husband wrongs you, he will pay for whatever he has done against you and if you disobey God’s word by not submitting to your husband, then you are an offender yourself and you will be rewarded accordingly.

Another problem that wives have is that rather than obey their husbands to a point where such husband is drawn to God in full repentance, they harbor hatred for him. They curse their husbands in their minds and with their mouths, yet they want God’s intervention in a case where they are just as guilty as the husband. And then we wonder how God will judge such a matter without the two being punished.

Romans 12:14, 17-18, 21

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.

Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

If God will give you this command concerning those who are just meant to be your neighbors with no peculiar attachment between you and them, then how much more will God require a double effort from you when it comes to your husband? Remember 1 Peter 3:1-2 says that it is through the purity and reverence of your life that springs from your submission to your husband that your unbelieving husband will be won over to God. So your submission to your husband is a tool in the hands of God to bring to repentance and holiness your unbelieving husband. If your husband is the only soul you win for Jesus through your submissive lifestyle, I am confident that God will reward you richly.

On the issue of submitting your income, I will say this: If God should ask for your money and you can give Him willingly; then if your husband should ask for your income/money, you should not hold back. The instruction from the Lord says submit to your husband as to the Lord.

If your husband did not ask for your income, please keep your money to yourself and spend it as you wish because you worked for it. But if he demands it of you, the word of God says submit to your husband in everything.

When you are a Christian and you are aligned with God and obeying His words, your words are law, because you will declare a thing and it will come to pass. This is a powerful weapon that is useful in your marriage. When you are doing the will of God, you will command peace, joy, love and abundance into your marriage and you will see it manifest. When you declare increase in the life of your husband and you serve a God who fulfills the words of your mouth, then you can be sure of increase in the life of your husband that will make your own income be like peanuts to him; he will have more than enough that he won’t need your income not to talk of demanding of it.

I believe this post has revealed a lot to us, enough to help a lot of troubled marriages and I pray that the Lord will heal many homes and joy, peace and love will return into many marriages in Jesus name.  

My Pains in Marriage

So we continue in our review of some true life stories, and I pray that we are learning valuable lessons from them to the glory of God.

Issue

I am not the first wife married to my husband. I met and married him as a widower taking care of three children all by himself. We began a relationship and I loved this man and cared for his children like my own. After a couple of months into the relationship I discovered that I was pregnant and we got engaged. The pregnancy fast-tracked our relationship and we got married. I have endured a lot in my marriage to this man but the big issue is that I don’t feel loved by him, neither does he show any respect for my person as his wife. It’s quite frustrating when you are invisible to the man to whom you should matter the most.

Another issue of contention between us is that I have only two children of my own for him and I want more children. Every attempt to talk him into us having more children falls on deaf hears. He just doesn’t want to hear any talk about more children and believe me I want more than two children in my life. I can tell you for free that its just a thin line holding this marriage together. This is not what I bargained for in marriage.

Response

I am yet to see someone who says she got it all together in marriage without a single hitch. There are a lot to endure, a lot to learn, a lot to give and a lot to sacrifice to get to the point of rest in marriage. The first question I would love to ask is: what have you invested in that marriage so far, and what are you praying to God for in your marriage? There are a lot of times that what we are praying for will only happen when we re-engineer our actions and do what we should do, the way we should do them.  

The simple tricks to earning the respect of your husband are as follows:

1)      Reduce your dependence on him. Read Proverbs 31:10-31 and learn the values of a wife of noble character and you will learn about how industrious an entrepreneur a wife of noble character is. Then she is full of wisdom and kindness and on accord of her, her husband is respected at the city gate. When you reduce your dependence on your husband, he stops to see you as a burden or liability and he'll appreciate your contributions to his life more. 

2)      The second secret to earning your husband’s respect is to submit to him. The word of God says wives should submit to their husbands as unto the Lord. If everything else fails, the word of God never fails. When you prayerfully submit to your husband, you obey God's word for your life and obeying God's word results in God taking everything that concerns you more seriously.

