Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. — Hebrews 11:1
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What is it that you hope for?
If we’re being candid, we hope for things like healthy children, nice homes, and regular pay raises. In the day-to-day grind of life, we tend to focus on the practical things that make our lives run smoother. We want lawnmowers to start like they’re supposed to, dinners not to burn, and traffic not to slow us down. But what if we look a little deeper? What if we take some time to ponder what it is we really hope for?
In 2009, Scott spent a few days on life support. In 2014, I had a heart attack. In those moments when we sat by the other’s bed, holding tight to the hand of the one we’d promised our life to, we hoped for just one more day. Just one more whispered, “I love you.” Just one more kiss good night.
Facing our own mortality and the possibility of life without each other forced us to reckon with what we truly believe. Did we take God at His Word that He is always working all things together for our good? Do we believe He is sovereign? Do we trust Him as a refuge, the holder of our tears?
Faith become less a word and more a choice for us during those seasons. Our faith has been tested more than once during our married life. We faced the very real possibility of both sets of our parents separating within the first two years of our own marriage. We’ve watched two of our brothers deal with the aftermath of divorce. We’ve buried Scott’s dad, three of our great-grandmothers, and one set of my grandparents. We faced the heartache of infertility for three years before we welcomed Casiday into our family.
Every time one of these hard seasons has come, we’ve had to make the choice: faith or no.
Every time we’ve entered into difficult circumstances, we’ve had to make a decision about what we hoped for.
Every time we’ve encountered trying situations, we’ve had to choose where to place our assurance, in what we could see or what we couldn’t.
Our marriage isn’t the only one where husband and wife look difficulty and tragedy in the eyes and make the choice. Yours has too. I know it, even though I don’t know the particulars. Because this is life — it’s hard and we have to make the choice to trust what we can see or Who we know but can’t see.
Maybe you’re in a hard season right now. We get it, we really do. We’ve fought for our marriage but we’ve also fought against each other. We’ve had to wrestle through our own selfishness and desires. We’ve had to choose to give the benefit of the doubt. We’ve had to forgive and forgive and forgive. And there is no way we could have survived these past 19+ years if we were only relying on what we could see.
Because there were days when what we could see didn’t look very promising.
But we chose then and we choose now and we will choose in the future to walk in faith — confident in God’s promises to us and assured of Who He is and what He says, even when we can’t see how it’s going to work.
Our prayer for you is to do the same.
Choose faith in your marriage — not just faith in your spouse and his or her fidelity and love but also faith in the One who instituted marriage, the One is FOR your marriage.
Choose faith in your marriage, not just in your spouse but in the One who brought you together. #MarriagePrayers Share on X~ Teri Lynne
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Today’s Prayer
Lord, help us have faith in our marriage. Not just in each other but even more, let us have faith in You. May we trust in Whom we can’t see no matter what we can see. May we hope for more in our marriage. May we choose to walk together in faith, walking together with You. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
#MarriagePrayers: May we choose to walk together in faith. (Hebrews 11:1) Share on X**********
Thank you for joining us for #MarriagePrayers: 31 Verses to Pray for Your Marriage. Scott and I will be sharing a new verse and prayer every day throughout May, leading up to our 20th anniversary on June 1. You can find every day’s post indexed here. We pray you will be encouraged and challenged as you pray God’s Word for your marriage.
For fun, we’ve been sharing some pictures from earlier in our marriage … so, here is a photo from our wedding. Please note my bouquet is missing … it got sent to the reception for the bridal table before we got pictures made. 🙂
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