It’s time to get even more practical in our discussion on grace-filled marriage.
Not that we haven’t been dealing with the daily how-tos of bringing the best out of each other. Our discussion of the three driving inner needs was foundational to getting to where we are now. In fact, when we’re committed to building a secure love, a significant purpose, and a strong hope into our spouse individually, and our marriage collectively, these other features of applied grace (which we’re about to learn) come much more easily … and naturally.
The three driving inner needs are like bedrock for a marital love that goes the distance. And the primary source of our secure love, significant purpose, and strong hope is Jesus. Nobody has what it takes to meet the demands of love on their own steam. Everybody hits the wall somewhere along their journey. We all need something—more specifically, Someone—bigger than ourselves to meet the challenges love brings our way. When we allow Christ to be the definitive Rock on which we build our marriage—taking our cues from his grace-filled heart along the way—we’re ready to weather whatever may come.
What we need now is a delivery system for grace—a climate that allows love to reach its highest potential in our marriage. After all, love doesn’t thrive well in confinement. Most things don’t. A highly restricted heart—especially one selfishly manipulated by someone else—goes into a slow shutdown. Love was meant to bask in the sunlight, walk around naked, dance without inhibitions, and process its shortcomings in the open. The one place where this was supposed to hit its high-water mark was within the covenant of marriage. That’s why it’s so important to invite God’s work of grace to be a defining feature of our commitment to each other.
And just as your marriage has a personality, God’s grace has a personality. You know when you’re around grace. When you breathe it in from the person closest to you, your spirit tends to smile. Grace makes people feel more confident, more inclined to contribute to the direction you’re mutually going, and more determined to work through setbacks you encounter in a spirit of unity. Who wouldn’t want grace to be the wind at your back in a marriage?
When we stack hands as a couple on the finished work of Christ on the cross and declare our marriage a legalism-free, performance-free zone, we position ourselves to enjoy a potential and power that knows no limit. I want to show you how to do that as an extension of God’s heart of grace. In this chapter you will learn practical, grace-filled ways to bring the best out of your mate—ways that work!
But before we go there, we need to look at the main ingredient in the grace-filled secret sauce. Most of you are going to love it. For some of you, however, it’s going to scare the stuffing out of you. Ready?
In John 8:32, Jesus said, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” This truth he was referring to had everything to do with us capturing the heart message of God—the essence of the gospel. And what was that? Well, the first time Jesus preached a sermon in a synagogue, he addressed this very issue. He read Isaiah 61 to the crowd: “God’s Spirit is on me; he’s chosen me to preach the Message of good news to the poor, sent me to announce pardon to prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, to set the burdened and battered free, to announce, ‘This is God’s year to act!’” (Luke 4:18–19 MSG).
After Jesus read this, he gave the scroll back to the attendant, sat down, and said, “You’ve just heard Scripture make history. It came true just now in this place” (v. 21 MSG).
Jesus came to set us free from our sin, as well as to set us free from the futility of trying to measure up to his standards with our man-made add-ons. Here’s how he summarized his desires:
Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly. (Matthew 11:28–30 MSG)
Jesus went to a lot of trouble to set our hearts free. He didn’t die on the cross to free us to be able to do whatever we want. He freed us to be able to do what he created us to do without artificially imposed restraints.
This is a huge point when it comes to marriage. The grace that saved us is the grace that’s supposed to show up in marriage with unfettered love and uncluttered devotion. Jesus wants us to show each other a love that doesn’t make wrongs out of nothings, doesn’t trivialize our spouse’s feelings, doesn’t stifle their concerns, and doesn’t withhold mercy when they’ve lost their way and are trying to get back.
Earlier, we were introduced to a napkin strategy for a grace-filled marriage. It was a house with four levels. In the past three chapters, we looked at the first level listed on that house diagram—meeting our spouse’s three driving inner needs. In this chapter and the next, we will unpack that second level of the house and look at four freedoms we can give our spouse as agents of God’s grace …
• the freedom to be different,
• the freedom to be vulnerable,
• the freedom to be candid, and
• the freedom to make mistakes.
Were you and your spouse as surprised by your differences after you got married as Darcy and I were? For Darcy and me, it was as though we were suddenly riding in the same car with someone we had just met.
