A Husband's Love

Eph 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her,

I thought I would give you a better look into my life, my marriage and how God is working daily on me....

Eric is my second husband. He has truly been the embodiment of that verse to me. Let me explain...this will be long......


Some background:

My first husband turned into a stranger to me shortly after we married...he became abusive, controlling, and was addicted to drugs....flaunted affairs while I was pregnant....you get the picture? So I moved me and my son, Travis, out of the house and begged for us to go to counseling because I really wanted to save my marriage... he would not have it...it was to be his way or nothing...he even told me that since he was the husband and “king of his castle” that if he felt that I needed to be hit it was his right to do so (how many men today have this wrong thinking.... sad)....I filed for divorce..... two weeks later I found out I was expecting my oldest daughter..... so the divorce was postponed until after the birth (state law) .... during this time he left the state and had several more affairs (he called me once just to flaunt them) .... my divorce was granted a month after my Mia was born. Because my now ex-husband could not be found, I got left with all the debt that he ran up ( my name was on there too because he had bullied me into it) and now I was a single mother of 2 babies, a low paying job, and more debt than I realized I would have on my own.... and was a very bitter woman!

A year after my divorce I met Eric...I was set up on a blind date by my cousin and was not happy about it at all.... I told God if He really wanted me to have another husband he would have to give me a big sign... Well, GOD DELIVERS!!! I got my sign with bells and whistles and Eric and I were married 3 months later....see, what I didn't know until a couple of years into our marriage was that Eric had been praying for a FAMILY....not just a wife but a family from the beginning......now you know why I say I would not change anything, even all the pain, because God was using all the suffering to make something beautiful out of my life............

Now here is the part where I must hang my head.... remember I said I was a very bitter woman....God did not take that right away...yes I was in love, I was happy, but I was still very bitter and untrusting..........and Eric has loved me through it all.... I refused to submit to his authority for years, ( he told me recently it was like making a mule do something she does not wish to do.... he told me that for every step we made forward in our relationship I would drag us back 3 or more and he felt he was always having to pay for something he never did) .... as I think back on how it was, how hard I made things for him ...I feel tears welling up....how could I have treated such a Gift from God.... this wonderful man God had sent to me and my children to be a provider, a father, a lover and a best friend and I treated him so badly.... yet, Eric loved me through it all and would quietly guide me by his loving example each day....oh how I tested that man....I was sure that he would turn out to be the same as my first husband so I tested him...really without even thinking about it.... not even realizing that it was what I was doing.... and it took its toll on my wonderful man... how ashamed I feel at the damage I did during those first years of our marriage. And how grateful that God sent me a man to really show me how a husband is to love a wife....just as Christ loves the church.... how in that love he tenderly yet firmly helped me to come closer to the woman God planed for me to be.... how he put me first, even when I did not realize it.... how he suffered so much for my benefit..... Just as Jesus did so long ago..... it is a humbling thing to realize just how much Eric has done for me... I work so hard now to be the best wife to him.... knowing that he loved me so much, even before I truly knew how much, that he would let himself be 'broken' just for me....to this day I see a shadow of the pain it cost him to love me as he does.....

I see God still working in our marriage... I have learned so much and even still I can feel His loving hands still molding me into what I am meant to be ..... I truly know that Eric was sent to me by God to show me just how much He loves me by Eric's wonderful example....

See this verse is a very personal eye-opening verse as to how much Christ loves us .....His bride.... how He was willing to suffer for her because of that love......