With Christ All Things are Possible!

The Love Chapter: I Corinthians 13

(Written by Louie & Jennifer Nigro)

Jennifer’s story: I was married before I met and married Louie. In my first marriage, my husband and I were both Christians and had our separate relationships with God, but we did not develop our relationship with God together. My husband, in an effort to avoid the conflict he had seen in his home growing up, chose to be in control of most aspects of our lives. I grew up discouraged from stating my opinions and believing that as a Christian wife, I was to give in and allow my husband to rule. That is not the way God designed marriage to be. This broken way of relating led to me being in continual fear: fear of disappointing my husband, fear of making him angry and fear of him belittling me. Years of living this way and suppressing my feelings, caused me to experience a great deal of trauma. Sadly, after 29 years of marriage, we ended up divorced. As I was healing from my first marriage, I thought I would never marry again and was content with that. But God put in my mind a list of qualities that I would want in a husband. I was confused as to why the list kept coming to mind. But after meeting and getting to know Louie, I realized it was an exact description of him. It wasn’t a list of what I would want, but God had given me a description of the man I would marry.

Louie’s story: My first wife and I lived together outside of marriage having an increasingly bad relationship characterized by mistrust and anger. It was through this chaos we saw our own wickedness and the wickedness of following the culture. Jesus drew us to himself, we repented, started giving control of our lives to Him, and got married. Through obedience to His word, our marriage got increasingly better until she died of cancer 17 years later. I had a desire to marry again, but God had me remain single for twenty years. Though at first the idea of being single for any length over 5 years was very disheartening, during the ensuing years I became content with never marrying again.

Our story together: Louie came into our marriage after 20 years of being single, 7 of which he lived alone after the kids were gone, doing things his own way. Shifting from self-sufficiency to sharing control took some relearning. The practice of wanting to control his spouse was there and detrimental to the relationship.

Jennifer came into the marriage with a strong fear of being controlled. She saw the need to change her ways of relating that were detrimental to relationships. She was developing self-respect. Now recognizing the importance of stating her thoughts, opinions, and desires, she was learning to compose her thoughts and express herself appropriately.

Jennifer’s lack of expressing herself combined with Louie’s controlling personality made it easy for him to not see the line separating influence from control. As problems from this started occurring, we sought accountability of our marriage from our pastor and his wife. They gave us 1Corinthians 13 to read to each other. Now when we read it, we look at our own behavior and not our spouse’s. Verse 5 says love “...does not seek its own…,” we ask God to open our eyes to what we’re desiring. Who is this for? If it’s just for me, I ask God to forgive my sin, strengthen me, and cleanse me of this selfishness. If it’s truly for the benefit of the other or both of us, but my spouse doesn’t see it, I ask the Lord for wisdom in recognizing when influencing approaches, the line of controlling. I ask for His wisdom to understand my spouse’s way and wisdom to understand His way. If it’s something my spouse is blind to, I ask for the patience to wait on the Lord and trust Him to reveal it to them. I ask God to strengthen me to keep my hands out as much as possible while He works on my spouse. 1Corinthians 13:4 says, “Love suffers long and is kind……” Patience. When an impasse of sorts occurs and anger starts, I ask God for the strength to suffer through my hurt emotion without behaving rudely, without getting provoked. With His help, I am able to bear it.

It is very important to continually pray for humility during our disagreements. Knowing that I am blind to many of my faults, humility makes me willing to fight the pain and anger of my pride. It allows me to recognize that perhaps my spouse is right but I don’t see it. Then a seed of change for the better is planted. Humility also demands I listen during times of conflict, holding my tongue while my spouse finishes speaking, thinking about what is being communicated. During these times, I often feel transgressed. Proverbs 19:13 says “…. it is the glory of a man to overlook a transgression.” During heated times, this is difficult but as I ask God for strength, He makes it easier as He molds and shapes me into His image. Sometimes doing what’s best for my spouse causes me to suffer. Love suffers long.

Verse 5 also says that love “...keeps no record of wrongs….” If I allow my mind to dwell on the ways my spouse has hurt me, it sets me up to look for that to happen again. Then I’m not giving my spouse the opportunity to show that they are working on changing. Philippians 4:8 tells me that “...whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things.” When I focus on the good in my spouse, I find that there is far more that is praiseworthy than hurtful. It’s good to remember the Lord gave me my spouse for my good.

We had to put a lot of this into practice as we were writing. If we tried to write it earlier in our marriage, this post would not exist.

All this to say, asking God to take control of our marriage is vital. 1Thessalonians 5:17 says to “pray without ceasing.” As we go through thoughts and interactions with our spouse, while constantly communing with God, He grows us to handle things correctly. We, like all of us, are a work in progress, and learning to relate to our spouses, or anyone else for that matter, is an important part of the recreating work God is accomplishing in His children.