The One in Front of You

I was 16 years old when a teenage boy at church asked me to be his girlfriend. We were babies who had no idea what the future would hold. All we knew was that we liked each other and really wanted this relationship to work out long term. 

Fast forward nearly 20 years and here we are with three kids, a house, a business, and a whole lot of busy.  Can you relate?

My husband today is not at all the boy I fell in love with. And if I’m honest, this reality has at times threatened to cause me to doubt where we are today. 

Over the years of our marriage we have both changed and matured. Some seasons have brought sweetness and others strife. 

Culture treats marriage so casually. We hear messages telling us that if you’re not happy, just step away and start over. If you’re hurt, then hurt them back. If you feel you’ve made a mistake, then reset and search for someone new. When these are the voices speaking into  our lives, it can be hard to still our souls and settle in on the truth of God’s Word. 

Let me tell you that no matter the season or hardship, your marriage has hope and a great future. We are able to journey into the heart work of emotional intimacy as we change and grow through the different seasons and over the course of many years of marriage. 

So when we survey ourselves and our marriage, how do we do this well? How do we love the one we have?

Here are 3 ways to love the man you have now: 

1. Love your husband for who he is right now. Don’t look back at what used to be and place old expectations on your husband. Maybe he’s gained a few pounds, or his hair had greyed. Maybe his schedule isn’t as flexible as it once was, or he’s more stressed than in the early years of your relationship. 

Look at your husband for all the good qualities he has today. Has his patience grown? Is his walk with God a little deeper than before? Is his work ethic stronger? Has his heart softened over the years? Whatever good you see in your spouse right now, focus on that and not on what used to be. Then, share with him the ways you’ve seen him grow and what you appreciate about him.

2. Pray for what you hope to see in the future. The greatest agent of change in the heart of a man is the hand of God. This alone will activate lasting change in his life. The way to move your husband toward greatness isn’t by nagging or picking at all the things we want to see them do, it is done by us as wives praying for their hearts to be changed and sharpened. It often means we shut our mouths and bend our knees as we continuously pray for our husbands. 

If I want to see my husband show more tenderness toward our children, I pray about it. 

If I want to see my husband handle finances different, I pray about it. 

If I want my husband’s heart to turn towards me, I pray about it. 

Prayer has the power to activate the hand of God which in turn changes things in our lives. 

3. Extend as much grace to your husband as God extends to you. The truth is my husband isn’t the only person in our marriage who has changed over the years. I’m not at all the same teenage girl he fell in love with. The years have changed us both. As much as I’ve seen him grow and change, I have as well. I’ve also seen how much grace I need in my life. 

As I look at the husband in front of me, I see how much grace God has extended to me and it is my responsibility to extend grace toward my husband. 

When I stop lavishing grace it becomes easy for me to become critical and contentious. But when I am filled with grace and extend it to my husband freely, I find I love the man in front of me for who he is right now, flaws and all. I find myself being reminded that I cannot look backwards and cannot look forwards, I must simply love the man I have right here in front of me. 

It is a great honor to be chosen to witness the life of another. To weave the story of our souls together. To step into the hard and holy moments of this life with one another. 

Let’s take every moment of this one beautiful, complicated, messy life to savor the sweetness that can happen in our marriage when we simply love the husband we have and do it to the honor of the God we serve. 

Wife Step: Take five minutes today and write out the characteristics your husband has right now in his life that you respect. Praise him for those traits and pray for him right now. 

Natalia Drumm is a writer, speaker and teacher with a passion for building community and engaging women in the Word of God. She is married to her high school sweetheart, and they are raising three little boys in their home town of North Port, FL. Natalia and her husband serve in their local church as marriage small group leaders and life group coaches. They have a passion for healthy marriages as they have seen the restorative power of God in their own marriage and family. 

Natalia is an assignment writer for Lifeway Women and serves as the Bible Study Content Editor at Living by Design Ministries. She also volunteers at Proverbs 31 Ministries on their proofreading team and leads a COMPEL Discovery Group. Natalia writes over at www.nataliadrumm.com where she creates devotional study books on issues relevant to womanhood and living in the fullness of God’s design for womanhood. 

When not writing, or serving at church, Natalia spends her time running, reading and enjoying a good Netflix binge. She’s also not be one to turn down a cold Coke and hot chocolate chip cookie.