Marriage is Like Hacksaw Ridge
I believe that almost every marriage comes to a fork in the road. It’s this place where either things have to get better, or you feel like you have to get out of there because you can’t take any. more. pain. It’s not whether or not you come to this fork in the road that makes the difference in which direction your marriage goes… Instead it all comes down to which direction of the fork you choose to go down. If you’ve already chosen that you will not allow one more mistake from your spouse, then you’ve already chosen your path, really. You have to be willing to give this thing your all. You have to be willing to lay yourself down one. more. time. If you’ve already given it your all, it’s time to use some weapons that will actually work. Heavenly weapons.
If you’ve never seen Hacksaw Ridge, I encourage you to watch it. It’s a heart-wrenching story about a man who stuck to his convictions in the military, was mocked for his decisions, and ultimately ended up saving many of his fellow soldiers as a medic at Hacksaw Ridge. There’s a particular scene in the movie, close to the end, where this man is up to his knees, surrounded by soldiers who need medical help. All of his fellow field medics have been hurt and he’s the only one left who can save any of these men. He works tirelessly, waiting for help to show up, which took days. He did not sleep. He did not stop. He knew that the lives of these men was depending on him. He was in enemy territory; they could show up at any time and end his own life. Everything in him wanted to give up. His body kept collapsing to the ground from exhaustion. He spent days trudging through bodies, trying to determine who was alive and who was dead. He kept telling himself, and praying, “just one more, Lord… help me get just one more,” every time he had to carry another body to be lowered off the edge of the cliff to the others so they could get the help they needed.
I bring up this scene in the movie, because when we really get down to the nitty gritty of marriage and what this fork in the road looks like… The truth of what it’s like to fight through, for a marriage that’s already been so damaged to this point, is much like that scene. You’re surrounded by casualties, parts of yourself, and your spouse, which have been busted, broken off, laying all over the place. You and your spouse are down in the thick of the mud and the gunk of all of the ugly, broken pieces of one another. You can barely trudge through the muck just to get to the end of the day because of the damage that’s been done… You’re surrounded. But the way that we survive and push through this is much the same as the man at Hacksaw Ridge did…. One more moment, Lord. I need Your help, Lord. One more forgiveness, Lord. One more time keeping my mouth shut, Lord. Just help me get through one more second, one more minute, one more conversation, one more day, Lord. Lead me and help me because I can’t do this without You…. All of it starts with “just one more…” and then when you get through that, “just one more…” and you KEEP PUSHING and KEEP GOING until you’ve done all that you can do, allowing God to move and to do His part, until things finally start to look better – one piece at a time.
If you can relate to feeling like this on some level, let me tell you I can relate. There have been so many moments where I’ve wanted nothing more than to leave my husband and do this parenting thing on my own. But at the same time, everything in me wants to serve God. Everything in me wants to make my marriage work. I don’t want my family to be another statistic. I don’t want my children to experience an “every-other-weekend” dad, like I did. I want my children to have their daddy. I want my children to have a home with both parents. So I’ve been torn… But I have made my decision; I WILL STAND MY GROUND. I WILL FIGHT. MY FAMILY IS WORTH IT.
It Starts With…
Years ago, when my marriage began to fall apart in major ways, I began to seek God and His wisdom in where I should start. In my prayer and searching, everywhere I turned it seemed like everything pointed to me praying for my husband. Let me tell you… I really did NOT want to pray for my husband! I didn’t like my husband. I didn’t want to be around my husband. In the depths of my heart, I didn’t really care about my husband. Don’t get me wrong, I know I still had ‘feelings’ of love toward him way down deep, somewhere in there…. But I certainly did not want to do anything nice for him. This man had hurt me. He continues to hurt me! He has no regard for me, my feelings or anything to do with who I am! Why should I possibly pray for him? After everything He’s done to me, God, You expect me to PRAY for HIM???
It took a little while for me to sort through all of my feelings and hash it out with God through prayer before I was finally able to make the decision to do what God said. I finally realized that the only way my marriage was going to be saved was if God did it. If I wanted my marriage to be better, I was going to have to do it God’s way. I began to try to pray for my husband, but it didn’t seem like anything major was happening. I didn’t understand. There comes a time when you have to look at your marriage and say Enough is Enough. Once and for all. So I did some research and was led to this book by Stormie Omartian called “The Power of a Praying Wife“. I needed backup.
