It was the worst news. It was the darkest moment. I asked my husband to pull the car over. “I’m sick to my stomach,” I said as he held my hand, guiding me to the nearest bathroom.
All came out — my dreams for a happy marriage and a promising future all spilled out.
The culprit was the blindness that robbed my sight at 30. It turned my world upside down with grief, with anguish and hopelessness. And my husband, who wasn’t prepared to handle such tragedy in our marriage, announced he was leaving me for someone else.
I was empty. What I needed to fill me was buried in my sorrow. Until the day God whispered to my soul. He spoke the truth of who I was. And He poured His grace and wisdom to express the needs I had tucked inside for way too long.
Here are 10 things I needed but didn’t know how to ask for:
1. A wife needs her husband to acknowledge her worth.
As rejection seared my heart, I longed to silence the lies that I was ugly, unworthy and pitiful. Instead, I clung to God’s view of who He said I was.
“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” Psa 139:13-14
2. A wife needs her husband’s love to mirror Christ’s love.
In the depth of my pain, I cried out for my husband’s love to [mirror] Christ’s.
3. A wife needs unconditional love.
What my heart hungered for was to have his unconditional love…whether I was sighted or blind.
“In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church.” Ephesians 5:28-29
4. A wife needs a humble husband.
I prayed for his humility so he would accept God’s discipline as well as His love.
“Do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those he loves…” Hebrews 12:9
5. A wife needs a marriage marked by repentance and forgiveness.
I needed God to purify our marriage by revealing our flaws, sin, and weaknesses.
“Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord…”
“See that no one is sexually immoral, or is godless like Esau…” Hebrews 12:14 and 16