As I mentioned earlier, couples tend to notice what they have in common more than what they have in contrast when they’re dating. We tend to see what we like about the person we’re falling in love with rather than what annoys us. Add to this the reality that we are continually morphing to adjust to what life brings us along our journey, and you can see why it’s vital that grace-filled spouses give each other the freedom to be different.
The fact is, as married couples, we have to make great adjustments to our passions, tastes, and list of necessities after we’re married. Before two people get married, they’re trying to win each other’s hearts. That’s why we do many things with our loved one before marriage that we’d rather never do again afterward (like taking long walks on the beach or sitting in a deer stand). It’s also why we don’t do many things before marriage that we can’t wait to start doing again once we’re married (like hitting the button on our Waylon and Willie mix or color-draping the dog).
This is why we need to have a grace-filled heart toward each other. Some of the things we did before marriage to win each other’s heart are going to grate on each other, even though there’s nothing actually wrong with them. Grace-filled couples give each other the freedom to be different.
There are some things about a mate that, over time, can become a source of irritation. Sometimes it’s a mannerism, like the wife with the huge laugh or the man who can’t make a simple statement without contorting his face. These are things that are unique to them. They’re part of their genetic code. These are things that grace-filled spouses celebrate in their mate! They’re the things that make them them.
We should never marginalize our spouse for things that are unique parts of their physical or personality makeup—body styles, physical inclinations, personality quirks, and bizarre (albeit benign) interests.
We come in all shapes and sizes, all kinds of likes and dislikes. We need to grant each other the freedom to be who we are. For instance:
• One spouse can’t wait for the next installment of some romance series, while the other sets the TV to record the next episode in a zombie series.
• One spouse prefers to overdress for whatever’s on the calendar; the other prefers to underdress.
• One spouse likes to sleep in the buff; the other heads to bed looking as if they just fell off the chairlift.
These are personal preferences that define who that person is. If they bother you, grace says, “Get over it, accept it, celebrate it, and protect it!”
Unfortunately, grace leaves the building when either spouse insists on imposing their selfish will on the other. And it’s nowhere to be found when one spouse tries to moralize the other’s benign preferences in good-versus-bad terms.
Grace-filled couples are careful not to make moral issues out of nonmoral things. They’re also careful not to make any issue out of a nonissue. All this said, does grace allow you to voice your preference? Of course. You can occasionally say, “You know, an outfit I really like on you is …” Or “This party we’re invited to is a bit more upscale than your cargo shorts and flip-flops.” But grace leaves it at that. It doesn’t coerce, shame, embarrass, or condescend to manipulate our spouse toward things that are nonissues. When a culture of grace is truly present in a marriage, it translates into a desire on each other’s part to be sensitive and accommodating.
Over the years, Darcy and I have refereed some silly disputes, all because one spouse could not accept the other’s nonmoral preferences, mannerisms, or personality quirks. We’ve seen it get ugly, painful, and humiliating.
I remember one lady’s frustration over a difference that was beyond-belief annoying but utterly benign. She and her husband were city people. But his job took him to the Midwest, and he let his coworkers talk him into going turkey hunting with them. Next thing she knew, he was hooked. But that’s not what frustrated her. The source of her frustration was turkey calling. Turns out her husband had a hidden talent. He was like the Justin Bieber of turkey callers. Who knew? He practiced almost every evening out in the garage as if he was first chair in the Field & Stream Symphony Orchestra. To her, it was beyond annoying; it was embarrassing. Then to see his picture, big as a house, on that Bass Pro Shops billboard as their “Special Guest” next Saturday—it made her want to crawl in a hole.
I gently explained to this wife that she needed to look at this through the Grace Lens. Her husband was not asking her to go turkey hunting with him. He didn’t practice his turkey calling in the house. He wasn’t asking her to stand by his side as he signed autographs at Bass Pro Shops. He just found something he liked to do that wasn’t something she would have chosen for him.
We marry people who either have, or develop, interests that are quirky. Grace celebrates these things! That’s because grace is connected to the heart of our spouse in such a way that these things become part of the color of their story. It might be a husband cranking away on his turkey call out in the garage, a wife whose laugh can be heard two rooms away, or a husband whose face squinches up when he talks. A grace-filled marriage makes these part of the love story. It’s the narrative of uniqueness that makes each of us smile.
Sometimes the problem is a point of contention over a behavior in our spouse that in the bigger picture isn’t worth making into a major issue. I like the way Scripture nails this home: “Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense” (Proverbs 19:11 ESV).
