Grace in Marriage

Welcome to Marriage Monday!! I am so excited to be hosting it this month. When the topic "grace" was chosen as this month's topic I was thrilled because many days that is what keeps me hanging on, if only by a thread.

As I prepared to write this post on "Grace in Marriage," I thought it would be appropriate to include an example of how I have extended grace to my husband. I mean, he really is "near perfect" but he is only human.

As I thought about it, I couldn't remember a specific circumstance where I had overlooked an issue purely out of love for him. Trust me, I really do it. He just doesn't require it as often as someone like me. Plus, my memory disappeared when my first child was born.

As I started to reprimand myself, it dawned on me. That is what grace is all about! By extending true grace, we erase it completely from our memory. (I'm thankful my poor memory is useful for something!)

That is exactly how God views grace towards us:

...as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us...

Psalm 103:12

As a wife that is usually in the "In Need of Grace" category more than my husband, how could I not overlook my husband's faults? I get the same loving action in return.

We use the word "grace" frequently in Christian circles but what exactly does it mean? Dictionary.com gives a couple of beautiful word pictures. A few of them were:

1. the freely given, unmerited favor and love of God.

2. the influence or spirit of God operating in humans to regenerate or strengthen them.

3. a virtue or excellence of divine origin: the Christian graces.

When I looked at these and thought about my own marriage, I couldn't help but see a little of all three of them. Our marriage certainly is a gift from God that we do not deserve. The love and grace we give each other is allowing Christ to work through us. We cannot take any credit for it. If we were left to our own merits, I shudder to think of what a mess we would make.

A year or two into our marriage we attended a marriage retreat with the leadership of the church my husband served in. While there, we studied Gary Chapman’s The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate. We were each given a test to determine what our "love language" was. I admit I was a little skeptical of how useful this would be. I knew this man so well. There wasn't anything new I could learn. Or was there?

I was surprised to learn his love language is "words of affirmation." This meant he felt the most love from me by the words that I used than anything else. This was eye-opening to me. I was amazed at just how important the words that flowed out of my mouth were to him. He needs to hear that he is valued and important to me.

This also meant that the words that I used during the more difficult times of our marriage could have devastating effects. Even an unintentional misplaced word could harm him on a very deep level. That spoke volumes to me and remains on my mind to this day. I try to choose my words deliberately during the tough times. Even when I am upset with him, there are lines I will not cross. My love and grace for him goes too deep to wound him.

Some days I find myself giving my husband more grace than other days. But most days, I see my husband, in fact, giving me more grace than I deserve. When I stop to think about it, these are not only actions we offer each other out of love, they are also something we do out of love for Someone who gave up His very life for ours. In that light, no amount of grace is too big in a marriage.


What do you think about this topic? We would love to read your thoughts!