Book Excerpt
I don’t set myself up as any kind of role model or an expert. I have tripped and stumbled like everyone does yet here I am thankfully standing in God’s promise.
‘As for your husband and the one who is your daughter, they will be mine before I come again. Just love him.’
Nearly 30 years ago those precious words were given to me. Words with a purpose - to encourage and to sustain, to cling on to, to blindly believe in when it just simply doesn’t seem that way. Words of faith and of life. A hope and a future.
1 CORINTHIANS 7:14 NIV “For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her believing husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy”. Here is an endorsement that your faith affects your husband. You have already affected him by your faith. He is sanctified; and that sounds full of hope and assurance that God is very very interested in him. Please don’t think that he is beyond saving and a lost cause. It is not for us to decide such a thing. Sanctified is a powerful word and speaks of being holy, blessed and set apart. Wow! Now that gets my attention.
To be women of purpose we need to purpose to spend time with the LORD. Being a praying Christian wife is not about making our lives better for us but so much more than that. If God wants us to take a seemingly odd direction then perhaps he is teaching us something and asking us to trust him. I believe God has called me to be his servant in Steve’s life, somehow the time of waiting is for a reason and the fact that I can be impatient sometimes is not going to achieve anything other than resulting in my frustration and putting barriers between my husband and I.
I admit I have no idea how Steve will see God for himself and receive Christ into his life but I completely trust that will happen and am committed to being all God wants me to be and never become a stumbling block. Whilst I mess up and say things I shouldn’t or get irritated and impatient I know God is both with me and for me and I can ask him over and over to help me so I can try again and again to always uplift and never downtread, always encourage and never discourage. |