Two different “socks” stories make this point. First, meet Kay and Mike. I’m going to let Kay tell this story in her own words:
When our girls were very young, we were running on little sleep, and Mike was working long hours trying to provide for us. This was one of the most stressful times in our marriage. When Mike came home, his feet usually hurt. The thing he couldn’t wait to do was get out of his shoes and socks. But I was constantly annoyed by the fact that he would often leave his dirty socks lying around … on the floor in the entryway, wedged between the couch cushions, in the bathroom, even once on the kitchen counter. I told him how much I hated it when he left his socks lying around, but he continued to do it. And to be fair, it was never out of maliciousness. He’d just take off his shoes as soon as he got home from work, and the socks ended whereever.
What started out as an annoying habit grew into a source of bottled rage for me. I started to see it as a personal affront to my hard work to keep the house clean. This became the pathway to anger in other ways for me. All of a sudden, it wasn’t just the socks. He didn’t do dishes often enough, he didn’t take out the trash often enough, he didn’t help me with the kids enough or offer to make dinner when he had to see how tired I was.
I shared my frustration in my Bible study group. My Bible study leader asked me if I prayed for Mike every day. Honestly, I was too busy caring for the kids to even shower every day, let alone have a few moments to myself to pray for Mike! Plus, I was angry at him. Part of me didn’t want to pray for him.
Still, this gentle admonishment kept niggling at my mind. So, I started praying for Mike. Little by little God began to soften my heart toward him. God started to remind me why I loved him. Incidentally, I should add that my husband is a kind, loving, hardworking, faithful man who is head over heels in love with me. He is smart, innovative, and brave. In every way that really matters, he is and always was a good man. God started to point out these greater qualities to me.
One day, after a particularly long night with the girls, I was starting to clean up the morning messes. Of course, there under the coffee table was a pair of Mike’s dirty socks. I started to feel the familiar anger creeping up in me. And then I sensed God say, If something ever happened to him, you would never get to pick up his socks again.
I lost it. Of course, Lord. Picking up Mike’s dirty socks was a reminder that he was here. He was healthy and present with me. The day I don’t pick up a pair of his dirty socks may be because he is gone and can never come back. God’s grace reminded me that I don’t have to pick up his dirty socks; I get to.
From that day on I saw those sweaty, stinky socks in a new light. They represent a hardworking, good man. And it’s amazing how that one small thing transformed so much about our relationship. We started to love each other with a love less entangled in strings. And I am a much more difficult person to live with than he is! Of course, we encourage each other to grow and improve as human beings, but we accept each other—flaws, dirty socks, and all. That’s what grace can do in a marriage.
Kay and Mike learned how to appropriate God’s grace in their marriage. And grace got them past the small things so that they could truly enjoy the big things.
There’s another couple I ran across who would have had a lot more fun if one of them could have learned how to appropriate the power of grace earlier in their marriage. Socks played a big role in their journey, too, but in a different and truly bizarre way. It started on their first night together on their honeymoon. It also happened to be the first night they slept with each other. They’d married in the winter, and when they got in bed that first night, things progressed quickly. In the process, they, like most couples, found themselves down to the outfits they were born in—with this exception: she had kept on a pair of cotton tube socks. It was so long ago, she recalls, but she thinks it was just because the room was chilly.
Regardless, their marriage tacked on months and years to its track record. And as with most emotionally healthy couples, their intimate times together also increased. You’d think this would have been a great part of their lives, and it was—for her. But something followed along with them from that first night that became a source of enormous irritation to the husband in this story. It was those socks.
For some reason, that first time with her husband not only gave her a comfortable connection to him but to those tube socks. She became attached to them in the same way a child becomes attached to a blanket at bedtime, except these socks were only called upon to bring confidence to her when she was making love to her husband. She wore them every time—winter, spring, summer, or fall. She’d take them on vacation with her, had them within her grasp on special getaways, and even tucked them into her purse if she and her husband were going to be in a setting where she figured one thing might lead to another. She didn’t give it a second thought. She was always ready to slip them on when her husband was in the mood, and she often wore them when she slipped into bed on those evenings when something more than sleep was on her mind. She loved her husband, she loved their intimate life, she loved the freedom they seemed to enjoy, and she loved the fact that she got to enjoy all of it wearing nothing but those socks.
