Weak Spots

Being a first time home buyer, my husband and I were super excited to jump in and begin working to make our home truly ours. Since it wasn't a brand new home, there were some things that needed improvements and some things we wanted to see incorporated into our home that were important to us. Both my husband and I are very outdoorsy people and we truly looked forward to spending time outside working on our landscaping both in the front and back yards of our home. We wanted trees our kids could lay underneath on hot days to escape the heat and perhaps ponder the wonders of the universe by looking up at the sky from beneath the leaves of a tall tree. We wanted our home to have "curb appeal" and to offer an invitation to make visitors and even strangers feel welcome. We wanted to add fragrant flowers to entice birds and butterflies to stop by on their way to another place as a haven of rest for the weary.

We wanted the sound of water to be a significant feature in our backyard, a place to simply find a getaway just outside out sliding glass doors, an oasis, a garden of eden perhaps in the making. We knew the vision we wanted and it would take time to make it happen, in fact it took well over 10 years and we both think it wasn't complete, of course lack of finances and manual labor will do that to you, but we both knew what we wanted.

Marriage is a lot like home improvement. It takes time and effort to make is successful and it's a work that will never be complete because like our home, it is always changing. New products come out on the market that we never considered before to incorporate into our home but that would make welcome additions.

In fact just laying in bed this morning, I believe God gave me such an insight into what goes wrong in marriages and results in either affairs or divorce. I call them weak spots. Those are the areas that we all have where we simply wish that things were better. For me, I often tell my husband I wish he were more romantic, the kind of characters I often read about in my romance novels, the ones that possess a certainness about their future, they know what needs to be done, they are strong leaders and never fear when things go wrong, they always have a plan and that is to protect and care for their loved ones. Now don't get me wrong, my husband does all that, but on occasion I wish that he would plan something unpredictable that shows me just how valuable I am in his life, a romantic getaway that shows planning, and is geared to the things he knows I love. For him, he needs that physical confirmation to let him know he is loved, either though a hug or lots of physical touch, cuddling on the couch while watching a movie together or just knowing at any point of his day, that I think the world of him.

When we avoid dealing with those potential "weak spots" it opens our marriages up for the enemy to use those to gain entry into our lives and marriages. He finds people he can utilize to satisfy those needs in the way we can only dream about. Rather than realize those weak spots as what they are, we will often times, willingly sacrifice our marriages for that one thing that is missing in our marriages instead of simply having that need met by our spouse.

No one would neglect a leaky roof to work on the other areas of the house while each storm continued to wear away at the roof, ceiling and destroy the house beneath it, thinking it's simply something we don't want to work on right now. I'd rather have a new bathroom than deal with a leaky roof.

Yet that's just what is happening to our marriages. We all have those "weak spots" if we are honest and willing to admit the truth. Those can also change throughout our years together. If we don't fix our "leaky roof" now, we only have ourselves to blame when the roof caves in. That's why it is so important to work effectively as a team to strengthen our marriages and eliminate those weak spots. For me, it means putting 100% commitment into making sure my husband's weak spot is met by me and not by someone else who can easily turn his head. The same hold true for him, he needs to commit to fixing my weak spot, even if he thinks it's foolish or dumb. Both of these areas are important to us in different ways and if we value our marriage and our spouse, we will want to make those areas stronger and not weaker.

I often wonder just how many affairs could have been prevented if we simply addressed those needs first instead of blaming our spouse for their faults. It's take two to make a marriage dissolve. One to walk away and the other to do nothing to fix it. Aren't our marriages and our spouse worth the effort? Can we agree to work together much like a home improvement project to see that things are fixed now before it's too late?

If you found this message insightful, I would encourage you to thank God for this insight. He provided it this morning and for us, we are working on daily projects to improve our marriage. It's the small things that matter today, and over time, we'll soon see that the efforts we make now will only benefit us later and will make our marriages stronger and ones that outlast all the others.