My Husband Is A Warrior.

I love my husband. Seriously, I do. I’ve known Clay since we were 16 and I have had the privilege to watch him grow from a boy into a man. Not only physically; but mentally, emotionally and spiritually as well.  It didn’t happen overnight, but something has definitely changed in his life as he has learned to put God first and love Him more than self. Today I watched him make himself completely vulnerable and risk embarrassment and judgment because God’s glory is more important to him than his own.

My Mr  gets a great deal of joy from playing video games. He once told me with a completely straight face: “Babe, you don’t understand.  I have to kill a certain number of things a day, because I’m a warrior.” Yep. He was serious.

Not too long ago, as we talked about struggles he has faced and continues to win out over as he chooses on a daily basis to be a man of God who holds onto truth, and integrity even when it is hard, he said to me “I have to kill a certain number of things a day, because I’m a warrior. And some of those things are pride and selfishness”.

We have faced  A LOT of difficult times in our years together. Times that we’ve been scared or angry, times that we have been hurt by others and times that we have hurt each other. Let’s be honest, in marriage you are so closely and intimately united that you are completely vulnerable and you have the ability to devastate each other.  

I’ve faced some of his struggles head on with him, just like he’s faced mine. We’ve faced moments where we have had to preach the gospel to ourselves, reminding ourselves of how Christ has loved and forgiven us when we didn’t deserve it, in order to continue loving each other sacrificially and unselfishly. 

However, our God is a loving Father, and he never wastes a hurt. He is using all of this to shape us, to teach me that He is the only one who is truly Faithful in all things and that I cannot look to my husband to be my functional Savior, I must look to my Savior to supply my needs and then love and respect my husband regardless of what I feel he should do better. I am learning to look at myself through the eyes of my Heavenly Father rather than through the lens of what I fear I’m lacking as a wife, friend, woman, and helper in our relationship.

 I love seeing the way that these struggles have encouraged and challenged my husband to embrace transparency and fight sin and selfishness head on. I’ve seen it stir in him a passion to lead other men and challenge them to be men of God rather than boys who give in to selfish pursuits. And through it all I am challenged to be the kind of woman that helps my husband to be God’s kind of man.