3)      Refuse to be a nagging wife. When things are not going the way you want them to go in your marriage, pray about it well rather than take laws into your own hands or fight your own battles. Whatever you commit into the hands of God you should know that He is faithful to handle it perfectly in the perfect timing. Also it is the Lord who holds the heart of your husband in His hands, and He can direct it as He pleases (Proverb 26:1). He has the ability to direct your husband's heart to favor you when your ways are pleasing to Him. Always understand that you cannot make your husband do anything outside his will; any attempt to force anything on your husband will be met with a resistance which mostly results in fights

4)  Don’t let emotions blur your sense of reasoning in marriage. You need to be wise, understanding and objective. Your way might not be the ideal or best way so be ready to listen and do things the way your husband wants it done when the pendulum doesn’t swing in your direction.

5)   And lastly, show respect to your husband. Whatever you want from him, give him that. Respect in life is earned and not forced, so you can’t compel your husband to respect you when you have not first respected him.

And on the issue of having more children, I choose to reason with your husband and my reason is this: You have two children, but your husband has five children; three from his late wife and two from you. So while you see two children, he sees five. And in this economy that we are all trying to survive in, having to financially support five children where he has to feed them, shelter them, cloth them and pay for their education and give them all round best that a father can give, you will agree that five is more than enough.

You have embraced the three children your husband had before you married him as your own, so continue to embrace and love them as your own. See yourself also as a mother of five and not just two because it’s not just the biological mother that can mother children. A care giver whose has loved and cared for children as her own is also a mother to those children in her own capacity. So the work you have done in the lives of your stepchildren and the quality seed you have sown in their lives qualifies you as a mother to them and that settles it.

So I pray that the Lord will honor you and bless your home in Jesus Mighty name.  

I am Caught Between My Mother and My Husband

Its another story time and I am just enjoying this few days of learning from other people’s experiences. That's what's called wisdom. These stories are shared for us to learn from; they are true life stories that we can relate to so we don’t wait to make our own mistakes. So today we share another story.

Issue

I have been married for about 15months and my husband can’t seem to make love to me because he can’t seem to get it up. I love him and I don’t want to leave him. We have been managing this situation between us but then my mum called me one day expressing concern over the fact that I'm not pregnant yet and it's been over a year that I got married. In tears I confided in her and told her the challenge in my marriage. And lo and behold the issue was blown out of proportion with my husband’s parents invited into the situation. My husband tried explaining to my mum that he is more worried and concerned about his predicament as he is looking forward to starting his own family more than my mother is looking forward to having another grandchild. But my mum would not hear any of such explanations. She has forced me out of my marriage against my will and I just don’t know how to handle this? I am caught between my mother who does not see any reason why I should remain married to a man who cannot give me a child and my husband that I love dearly.

Response

Honestly my heart goes out to you as I'm almost in tears as I pen down a response to this issue. But first, where are your praying knees? You have not mentioned anything about prayers. Have you prayed to God to know your purpose in that marriage and in the life of that husband of yours? Do you know whether its for this problem that the Lord made you a wife and a suitable helper to this man; that you might be the answer to the prayer that he has been seeking the face of God for? Proverbs 18:22 says “He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives the favor of God.” Why would you allow your mother remove you from under the authority of the head that the Lord has placed over your life and from the assignment that the Lord has handed over to you?

In as much as I appreciate the enormity of the problem at hand, I also appreciate the Mightiness of God who is able to solve all problems and I do not appreciate you being a wimp who would allow her mother interfere with her marriage. Genesis 2:24 says, “For this reason a man will leave father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” So where is the place of your mother in your marriage equation based on God's design that she should come and pull you out of your marriage? I still can’t seem to understand this.

Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 says “Two are better than one, because they will have a good return for their work: If one falls down, his friend can help him up.” Based on this scripture, you have just shown that you are not a friend to be relied on not to talk of being a wife to depend on by your actions of allowing your mother interfere in the affairs of your home. You are a wife who has left her husband on the floor rather than help him up when he needs you the most. Permit me for being hard.

As far as I know the only humane thing for you to do is to go back to your husband and hold his hands through the storm of his life. You are his suitable helper, assigned to him by God to help him in every area where he needs help. Now is the time for you to fulfill God’s calling upon your life in the life of your husband. Do not let anyone (not even your mother) make you fail God in this. You are not accountable to your mother in the matters of your marriage, you are accountable to God. 

It's Hard to Forgive But Forgiveness is the Best Way to Go

In yesterday’s post, I shared a real life story and I believe it was helpful to so many people with challenges in their marriages. So today, I will share another real life story and I pray it will make an impact in your marriages and homes in Jesus name.

Issue

I got married to this lovely young lady; prior to our marriage, in the course of our courtship, I noticed some unacceptable behavioral traits in her and confided in my parents about my observations. At that point of making my discoveries I wanted to call-off the engagement but my mother talked me out of it. She knew my wife’s mother well, and knew her to be a responsible woman. Her thought then was that since her mother was a responsible and respected woman in the society the daughter will not be too bad a wife. She convinced me that everybody had a past and so I can’t condemn my fiancée based on her past. We had several prayers sessions concerning my choice of wife before I finally agreed to proceed with the wedding. But lo and behold my fears were confirmed a couple of months after our wedding when I discovered my wife was having extra-marital affairs. This broke my heart and I could not help but take it out on my mother who convinced me to marry her. I presented my parents with the various undeniable evidences that I had gathered concerning my wife's adulterous lifestyle, and called the marriage quit. I have since relocated to start a new life elsewhere waiting for the divorce proceedings to take its course. This time around I will look well before I jump into any marriage. And I will ensure that I listen to my inner mind and not allow anyone convince me otherwise.

Response

To say that I understand your anger is to put it mildly, but I thank God that you mentioned the phrase sessions of prayers before the wedding took place and your marriage finalized. The fact that you prayed makes all the difference, and if the Lord knew that He was unable to repair and redeem that situation, He would definitely prevent the marriage from taking place.

I am sure you have read about the story of Hosea in the Bible; this tells you that there is nothing new under the sun and the fact that Hosea married an unfaithful wife didn’t mean the marriage was doomed. As a matter of fact God was in it from the beginning. He instructed Hosea to go take an unfaithful woman as his wife and he loved her still. Would you dare to go back to God in prayer to ask Him to intervene in this matter like the story shared in the last post? Would you dare to pray and ask the Lord to take the wheels of this situation off your hands and direct the course of your life and marriage the best way He alone can?

If you get a divorce like you are already trying to, you are justified; but then the fact still remains that you cannot take another wife (1 Corinthians 7:10-11); you are allowed a divorce on the grounds of marital unfaithfulness by the standard of God, but by that same standard of God you have to remain single for the rest of your life or be reconciled to your wife.

Please let your anger burn, but not for too long. And don’t let that anger burn so high that it makes you lose consciousness of God and His will for your life. Don’t let that anger burn to the point that you will lose all the God given favor that is residing in the life of your wife for you. She holds some treasures in her life that belongs to you; God put those treasures there for your life and I beg you not to let the devil rob you clean of God’s treasure due to your anger against your wife.

Prayer for grace to forgive, pray for her to change her ways and be all that God has called her to be in your life and pray that God will open your spirit eye to see the good in your wife outside of her shortfalls. God is still in the business of answering prayers. Love her to repentance and watch God make her into all that He has called her to be in your life.

You are hurting, I know, and it takes great grace to walk through this period in your life, but with God all things are possible. His grace is available for you if you are willing to embrace it. That marriage will rise again in Jesus name.