Divorce Was Not an Option

I recently had lunch with a friend who is married to a paraplegic. He was an angry man--"an angerholic" she called him.

"He often spoke harshly to me. I said, 'Lord, how can I endure this!' (We knew divorce would never be an option.) 'I can't take it. What should I do?'

"Then I discovered 1 Pet 2 and 3. There should not be a division between chapters 2 and 3." She went to the car and got her Bible and read the verses that had become so practical to her:

"When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly...Wives, in the same way be submissive to your husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives when they see the purity and reverence of your lives" (1 Peter 2:23, 3:1-2).

"That works!" she exclaimed. "I had to moment by moment depend upon the Lord. When he would abuse me, I would look to Jesus for strength, for grace to treat him as I should. Jesus gave it!"

"One morning, he woke up and hit me with his arm and said, 'Get up!' If he gets up that means I get him up. I didn't want to get up. I'm not a morning person, he is. We are so different. But I thought, God, thank you for making him like you did. He never did that again.

"He is so different now. He changed! He is kind, considerate. It's only been in the last one or two years that I could share this verse with him.

Thank You, Lord, that You do not fail us when we rely on You for our reactions and words.

"Look to the Lord and his strength; seek his face always" (Psalm 105:4).