At first, he was so caught up in this new dimension of their relationship that he couldn’t have cared less about the socks. But as their intimate life developed its own rhythm and personality, the socks became an uninvited guest to the party. He’d ask her not to put them on. She’d say, “Oh, come on. I feel comfortable in these. I actually feel less inhibited in these. Don’t worry about them. Let’s just enjoy the moment.”
He couldn’t let it go. Those socks became his credit-card-size focus. And over the years, those socks had been pulled on, pulled up, and laundered so much that their elastic had long since surrendered. Regardless of the beautiful wife in his arms, all he could think about were those “stupid socks” on her feet. He’d buy her a pretty nightgown to add to the fun of an intimate evening. She’d go into the bathroom to put it on and stand backlit in the doorway for him to see her. He’d look from her beautiful face to her pretty nightgown to “those socks” and then, suddenly, lose the mood.
Ultimately, he pulled away from her. He made those socks his central focus, justifying his physical rejection of her, which ultimately got the two of them in front of a marriage counselor. Fortunately, their issue only took one session to solve. After all, other than this point of contention over the tube socks, everything else in their lives as a couple, and as parents, was healthy.
The good doctor asked the standard opening question, “So why are we all here?” Like a thoroughbred leaping from the starting gates, this husband tore into the story of the tube socks. He picked up the tale from that first night on their honeymoon, walked the counselor through the early days of the socks’ role, all the way through the getaways, vacations, and “nooners” where those socks came out. When the husband was finally through, the counselor sat there … speechless. Then he turned to the wife and asked the logical question. “Did you bring those socks with you?” She lifted her purse into her lap, snapped it open, and handed them over. “I figured these would be the focus of our discussion, so I brought them along,” she said.
The doctor stared at those worn, saggy socks in his hands. Then he looked at the husband and gently said, “Are you nuts? You’re in here paying me all this money and taking up your wife’s precious time complaining that in the midst of your spectacular sex life, your wife feels more comfortable in this pair of tube socks … and that annoys you? I know husbands who would kill to get their hands on this pair of socks if they thought they would have the same effect on their wife! If we could reproduce the impact these socks have on your wife into a line of tube socks, we could be zillionaires! Listen, son. You’re married to an amazing woman. From my perspective, these socks should be as high of a priority as your desire to protect your children! Please do two things immediately. First, get over the problem you have with these socks. Second, start thanking God every day for them, and for this wonderful wife who loves to wear them when she’s blessing you. You’re a very fortunate man. If you could see what you truly have, you’d guard these tube socks with your life … to the day you die!”
Thankfully, this husband heeded his counselor’s advice. In fact, his wife was surprised where she began to run across her socks during the day, like drooped over the mirror in her car, in her makeup drawer, even in the microwave!
Two couples, two points of irritation, both revolving around socks. It’s amazing how small things can be the cause of so much unnecessary frustration in a marriage. But it’s also amazing how grace can relieve the pressure. For both of these couples, grace saved the day. Both realized that grace-filled couples give their spouse the freedom to be different. Sometimes that looks like sloppiness. Sometimes that looks just plain weird. But when these differences are seen through the perspective of grace, they put a smile on everyone’s face.
Besides giving our spouse the freedom to be different, a grace-filled relationship ensures a spouse that they have the freedom to be vulnerable.
As a kid, I remember watching some Westerns where part of the plot was the careful handling of nitroglycerin. The chemical makeup of this volatile agent made it explosive—even deadly—if it didn’t receive ongoing TLC. Our spouse’s heart is like that.
And for the record, we must be careful to not let our spouse’s calm or brave demeanor mislead us into thinking that they’re handling things better than they actually are. Stoicism isn’t always a sign of emotional strength. Sometimes it’s simply a smoke screen concealing an emotional free fall. Muscles and brawn aren’t guarantees that someone is capable of processing the emotional challenges in life either. Like the police officer we saw in the previous chapter, you can be Stallone, Schwarzenegger, and Chuck Norris incarnate, but the heart is still extremely fragile when it takes a big enough hit.
Grace-filled marriages recognize that there are things that knock a spouse off their game, things that need to be treated with tenderness, understanding, and patience—things like monthly cycles, pink slips, moving, rebellious children, and bad health reports. We need to create an atmosphere within our marriage where our spouse doesn’t feel they have to wear a mask around us to keep from revealing where they are emotionally. They need to know that the deeper hurt or confusion within their heart can come out without fear of being attacked. You know, the way God treats us.