The KEY that Starts it All
As I started this journey, I began to read the first chapter of the book… And what I realized is that it ALL starts with me. It doesn’t matter how you’ve been done wrong. It doesn’t matter what he HAS done to you, or even what he IS doing to you. [Now, if he’s physically harming you, get out of there. Period.] But under normal circumstances, here’s what I’m going to tell you: if you want your marriage to get better, it starts with YOU.
That’s right. YOU. It doesn’t matter who’s fault it is that you are in the situation in your marriage that you’re in. You have to take everything that he’s done to you and set it all to the side. This isn’t about you and him anyway… It’s about you and God now. See, when Jesus died for us on the cross, He paid the punishment for YOU that He didn’t deserve. He extends His grace and mercy to you as a GIFT, REGARDLESS of the fact that you deserve it. None of us deserve it; it can’t be earned no matter HOW “good” we are! So, with God’s help, we have to learn how to extend the same grace to our own husbands. It’s not easy. It’s something that takes time. But, step by step, moment by moment, with God’s help, you can do this thing.
The KEY to marriage restoration is in YOUR hands. You have to make the decision to take your eyes off of your husband, his faults, and how he’s done you wrong. You have to start focusing on YOURSELF and how YOU can be a better wife for your undeserving husband… Because the truth is, we are ALL undeserving.
The Results
No matter how much I had prayed for my husband before I started reading The Power of a Praying Wife, my prayers didn’t seem to go anywhere. The truth is that my prayers for my husband were 100% focused on what I thought God needed to do to fix my husband. It wasn’t until I began to pray about the things God needed to fix in me that I began to see a miraculous change in my husband!
See, I wasn’t praying for God to fix a, b, and c in my husband anymore – I was now praying for God to help fix ME. Suddenly, God began to move in a mighty way!! Everything that I had DESIRED in my heart for my husband to start or stop doing in the way that he treated me, began happening, little by little. I stopped praying for God to fix HIM and started to pray for God to fix ME… And THAT’s when God moved in my marriage and began to change HIM!
The first step to marriage restoration is making a shift in your focus from your husband’s issues to your own issues. It’s not your job to fix your husband… Only God can do that. Your job is to let God fix you and to pray for your husband’s well-being. The Power of a Praying Wife is the book that started it all when it came to restoring my marriage. If you are SERIOUS about walking with God to begin restoring your marriage, this is your first step. Get the book. And while you’re at it, get the study guide, too. You’re gonna need it.
Now, I want to make it clear that I’m not implying that this alone is going to fix your marriage. Every marriage is different and has its own circumstances and its own hurt people involved. What I am suggesting is simply that the first steps to a healthier marriage are to truly ask for God’s help, focus on you (because you are the only one that you can change), and to find a professional to help through counseling. I know from experience that the moment my marriage, and my own mental health, began to shift was the moment I decided to shift my focus onto my own issues. Once I let go of my bitterness and expectations, gave them to God, and began to focus on myself, God began to move mightily in my husband. And my husband wasn’t a believer at that time. So get connected to your church and see where your pastor would suggest you go for marriage counseling. In the meantime, keep your own heart clean by focusing on the one you can change- yourself. I pray that through your marriage, God would get all the glory, in Jesus name. Amen.
For those of you who are interested in other books about praying from Stormie Omartian, I’ve gotten together a list that you might be interested in.
The List:
- The Power of a Praying Wife and Study Guide
- The Power of a Praying Woman and Study Guide
- The Power of a Praying Mom
- The Power of a Praying Parent and Study Guide
- The Power of a Praying Husband
- The Power of Praying for Your Adult Children and Study Guide
If you use any of my links to order a product, I will receive a small commission from Amazon for suggesting it, at no extra charge to you. I tell you that because it’s important to be honest and up front about it. But know, that I highly recommend Stormie Omartian and I have not been paid in any way to recommend her products. 🙂
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.