By Betty Predmore

Are you longing for more unity in your marriage? Here’s why grace is necessary for unity with your husband.

We All Need Grace 

I walked out my door and stopped in my tracks. Those darn pigeons were at it again!  

My driveway sits beneath a big tree with far-stretching limbs.  It is a beautiful tree, and I fell in love with the tree before I fell in love with the house. Little did I know what a mess that tree would be to me…or to my car.

Once again, my windshield was splattered with pigeon poop and once again, I was in a rush and didn’t have time to clean it.

So many times I have driven my car through the car wash just to clean off that pigeon poop.  Numerous times I have driven out of the car wash sparkling clean, only to come out the next morning to see more poop on the windshield.  Oh, how frustrating that is!

I wonder if God gets frustrated with our repeated sins.  Every day, we go to him in repentance and are washed clean of our sins, just to be splattered with sin again by the next day.  It’s not always a big sin…sometimes it is the little things.  A tiny white lie.  Impatience in traffic.  Rolling through a stop.  Harsh words spoken in our homes.

He is always there, waiting to forgive us and wash us clean.  All we have to do is ask for his grace.

Unity in Your Marriage

How often do our marriages get splattered with our ugly messes of jealousy, impatience, frustration, criticism and neglect?  How frequently do you lose that sense of oneness with your hubby because of attitudes, opinions or busyness?

Ladies, are we mindful?  Are we going to our husbands and making amends?  Or are we driving around for days with a mess on our proverbial windshield?

Unity takes effort.  It takes stopping our busyness to have hard conversations.  Unity requires humility and much grace.  When we wash away all the messy stuff, we get that sparkle of beauty in our marriage.  When we make the effort, we receive the blessing of unity with our husbands.

Why Grace is Necessary for Unity

I have missed so many moments of joy because I chose not to put the work into cleaning out my heart. So many days I have spent driving around with my spotted windshield.  Many times I have walked the rooms of my house with an unforgiving attitude, practicing and perfecting the silent treatment. 

Do you find that the mess of bitterness wins out over the sparkle and shine of grace? Do you have trouble letting go of the yuck…the big yuck and the little yuck? Or is your schedule so overwhelmed that you don’t have time to deal with the yuck?

Consider how you could do a better job of keeping the windshield of your marriage a little cleaner. After all, you can’t get to where you want to go if you can’t see to find your way. Grace and unity go together, and both will help you clean up your marriage.

Wife Step: Take inventory of your messy spots. Notice where you are cranky or rude, unforgiving or unkind. Give those ugly spots over to the Lord and ask him to help you show grace, so you can uncover the beauty of unity in your marriage.