The Bible Speaks

Your wedding might be captured under blue skies on the seashore with sandcastle beaches for posterity, but it doesn’t take long for the waves to wash over those temporary mansions and the clouds to gather. The days and years that follow can be tumultuous. 

Chad and I started out in an unpretentious blue house working five part-time jobs between us, suffocating through the Texas heat with little relief, other than a ceiling fan. We chose the ground for comfort, over our secondhand couch, to eat countless bowls of cookie dough underneath that fan. About most things marriage and life, we didn’t know diddly.

There were zero aspirations for bigger houses or corporate successes. The path was not set toward all the degrees or even establishing a family. No. Our ambitions were more fundamental. We simply wanted our marriage to make it when so much was failing around us. 

Marriage is covenant commitment. We wanted the service in a sanctuary (Logsdon Chapel) officiated by the godliest man thinkable, Dr. James Shields, wearing the most solemn attire he possessed (his scholarly robe). More than anything, we were aiming for a marriage that honored God and endured until death do us part. We just didn’t have a clue what to do when we marched out of there, husband and wife.

Let’s face it. Most of us are completely CLUELESS about how to love our spouses when we enter marriage. We don’t have any idea how to love one another earnestly. In fact, a good number of us remain dumbfounded far too long.  

Granted, marriage still holds its conundrums, but after more than a quarter of a century under my belt and countless conversations with brides of all ages, commonalities surface when it comes to what a wife really wants from her husband, but can’t say.

But where your wife can’t speak, the Bible does. So, to any man confused about what his wife really wants, what follows are five BIG ONES she can’t tell you. 

Before we move any further, take a moment today to pray and ask the Lord to reveal the following:

• His Truth for your relationship,
• Your heart in relating with your wife,
• The strengths of your marriage,
• Any weak places that need to be strengthened,
• Any sin that needs to be forgiven, and
• Any celebrations that can take place for progress in the hard places.