How I’m Learning to Love My Husband

Several months ago, I stepped outside of my house into the warm, sunny, breezy weather of the day. I was going for a solo walk around my neighborhood and my mind was racing with my most recent concerns. Something was bothering me that I couldn’t quite put my finger on and I asked God to help me get to the bottom of it. I walked along a row of houses while I was busy contemplating many things. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a stray page from a coupon book being blown from lawn to lawn. I glanced at it briefly and was about to turn away and keep going, when I felt that I should go pick it up. I quickly went and got it. It had been trash day that morning so everyone’s trash bins were still out on the curb. I was deciding which neighbor’s recycling bin to throw the paper into when I felt a strong nudge to take the paper home and throw it away in my own trash. As I continued walking I thought about the idea of taking other people’s trash and throwing it away as my own when the Holy Spirit seemed to say, “do you love people enough that you would take their burdens as your own and throw them away yourself? What about your husband’s burdens?”

“What about my husband’s burdens?” I wondered.   Nick and I have never had a perfect marriage, but we are very happy. We talk about everything, are best friends, and truly enjoy and care deeply about each other. “I’m a pretty good wife, aren’t I?” I asked myself. And then the questions just kept coming. Do I really care about Nick’s burdens as if they were my own? Do I even care about them all that much? What does it really mean to carry someone’s burden?

Pretty soon I started having memory after memory of how I often shrug off Nick’s ministry woes or personal struggles and offer the “you’ll figure it out” kind of help. I tend to have a “buck up, buttercup” attitude towards him, because well, if I’m honest, I guess I think my struggles are harder than his. Surely keeping three little people fed, clean, safe, kind, respectful, obedient, happy, and teaching them all the things of life is much harder than anything he is doing during the day, right?   I know that’s not fair, but it’s my mindset sometimes.

A couple of months later, I was listening to an interview with Priscilla Shirer on her book called The Resolution for Women and she explained that the word “gentleness” used in the New Testament is actually describing a person that can lift a person’s load or burden.   In other words, the gentle person is a burden lifter. She suggested starting your day asking yourself how you can lift your husband’s load.

So I decided to do some things differently. I wanted to be a load lifter for Nick, and I also wanted to show that I valued his opinions and suggestions for myself. I love to read and often have several books in mind that I can’t wait to get to. Instead of continuing with my list of books, I chose first to read all of the books Nick had been recommending to me. All eight of them. As I started reading the books, I kept getting overwhelmed by how many more there still were till I could get to the ones I wanted to read. Soon, a thought popped into my head.   “That’s how he feels. Overwhelmed.” Nick’s book list, ministry list, family list, to-do list, health list, hobbies list, etc. are all long and he is constantly in a state of feeling overwhelmed. How much had I thought about that?

I also decided to finally go to Nick’s office and organize his books for him, something he’d asked me to do for a while. Organization is one of the easiest things for me, an inborn talent. It is also one of the most difficult things for Nick. And when it comes to the pace at which we get things accomplished, you could say that I am the hare and Nick is the tortoise. I felt so ashamed over how I have often made Nick feel bad for not just learning how to become organized or doing things quicker instead of blessing him with my gift of organization and speed to lighten his burdens.

As I was placing various books on different shelves according to their subject, a quote I had recently read in a book that Nick suggested popped into my head. “Hurry is not just a disordered schedule. Hurry is a disordered heart” (John Ortberg). Tears fell down my cheeks as I thought about how I am usually in too much of a hurry to get all of my tasks done to sincerely care about Nick’s burdens. Here I was, someone with the gift of organization, but who can’t reorder her own heart. I was beginning to see why God was trying to get my attention in this area. Clearly I had some issues that only He could fix.

A few weeks later while I was having my morning worship, I read the story in Luke 20:27-40 of Jesus talking to the Sadducees about the resurrection and marriage. According to these verses, it doesn’t seem clear that anyone will be married in heaven. But what this passage seems to emphasize and be clear on is that we will be God’s children. Nick and I may not be married in heaven, but he will be God’s son for all eternity. His relationship with God trumps everything else in the world. The most important thing for me to do while I am married to him on this earth is to make sure his relationship with God is most significant because that’s the thing that will last forever. The point to loving Nick well is not so he will fall more in love with me, but so he will fall more in love with God for, “God is love” and “we love because He first loved us” 1 John 4:16, 19.

One of the greatest burdens I have ever had to carry is that of motherhood, particularly through the challenges Ezra and Salem have faced with their special needs. Through this whole journey, Nick has always been right there with me showing the most genuine concern. I think back to my 30^th birthday, just two months after we’d found out that Salem had a genetic disorder. We had been processing through now being parents of two special needs kids, having more medical expenses, as well as adjusting to recently moving to California and getting used to a brand new community and church. Nick asked me what I wanted for my birthday and without having to think twice, I told him I wanted to my student loans paid off. I never finished graduate school due to feeling called to stay home and the issues we’ve had with our boys, but the debt was still there. Nick secretly started a GoFund Me campaign to raise $30,000 to pay for my student loans. And you know what? He did it. Nick literally took my burden as if it was his own and threw it away himself with the help of many. That entire experience not only amazed me by the sacrificial love of Nick and others, it also gave me a deeper understanding of the way Jesus has loved me. I certainly fell more in love with Nick because of what he did for me, but I also fell profoundly more in love with God.

In our marriages and all relationships we have, Jesus calls us to live the way of the cross. Jesus carried the heaviest and most terrifying burden ever carried for you and for me. As Sam Leonor once said, “wouldn’t it be wonderful if we loved people so well that they desired to spend the rest of their lives pursing the Source of that Love?” I hope to live the rest of my earthly life with that perspective in all of my relationships. To love so well with Christ’s love of burden lifting that people will understand more and more His love for them and desire to pursue Him with all their heart.