When I married my husband, I thought I would be perfect at fulfilling my role as his wife. I felt strong enough, confident, equipped, and so in love, that nothing could keep me from being the perfect wife.
It is funny how jumping into the actual experience can change our perspectives.
It didn’t take long for me to realize that I was not so perfect. In fact, from day one of marriage I struggled with insecurities and thoughts of inadequacies. It only got worse when we got home from the honeymoon and I was confronted with my inability to cook. One thing piled on top of another.
I knew there would be some new things to learn as a wife, but I never imagined how marriage would flip my world upside down.
One of the hardest realizations for me was facing my own sin. The kind of sin that keeps quiet in the background of life when hidden from others. The kind of sin that hurts people you love when you respond to them out of selfishness, jealousy, manipulation, and physical pain. The kind of sin that creeps past you and influences your husband to sin. I have seen and experienced it all.
Of course, in the midst of sin or in the midst of my sin affecting my husband I don’t see it. I justify it, I defend it, I fight for it. It has taken many years of us experiencing conflict and friction in our relationship for me to see my sin and repent of it. The same is true for my husband.
When we are broken before each other, when we are the reason for the hurt, it opens our eyes pretty quickly to the areas of our lives that need transformation. The intimacy of marriage has a great way of providing opportunities to see us at our rawest, while also encouraging us to be our best.
This is what I value and appreciate about marriage. The fact that it has changed me for the better. Our relationship is stronger today than it ever has been. Our love continues to grow deeper. I think it’s because, even when it is hard and challenging, we pursue love, we pursue peace, we pursue reconciliation. Just like Jesus does with us individually. His love spurs our love.
Just like marriage has refined me for the better, parenting has had a special part of my growth as a wife, mother, woman. Just like when I became a wife, when I became a mother, I also thought I would be perfect at it. I had years of experience, I was good with kids, I helped raise my siblings. I got this.
These intimate relationships have a powerful way of transforming our perspectives.
My son came along and I had no idea what I was doing. I was plagued by anxiety and my family suffered because of it. Life as a new mom was both hard and challenging. Then my son starting showing more personality, he was moving around more and growing into his little body. This is when I realized that as much as we love each other, there will be times we hurt each other.
There was this one time my husband called me out for having high expectations for our 1 year old, explaining to me how our son will feel the disappointment of unmet expectations if I wasn’t careful. My heart dropped. I never wanted to hurt my son, however I was placing pressure on him that was unnecessary.
Every single day I am challenged to evaluate my heart towards the ones that I love. Am I sinning? Am I loving them? Am I choosing to do right? Am I letting wisdom guide me?
If I love my husband and my family, I should be willing to change for the better. If I am wise, I will learn from my mistakes. If I want to have authentic and thriving relationships with them, then I need to pursue reconciliation daily, including apologizing and forgiving. If I do these things, I will grow into my roles as a wife and mother. The experience I am embracing now, is changing me and making me better.
You can experience the power of transformation too, if you let your marriage and family help you.Tweet this!
