The ledger grew longer as the accountant in me diligently kept an accurate and up-to-date list. With each offense added, my exasperation and desperation increased. The issues in our marriage began like a minor crack in a windshield, barely an inch or two in length. Then the problems erupted; they ran up and down, left and right, every which way until that once small crack shattered the span of the entire windshield.
At the point our marriage shattered, I had spent thousands of hours studying and reading academic books to achieve my accounting and legal education, but I hadn’t invested time studying the Bible. That choice impacted and heavily influenced my decision-making in my marriage. And it nearly cost me.
But when I contemplated divorce, something stirred within, and I chose to stay. Was it easy? No. Were there nights filled with tears staining my pillow as our marital issues reached crisis point and I doubted my decision? Yes.
But here’s what I know now. God was working on our marriage, and each of us individually, all along.
The older and hopefully wiser me realizes that while accounting taught me how to keep a ledger and my legal education taught me that interrogation and adversarial debate lead the way to resolution, God’s Word teaches me this:
- We should “submit to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Ephesians 5:21, NLT).
- We should “keep loving one another earnestly since love covers a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8).
- “A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger” (Proverbs 15:1, NIV).
- “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. I am doing a new thing…I am making a way” (Isaiah 43:18-19, NIV).
As I cried out to God on those lonely and desperate nights, I didn’t see God doing anything. But the truth is He was.
At the foot of the cross in a rustic chapel, I tore up that ledger of my husband’s offenses and vowed to never resurrect them again. A few years later, my husband did the same.
It feels like a miracle, but my hubby and I now bask in a marriage where we choose God and choose to prioritize each other and our marriage. Living out our wedding vows is loving, fulfilling, and fun again.
For the woman reading this who finds herself lonely, hurt, and doubting her marriage, I offer this prayer: Loving God, wrap her in Your comfort and peace as she struggles for answers. May she feel the depth of Your love. You are a redeeming Lord, and I pray that she and her husband turn to Your Word first. Amen.
