Before I got married, I had a lot of people remind me that marriage is something you have to work at, pointing out, specifically, that marriage brings together two sinners, which meant to me that now instead of having to deal with just your own sin, you now have to deal with the other person's sin.
Another thing I was told before I got married is that it will be a time of "iron sharpening iron."
Somewhere, I got the signals mixed because being the almost perfect human being that I am, I thought that living with my husband would cause me to see his sins more readily, in which case, I would have to sharpen him with my incredibly sharp and mature godliness. Today I realized that marrying him would open my eyes to just how deep a sinner I am, and how blessed I am to have him there to sharpen me.
There's that old term "my better half" that people use to describe their spouses. I used to think that this was just something people said in front of their spouses in order to flatter them, or behind their backs in order to appear humble. I've changed my mind because he truly is my better half. And since we're going with the cliches here, I'm going to have to quote Jack Nicolson and say that he "makes me want to be a better [woman]." Why? Because it's true!
This morning while my husband was serving at the Inner City Christian Federation, I was sucking up leaves in our back yard. When he didn't come home when he said he would, I began to get angry that he was out serving someone else when I needed his help at home. I had a whole long list of reasons why I was "allowed" to be angry. I listed them all for God while I prayed, "Lord, I don't want to be this selfish, but (fill in the blank with weak excuse for being selfish)." Finally, God laid on my heart two things: 1.) Thomas was doing the right thing and I should have been right beside him serving someone else, and 2.) I needed to stop being making excuses and just realize that I am being extremely selfish. Then I started to think about what I would write in my blog for today, and I thought, "I'll write something along the lines of, 'if my husband has one fault, it is that he's not selfish enough.'" But then God made me realize that by saying that, I was still being selfish by putting the negative on my husband instead of on myself. Here's the truth, folks: I AM SELFISH! Man, am I selfish!! And I am glad my husband isn't selfish, because I think if he was, he would not have married me.
So, now that I have gained this insight into myself, I am going to turn it to wisdom by acting on it. I created a challenge for myself. For the next week (really, I hope it lasts a lifetime), whenever there is something that I want to do for myself, I am going to serve someone else before I serve myself. So, maybe tomorrow I'll suck the leaves up out of my neighbor's yard before I suck the leaves out of my own yard. Or maybe instead of spending two hours in the morning on facebook, I'll spend those two hours writing thank you notes or writing encouraging hand-written letters to people.
I realize that these things in and of themselves will not turn me into a model servant, but I hope that it will at least begin to prepare my heart for a lifetime of humble service.
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