Thankful for a mended marriage
It’s Thanksgiving week!
In our house, that normally means a quick meal of hamburgers or tacos before a movie marathon spanning a couple of days. You see, for the past several years, I haven’t cooked the traditional big meal. It has taken so much longer to cook it than it has to eat it, that I haven’t felt like it wasn’t a holiday for whoever helped me cook. That’s why we created our own tradition.
But this year, I’m cooking a little bit. I’ll roast a big chicken and throw some potatoes in the oven alongside it. I’ll make some boxed dressing and maybe a quick Jell-O salad. Nothing super crazy, but a bigger dinner than our last few holidays.
I guess I’m trying to express how incredibly grateful I am this year.
For the past year, I thought that my marriage might be over. Despite knowing that my husband and I loved one another very much, we could not find a way to get along. We had some significant issues that we couldn’t seem to work out. We argued about everything. Every. Thing.
We even decided to live separately for the better part of this year. We had separate addresses, separate utilities, separate bank accounts, and separate lives. We shared little, except custody of our children.
It was heart-rending. I cried a lot. I prayed a lot.
I talked with a counselor regularly, and I sought counsel from my pastor, as well. Both validated me. Both rebuked me. Both gave me an avenue to express my heartache and hope. One week, I’d think we had made progress, and the next I was sure we were through.
Finally, I had had enough. I told my pastor I finally grasped Proverbs 3:5-6, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all ways, submit to Him and He will direct your paths.” I cried out to God and told him that I believed I had done everything in my power to save my marriage and that I was giving it over to him to do as he thought was best.
I knew that it might mean things didn’t end how I wanted. But I was finally willing to let God be God and to step back from trying to be in control. It was amazing the amount of peace that I felt, just knowing that I had finally let God guide me.
And in his wisdom, he saw fit to soften our hearts toward one another. He saw fit to restore our relationship. He placed our love for one another and the commitment we had made to one another at the top of our priority list. He made us more inclined to be happy together than to be right alone.
Thanksgiving this year happens to be our 15th anniversary, and I am glad we’ll be celebrating it. I am truly grateful that we are figuring out how to live out our love and focus more on our similarities than our differences. I hope to spend the rest of my life expressing my gratitude.
I’m just starting with a chicken dinner.
Laura Zoeller can be reached at zoeller5@verizon.net.