Picking Up the Pieces
My marriage had shattered into a hundred pieces. Could we put it back together?
“I can’t live like this anymore,” I said, escalating the war that still raged from the night before. I picked up my plate and turned to leave the table.
My husband said, “You can’t just walk away.”
He reached for my arm. I tensed, knowing we would both hurl a battery of hurtful words at each other. I raised the plate and smashed it on the floor, shattering it into a hundred pieces.
Our marriage, like the plate, was broken. Throughout recent months, we didn’t talk; we yelled. We used other people as buffers to avoid spending time together, and often one of us left as the other arrived home.
We both dropped to our knees and started picking up the pieces. “Would you spend the day with me?” my husband asked holding the broom.
I knew he was calling a cease-fire. “Yes,” I said.
A fresh start
As we drove up to a mountain resort town, I prayed. My prayer focused mainly on him, but my heavenly Father would not let me get away with finger pointing. Sitting with my head down, I recalled the words of Jesus: “Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another” (John 13:34). But at the moment, I did not feel loving, lovely or even loved.
Then a distant memory came to mind: It was Valentine’s Day 1985, and my great-grandfather was lying in a hospital bed. Tubes and wires trailed from his body, but the doctor’s grim prognosis did not distract my great-grandfather from his love — his wife. When she was close, his eyes sparkled. If she fussed over his pillow, he reached up to grab her.
Two days later my great-grandfather died, and my great-grandmother followed eight months after that. The doctors said my great-grandmother died of heart complications, but her family knew better — she died of a broken heart.
While I reminisced, my soul stirred. My husband and great-grandfather were so similar; how did I miss this striking comparison? My great-grandfather was an outdoorsman, a man’s man. The same quality had attracted me to my husband. My great-grandfather gave unselfishly, and my husband does, too. I thought about the obstacles my great-grandparents faced together; they loved each other during the Depression, a world war and a house full of small children. Tears streamed down my face, but this time they came with a smile.
As our car curved up the mountain road, I told my husband about my great-grandparents and Valentine’s Day 1985. I ended the story by recounting all the traits he shared with my great-grandfather. I caught him furtively rubbing a tear from his eye.
That drive to the mountains began the healing to our wounded marriage.
Four years later
The other day, I asked my husband if he remembered our drive.
“I was touched when you compared me to your great-grandfather,” he told me. “It was the first time you quantified what you admired about me. It really made me feel loved.”
Since our drive, I have focused more on my words and actions than on his. In my quiet time, I evaluated how I had become a quarrelsome wife. I would bombard him with harsh words, such as “Take off your shoes” or “I can’t believe you forgot the dry cleaning.”
Proverbs 27:15 says, “A quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping.” The comparison humbled me; now I try to welcome my husband with kind, encouraging words.
I also meditated on Proverbs 14:1, “The wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down.” I realized I was tearing down my house by reacting impulsively when my husband said something that hurt my feelings.
My husband likes to tease, and sometimes I would turn his teasing into a reason to fight. Now I take the hurtful comment to God in prayer. With time to think it over, I am better able to communicate in a soft, rational manner. Sometimes, I even realize what he said wasn’t offensive.
Partnering with God to make peace was difficult at first, but it has been worth it. Our last four years of marriage have been full of growth.
“Are you surprised we made it?” I asked my husband recently.
“Yes,” he replied. “It’s only by God’s grace that we are together and happy.”
God did the impossible. He brought peace to our shattered home, and now it’s a place of love, not war.