Marriage Design

Many people get married, it seems to be the "standard" thing to do in life. God designed it to be a once in a lifetime thing and through thick and thin, you stayed united as one. God has a way of making things sound so easy. Marriage is like that in my eyes. God finds a spouse for you, you get married, and then your most intricate life details are shared with another person. Those things you find completely undesirable about your spouse, turn back to things you don't like about yourself. I personally believe God matches you with a person that is not like you in many ways, infact I believe God matches you with a person that will bring out your ugliest traits. Yup. It's true. I have learned more ugly things about myself in the last year through my complaints about hubby. I have been training myself not to point at hubby as my source of conflict. Instead I look at what *I* can fix about myself. There is always something that can change. What gives me the right to tell my husband HE needs to change? Isn't that God's job? Yes, it is. But I will admit, I am impatient and selfish and I want my marriage to be what the fairytales promised. Not gonna happen. My instinct still wants that and society today has us programmed to believe that if we aren't happy in the marriage we have vowed to be in, then we can "ditch" that marriage and go seek that "perfect" match. I have news. Your spouse *is* your perfect match. It's no mistake you got married. It takes quite a bit of planning to get married. Was it a mistake to get married? Nope. Sorry. I had to apologize to myself too, because I truly believed I had made a huge mistake getting married to who I did, when I did. Not a mistake. Infact looking back, God knew exactly what he was doing. Hubby and I are pretty much opposite in every sense of the word. I could say that's a bad thing, but in truth, I am learning so much from my spouse; things he does, the WAY he does them are completely different from how I would do them. It drives me nuts sometimes. BUT I do learn. I am open to growth, I want to grow as a person to be loving and forgiving. My marriage is molding those qualities and nurturing them. This post is dedicated to those tempted to give up on their marriage. Open your eyes, assess what *you* can change about *you*. It's simply not our job to make our spouse change. God knows what he's doing. He asks that we trust Him. I vowed recently to recommit to my marriage, I vowed this commitment at the lowest point of my marriage. The point where I was walking away. God turned my heart around like a switch. Suddenly what I would be doing to my family if I walked away was something I was not willing to sacrifice. Especially since I was finally convinced that I wasn't going to find better, until I worked from within.
I am here asking you to give it another try. Work on yourself, take full responsibility where it's needed and allow God to do the rest.