“Who Is in Bed with Me?”
Back at home, Brian’s troubles became topic number one.
“Catherine, what are we going to do?” John asked one night.
“Honey,” Catherine answered, “you have to figure that out. I’m struggling to keep my head above water with my studies at school, but I know God will help you.”
John checked out two videos on drug abuse from Brian’s school and watched them. He came to bed late that night and started talking about them. “This police officer talked about how we’re losing kids because we are made of spirit, mind, and body. While we are touching our kids intellectually, we’re not touching them spiritually. What do you think of that?”
Catherine felt as amazed as she did pleased. She admits thinking, “Who is in bed with me?”
John went on. “Do you think we could talk to Brian about this? About how he’s vulnerable to drugs because we’re not appealing to teens as whole persons, about how his spiritual side is being ignored?”
Catherine got very direct: “John, why would Brian listen to you when you’ve ignored that part of your own life?”
“Yes, that
does
worry me,” John confessed.
“I’d be worried about that too. Do you want to pray together about it?”
There was a slight pause.
“Yeah,” John said.
Catherine’s heart started beating so hard and so fast that she felt half afraid the fire department would somehow take notice and pay an emergency visit. For the first time, she was going to be praying with her husband of more than twenty years!
Thankfully, God kept her calm. “I don’t think John sensed that my excitement was for him as much as it was for Brian. I think he felt the responsibility that dated back six years when I said I would hold him responsible if Brian rejected God.”
The very next day, John had a long talk with Brian about the importance of spirituality, even though — he admitted — it had not been important to him in his own life.
Born Again
In retrospect, Catherine considers it a blessing that her studies kept her so busy, or she might have gotten more involved and possibly frustrated God’s plans. God seemed very stern in his warnings to Catherine: “You are not to put your hand to this; this is
my
sovereign hand at work!”
Catherine did suggest a book that, based on her husband’s political interest, she thought John might like — Chuck Colson’s
Born
Again
(Old Tappan, N.J.: Chosen, 1976).
John looked at it and said, “I think I’d like to read that.”
Catherine went — in her words — “nuts.” “I was
so
excited; we had been married for over twenty years, and I had never seen him show interest like this.”
Catherine called her pastor and asked him to pray; then she kept her mouth shut. “I
did
sneak a peek now and then to see if the bookmark was moving,” she confesses, “and though it moved slowly, it
did
move.”
John started reading the book in October 1994. In December of that same year, when Catherine noticed that Christmas was going to fall on Sunday, she asked John, “Would you like to come with us to Christmas services this year? If it’s not the time, I understand.”
John’s answer shocked her. “I’m so sorry you had to ask me, because I’ve been meaning to tell you I want to come.”
The ever-emotional Catherine broke down on the spot and cried. “Thank you,” she said. “This means so much to me.”
For the first time ever, all five members of Catherine’s family attended church together on a Sunday. Catherine felt a bit like a spectacle. She had helped to pioneer this church, so she knew everybody was watching them, as well as sharing in Catherine’s excitement and joy. For Catherine, it seemed almost surreal. “I felt like it was somebody else’s life that I was watching in a movie. I had waited so long; I just couldn’t believe it was happening.”
Catherine was absolutely amazed at how God had orchestrated everything: God’s call for her to pull back and stop being the spiritual head of the house; God’s directives to let John handle the discipline; Catherine’s renewed season of prayer; John’s viewing of the videos; the way John related to Chuck Colson — even if Catherine had
tried
to orchestrate each element, there was no way she could have.
“It was an amazing thing to watch,” Catherine confesses. “I still marvel at God’s faithfulness.”
John returned to church the following Sunday and then every Sunday after that. Catherine gave him a book containing a portion of Scripture from the New Testament and a devotional, which John read almost every day. He asked Catherine lots and lots of questions. Together, they attended a new believer class, and it thrilled Catherine that John seemed to hit it off with and eventually become friends with the teacher.
Finally, during a church ser vice in March, the pastor asked at the end of a sermon if anyone wanted to make a profession of faith in Christ. Catherine saw John’s hand go up. When the pastor prayed with John, John explained that he wanted a specific date for his conversion, though John believes he may have come to faith earlier, as he read about Chuck Colson’s salvation experience.
Lessons to Be Learned
I spoke with John and Catherine about some of the lessons they learned along the way — in particular, about how other “unequally yoked” wives might gently move their husbands toward faith.
Building Bridges
Catherine often wondered how two people who shared so little in common could ever make it. Sometimes she even asked John, “Are we going to make it? We have so little in common. My faith is so important to me, but you don’t even share it!”
John would say, “Catherine, where our relationship is good, it’s very good. Let’s concentrate on that.” John wanted Catherine to concentrate on the good places in her marriage rather than become consumed by her disappointments.
Catherine honestly admits she endured a very trying and dif-ficult season that went on for decades. “Being unequally yoked is extremely lonely. You’re guiding your children by yourself; you try to stave off resentment and build a good marriage — it’s just very, very difficult.”
Most women in such a situation will, like Catherine, find themselves tempted by self-pity. Philippians 2:14 gives some help here: “Do everything without complaining or arguing.” The word “everything” includes marriage, even marriage to a nonbeliever. Resentment and bitterness will only keep you from being spiritually productive in that relationship.
