Women

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One beautiful May day, me and the family were headed to Palm Springs for Mother’s Day weekend. My husband, four children and mother-in-law were on our way around 3:30 in the afternoon. My mother-in-law had joined us on many outings prior to this. She adored her grandchildren and they adored her. About an hour into the drive the baby began to get fussy and wanted out of the car seat. Well, since I am with the children most of the time, this wasn’t alarming to me. I drive around all the time and the baby will get fussy. She will usually fall asleep after a few moments. Well today was a different day. The fussing of the baby was a bit much for my mother-in-law. Not in a bad way; she was sad the baby was crying and felt I needed to do much more than I was doing to help the baby feel better. It bothered her so much, she finally decided to let out five years of frustrations about me, that apparently, she had built up inside of her.

Before you become alarmed, this wasn’t a huge surprise to me. When my husband and I started dating, we fought a lot, and I do mean a lot! Maybe it’s just the kind of the mother she is, but it never mattered to her what we fought about. The fact that we fought at all made me the “bad guy”. She was not happy at all about our relationship and she made it very clear. Two years after we were married I had her first grandchild, a son, and he looked exactly like my husband. My mother-in-law loved him to pieces and he felt the exact same way toward her. Five years and two more grandchildren, I thought all the problems were over. I was wrong.

The situation was frustration to say the least. She was wrong in every sense of the word. She had an outburst in the car, on Mother’s Day weekend, in front of the children. My husband and I were very angry at first and refused to talk to her. Then it became a waiting game to make her sweat it out. But then something else happened that completely opened my eyes.

My husband was planning to talk to his mother on an upcoming weekend, three weeks after the incident to set some boundaries, until I clearly heard God’s voice say, “wait”. He said, “do you love your husband”? I said, “of course I love my husband”. He went on to say, “the children getting to see their grandmother right now is not the most important thing in their life. Their mother and father having a loving relationship is the most important thing”. I said, but Father, “my husband and I do have a loving relationship”. He said, “do you”? He said, “please remind yourself of” Genesis 20:24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and they shall become one flesh”. God also reminded me Ephesians 5: 22-24 regarding the role of husbands and wives.

Then it hit me. My husband I had a good marriage up to that point, but we weren’t putting any energy into having a great marriage! We were fine being married and things between us weren’t that bad so we were okay. But I would hear people say things like, “I’m married to my best -friends”. I told my husband during this time that I was not sure I could honestly refer to him as a best- friend. He and I didn’t spend hours talking to each other. We didn’t laugh and joke all day. We were still hitting below the belt when we did argue. This wasn’t okay with me. It wasn’t okay for my children to see their parents only half-way doing it in their marriage. Here I was this aspiring writer and speaker encouraging people to never give up. My husband, a high-school football coach, telling kids to never give up and give it their all, yet we weren’t giving it our all in our marriage. God’s words were so clear to me during this time. He wanted to know if my husband I were taking our marriage serious. God takes marriage very serious. I found a great man, and he found a great woman. We have four wonderful children, yet our marriage was just okay. We were so concerned and so sad about the children getting to see their grandmother, yet never realizing what we were really showing them as a married couple.

This was no longer okay for either of us and we began a journey to have a great marriage. First, we made an effort to incorporate God into our lives as a couple more often. Just as God reminded me that we are one when we get married, we also needed to have a relationship with Him as a married couple, as well as a personal one. Then we started by having breakfast out with each other, just the two of us. It sounds pretty simple, but sitting down enjoying breakfast out, not having to referee an argument or pick up forks and spoons the baby throws on the floor, goes a long way. I complained all the time that we didn’t communicate enough and maybe that is one of the reasons why. We didn’t spend enough time alone enjoying our life. We decided to plan weekends away. This again is extremely important. Just getting away alone means a lot. Prior to the situation with my mother-in-law, she kept the children on the weekends often while we stayed at home to get things done. We might catch a movie or go out to dinner, but it just wasn’t the same as he and I getting away. I also decided I was going to do my best to not hit below the belt. I had to remind myself that our marriage is an every day journey. It’s not a project to complete at a certain point. There will be many days my husband and I will blow it after weeks of doing great. Did that mean I had the right to lose control and give up?

I thank God that He takes situations in our life that seem horrible and will make it good. Although the situation with my mother-in-law was frustration, I am so happy it happened. If it didn’t happen, my husband and I would have continued bouncing around our busy life never realizing we had many holes in our marriage.

Maybe your story isn’t your in-laws, but is there a situation in your life that God has asked you to wait on, while you discover how wonderful your husband is? Praise God for how much He adores you. While you are working on having a great marriage, He is busy restoring that situation that seemed so horrible.
Marriage is sacred. The men in our lives are wonderful. Look through the mistakes and faults because we all have many of them, they just may not be the same. I want my children to achieve many things, but what I want most is for them to know how loved they are in the name of Jesus Christ and never forget God’s blessing of marriage. It starts with me and it starts with you. Get up from this article and give your husband a great hug because today is the beginning of a great marriage, in the name of Jesus Christ.

The story in the article is being used with permission

Saleama is a wife, mother of four, writer and speaker. She is also a student at a local Bible college. Saleama and her husband, Omar, enjoy time away as often as possible. As a family, they enjoy adventures around the city. She serves in leadership at her church for MOPS, and a council leader for women’s Bible study. Saleama can be reached at www.salruv.com

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