Sometimes it is so easy for us to allow bitterness towards our husbands to take up residence in our hearts instead of having a heart that gives thanks for all he does.
You know how it goes. The trash isn’t taken out when we ask. The laundry isn’t folded the way we want it to be folded. He doesn’t say I love you enough. Or maybe he doesn’t ever ask us out on a date. The list can go on and on. When the list goes on and on, the more the bitterness and resentment seeps into the every crevice of our heart.
Please tell me I am not alone in my experience with this?
Oh good, so you are with me in experiencing the angst in making record of his wrongs?
We as wives can get pretty snarky in our attitudes with our husbands. We get frustrated, angry, unappreciative, and just down right judgmental of their every move. We bark out orders as if to say he is only there to serve our every need.
In my experience I can be tossed to and fro into these seasons with my marriage. So easily I seem to see my husband as more of an inconvenience to my demand. After all, I expect he will do things when I want it done and the way I want it done. To utter the words thank you seems like an unbearable task and the grumblings off my tongue come with such ease. These seasons where I seem to complain more than compliment, they are just short intermittent seasons. Although short, they come and invade my heart. My heart turns bitter and sour towards my husband. I can’t seem to see anything he does for me as a blessing. And to further my anguish, everything he does seems to annoy every ounce of my being. I have to ask myself why.
Why is it I can so easily be pulled into such a rotten place?
These feelings I experience don’t even come close to how the Lord wants me to treat my husband. I toss love, respect, and honor right out the window and exchange them for those ugly words of resentment, bitterness, dishonor and disrespect.
These words that enslave and keep my heart in bondage.
In this fault finding and keeping record of his wrongs, I fail to see all that he does do. I fail to see all that he truly is. He is a godly man. He is an amazing husband. He is always by my side. He loves me like no other. He is my best friend. But oh how the fault finding can cloud and conceal the truth of who the Lord has richly blessed me with in a husband. When this bitterness takes root in my heart, I am unable to see at all. It is a blinding kind of feeling. It blinds my heart from the truth about love.
Resentment and bitterness that settles into our hearts keeps us from the blessings found in marriage.
So why do these feelings seem to creep into our hearts so effortlessly?
Perhaps they have more to say about the condition of our heart than that of our husbands lack of folding the towels in the proper way. As wives we get stuck in the place of the everyday needs and demands and fail to see our husbands the way that God sees our husbands. It isn’t really about taking out the trash, or the fact that he has only said I love you 5 times instead of 10.
Have we lost our way as wives? Have we have lost our focus on Christ and forgotten how to be thankful in the everyday? Have we exchanged thankfulness for hearts full of pettiness?
Without thankfulness ruling our hearts, we tend to treat our husbands as more of a hindrance instead of a help.
When I have experienced these times in my marriage it is when I have forgotten to recognize that my husband has been made in the image of Christ. I selfishly want him to be made into my image! And when he does this or that the right way, I will be thankful! A husband made in the image of Christ. I’m just going to let that linger in my heart for a bit. Surely it is something I need to remember the next time I find myself barking orders at him.
You see, the enemy desperately wants me to believe that my husband is against me and that we are on opposing teams. He wants me to think that my husbands “inability” to do things the way I expect means that my husband doesn’t love me. He will do anything to make me think my husband couldn’t possibly be made in the image of Christ, I mean just look at how he can’t do anything right. And he will repeat this over and over in my head.
This is how we get stuck and how our hearts turn against the man who so badly wants to love us and desires to care for us. In these seasons of grumbling and complaining, we need to redirect our hearts. We need to look to the One who can give us fresh eyes to see our husbands. We need to ask the Lord to help us see our husband as being created in His image. And where the ingratitude reaches the depths of our hearts, may we ask the Lord to lavishly bestow upon us an undeniable heart that gives thanks always.
I am not sure about you, but this truly is my desire. I truly want to be a godly wife who walks in love and speaks tender hearted words to her husband. Sometimes I am better at it than others. I shutter to think I am all too often the noisy gong or clanging symbol. I desire for my words to build and edify my husband and for my heart to overflow and ooze with such thankfulness that I never forget the blessings found in him.
Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. – 1 Thessalonians 5:18
May we all be godly wives whose dialect is thankfulness!
Love gives thanks! How about you? Have you ever gone through a season where you were bitter instead of thankful towards your husband? Do you just need to love him and give thanks for all that he is?