Catherine realized that since she and her husband didn’t share a faith in Christ, she would have to work extra hard to find other things to share. Unfortunately, John felt most excited about things in which Catherine had little or no interest — like riding bikes, for example.
“I had to make the decision: would I start riding bikes with him, or would I sit home by myself and let the gap between us widen?”
Catherine’s initial attempts didn’t encourage her. “It was ridiculous! I was so out of shape. But you know what, a year and a half later, I loved it more than he did! We did ‘Ride the Rockies’ together — that was four hundred miles through the Rocky Mountains, a seven-day bike ride with two thousand other people. It was a blast, and we spent hundreds of hours together training for the ride.”
Catherine just kept focusing on the positive. “We didn’t have a family together at church,” she admits, “but we did have a family together on bicycles.”
Some wives might feel tempted to punish their non-Christian husband by becoming even less accommodating: “If you won’t share my faith, I won’t share any of your interests.” But such pettiness, while understandable, does nothing except widen the gap. Catherine adamantly counsels other women married to nonbelievers, “You must find out what he loves doing and learn to do it with him.”
That’s not a bad lesson for wives in general!
John also loved fishing, another activity that held no magic for Catherine. Early on, when the kids were little, Catherine stayed by the campsite with the kids while John went fishing. As the kids got older, they started going fishing with John. One year, Catherine realized that she could either stay at the campsite by herself or join her family for an activity that didn’t hold much interest for her.
She grabbed a pole and joined them.
Now, years later, she loves going fly-fishing with John; in fact, it’s become one of her favorite things. “It’s funny,” she says. “What was once something I did only out of obligation is now one of the greatest delights of my life.”
It took years for Catherine to learn this valuable lesson. “I’m as selfish and reticent as anybody,” she confesses, “but I know that the Holy Spirit was leading me. Once in a while, I still say, ‘Are we going to be OK?’ We’ll
never
be two people who like to do the same things. We have some areas of mutual likes, but there are many strong differences. Marriage is about choosing to allow the strong points of your marriage to be the dominant points, the areas you
choose
to focus on. Where you absolutely can’t meet, you find a way to detour.”
In other words, Catherine learned contentment. “Instead of spending my whole life complaining about what I wanted, I started enjoying what I already had.”
You can begin this process today. If you find yourself mentally rehashing your spouse’s weaknesses, counter this tendency by meditating on what you like about him. Instead of obsessing over your differences, think about the one or two things that you truly enjoy doing together.
Being Realistic
Catherine warns, “Wives can be so dominated by thoughts of ‘this won’t work; we’re too different. We have different ideologies, different passions, even different ways of looking at things.’ Ultimately, we have to learn that we’ll never have some of the things we’ve yearned for, but God will give you ways to develop strengths already there — strengths you may not be recognizing. Along the way, we slowly mature and fig-ure out that Jesus is the one we delight in. My greatest pleasure is my relationship with God.”
Catherine had to realize that God never intended John to meet all of her needs. Even if John had been a Christian for their entire marriage, some needs would still go unmet. No husband, Christian or not, is God — yet wives tend to feel disappointed when their imperfect husbands act imperfectly!
How will you face disappointment with your husband? Will you allow a toxic mixture of bitterness, resentment, and anger to slowly poison your home, or will you choose to walk in forgiveness and in reliance on God and focus on loving your husband instead of worrying about whether you’re being adequately loved?
Changing with John
Catherine eventually realized that “this waiting period for John to become a Christian was about me too.” She wasn’t waiting just for John. “The whole process was as integral to
my
growth in Jesus as it was for him. God made it very clear that I was not to consider myself a spectator or a martyr or someone who was just waiting. God had lessons for me to learn too.”
Even if you’re further along than your husband, spiritually speaking, you still haven’t fully arrived. None of us have. Your own character and maturity must continue to grow. Paul told Timothy, “Be diligent in these matters; give yourself wholly to them
, so that
everyone may see your progress
” (1 Timothy 4:15, emphasis added). Perfection lies beyond us in this world, but every maturing believer should be showing some positive spiritual movement.
God used Catherine’s marriage to teach her how to better handle fear — in her case, the fear of a failed marriage — and how to be less controlling. As Catherine grew in these areas, God did something wonderful not only in her life but in her family as well, testifying to the truth of 1 Timothy 4:16: “Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.”
Being Honest
Catherine found it extremely difficult to learn how to, in her words, “live two lives”: “You have two things that are passionately important to you — your relationship with God and your deep desire that your marriage be viable and strong. It’s very difficult when you can’t merge the two. You feel divided.”
Giving presented a particularly thorny issue. Catherine wanted to give money to God’s church, but she didn’t work outside the home, and initially she feared what John might say. So she began saving the change from the grocery money and giving that as a contribution — something she now regrets.
“Finally, I just had to tell John how important giving was for me. I’d tell young wives to be honest about the things that are important to you instead of hiding them.” Once Catherine explained why she wanted to give and how much it meant to her to be able to do so, he agreed that she could donate a hundred dollars a month. Catherine wishes she had been more up-front all along. As the book of Proverbs observes, “An honest answer is like a kiss on the lips” (24:26).
Being Patient
Some foolish women greatly wounded Catherine when they told her, “Your husband should have been saved long ago. What are you doing wrong?”