What if...

Recently I saw a comment on facebook that said something like, "What if your knight in shining armor turns out to be just a man in a tinfoil suit?"  The attitude I sense in this question bothers me; if your husband is merely a man in a tinfoil suit he has failed to live up to your expectations. I must confess, I have had the same attitude for many years.  My husband certainly failed to live up to my expectations! What I had not considered, however, was that there is something wrong with this thinking.

Since then, I have been considering other "What ifs?" What if  I cannot discern the difference between shining armor and tinfoil? What if it is not my husband's tinfoil suit that has been blinding me, but my expectations. If these things are true, I have a new hope, not that my husband will become what I have always wanted him to be (am I now everything I always wanted to be?), but that he is truly a treasure that I have failed to see.

Yesterday, my husband and I attended a sweetheart banquet at our church. We had fun, food, fellowship, some good teaching and some good interaction. Our pastor decided we needed to write letters to one another. The first writing assignment was to tell each other about the gifts and the strengths our spouse brings to the marriage. The second one was what we wanted to tell our spouses if we knew that we would die tomorrow. I will not divulge the contents of the letters here; I only bring them up now because the writing of them reaffirmed something God has been teaching me about my husband.

My husband is not here to rescue me; that is my Savior's job. My husband is not here to meet my every need; that too is a job belonging to my God. As I allow God to meet all of my needs, I am free to love my husband just as he is, and then I discover how wonderfully he cares for me and how good a friend I have in him. God is my everything; that job is too hard for any man, but my husband is my very special one thing and I am happy to be his.