Do you ever feel unloved in your marriage? Unsettled? Un-something? I often let my anxiousness dominate and then I start to feel all antsy, and I start wondering if my husband loves me. Or assuming he doesn’t.
For me it often starts with me negatively interpreting Joe’s words and actions. By now, I really should know not to do this. Negatively interpreting someone else’s words really never brings anything good! I read more into something than I should and then I go into offended mode. If he loved me he would know…If he loved me then he wouldn’t have…
Sometimes we’re in a hurry to somehow prove that our spouse doesn’t love us – at least the way we want to be loved- instead of believing the best.
I was in that anxious funk when I felt God’s voice reminding me of something very simple.
As I’m stirring in my head the things my husband did or didn’t do, God reminded me: He loves you. Whatever case I can build against him, I couldn’t ignore the fact that he loves me.
Funny how those basic things can slip your mind when you need to know it most. At first I wanted to push that thought back, because I felt unloved. But was I feeling unloved or offended? Maybe it was he didn’t love me the way I think he should. But I could choose not to worry about all those little misunderstandings and simply rest knowing, my husband loves me.
When I let myself truly rest in that truth, it put everything else in perspective.
It gave me security. Maybe there would be a time where I can tell him why I felt hurt or things that upset me or the things he did wrong. But it’s okay, because he loves me. I saw his actions through a different lens.
I think “knowing you’re loved” is hard for me because it just seems so… I don’t know, passive. But it couldn’t be passive if I found myself still resisting doing it! It still required such an act of my will, to simply receive it. God was asking me to not just know it, but to receive it. He loves you.
I do the same thing with God’s love for me.
I can look just inward and say I don’t feel God’s love rather than truly resting in the truth that I know. Or I look around at my circumstances and focus on what’s going on to determine how I should feel instead of first remembering that I am loved.
Does that make every bad situation go away? Of course not. But it helps you to see yourself and your circumstances differently.
Choosing to believe that God loves you is an act of surrender, an act of trust. I believe what you say about me. Because He created me, he gets to decide my value.
Can you believe it?
You don’t have to strive. You don’t have to convince God that you’re good enough or worthy of something. Through Christ, we have all that we need to know that we are fully and completely loved by God. His sacrifice for us proves what we are worth to Him. The more we receive that every day, the less insecurity that we bring into our marriage.
Rest. He loves you.
Approach your marriage knowing you are loved.
I don’t know your spouse and can’t tell you the position of their heart. But I do know that humans as a rule aren’t really good at communicating the love we do have. We can say “I love you” and not mean it, we can say “I don’t love you” and not mean it. We’re not good at communicating love, in general! So give your spouse the benefit of the doubt that he does love and care about you. Just like you, we’re all learning how to love better!
Regardless of where your marriage is at, you are still wildly loved. You don’t have to convince anyone that you are worthy of love. You are just loved. That is something to rest in every moment of the day.
I John 4:10-12: This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
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