Darcy often hears women lament how their husband never seems to invite them into the inner recesses of his heart. First of all, most men don’t do that, at least not naturally. That’s a woman thing. So it’s true that men tend to play their feelings a bit closer to the chest. However, she’s also noticed over the years an ironic response from some of those same women when their husbands actually do bare their hearts to them. For instance, let’s say a husband has finally had enough of some particular criticism from his wife, and he says as gently as he can, “Honey, what you just said really hurt me deep down inside.” This should be exactly what these women who’ve been complaining about closed-off husbands have been longing for. But this wife comes back with something like, “I’m picking up unusually high readings of estrogen, Captain. Set tasers for ‘dewussify!’” She got what she said she wanted, only to throw it back in his face.
We can’t have it both ways. We can’t, on one hand, say we want to communicate in more transparent vulnerability and then, when our spouse bares their heart, turn and blow them out of the water at their point of weakness. It doesn’t work that way. That’s because it wasn’t ever supposed to work that way. Usually, a man only has to have his wife do that to him once, and he’ll never bare his heart again. He knows it’s too dangerous. Scripture warns, “Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone” (Colossians 4:6).
But this goes both ways. When a wife pulls back the curtains on the deeper struggles within her, a grace-filled husband must equally be there holding up a sweater of grace, a jacket of mercy, or a blanket of understanding for her to wrap around her shivering heart.
Listen to how God responds to his spouse: “Cry for help and you’ll find its grace and more grace. The moment he hears, he’ll answer” (Isaiah 30:19 MSG). He also says, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9).
This is how God treats us when we’re afraid or lonely or confused or heartsick or sad. Not only does he give us a clear example, but he also gives us equally clear instruction on this matter when it comes to how we’re to treat our spouse.
Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. … Use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms. If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. (1 Peter 4:8–11)
As I said at the beginning of this chapter, marriage must be a safe place for our hearts. Obviously, this isn’t giving a green light to unnecessary high drama. Some people confuse being vulnerable with revisiting past hurts over and over. There’s nothing grace-filled about that! When a spouse has to keep slipping back into the muck and mire of past disappointments or regrets in order to feel like the discussion is official, that’s not vulnerability. That’s cruelty. It’s also insulting to the finished work of Christ on the cross. We worship a God who went to great pains to make it possible for us to live with a clean slate, enjoy new days, and always have a hopeful tomorrow on our horizon.
Even so, life serves up many moments that need God’s grace to calm the soul. I remember a time when Darcy really needed a touch of God’s grace coming through me. It’s the first and only time she had ever been pink-slipped in her life. She had just gotten fired from her primary responsibilities, and it was all because she had, technically, worked herself out of her job.
The scene was the parking lot at Northern Arizona University, moving-in day for new freshmen. We had just finished all the things required to get our youngest son, Colt, set up in his dorm room. We’d made several trips to Target, got his meal plan up and running, met his roommate, and taken him to dinner. We’d done everything we could to ensure he had all he needed to take on this new chapter of his life at a full sprint. Fortunately, we knew the drill. We were veterans, having done this same thing with our three older kids. But this time was different.
Because Colt was the youngest, we were going home to a very different feel than with any of our other kids. His voice would not be calling downstairs to his mother for help finding his football practice equipment, or coming into the kitchen to download his school day each afternoon, or snuggling next to her on the couch in the evening. Although I was feeling some great emotion myself, mine wasn’t anything close to what Darcy was processing. One of my primary jobs had been to provide for my kids’ needs. I was still very much employed in that assignment. And as long as Colt was in college, my job as provider was going to continue … big time.
But for Darcy, this was very different. She had been focused on her job as mother to these kids collectively for almost thirty years. Now, with one hug and kiss good-bye, she was unemployed. Sure, she was still a mom, but the daily role she played in her last child’s life was going to radically change. It’s supposed to happen this way. There comes a moment when you realize you’re moving from being a daily resource to an ongoing reference point in your child’s life. She’d trained Colt to stand on his own two feet, to try to make good choices each day, and to face the future with courage. She’d done her job well. He was looking forward to this new phase of his life. But for her, it was a sobering reality that she’d never again get to play the role she had worked so hard to do so well for so long.
She wept off and on throughout our two-hour drive home. I did my best to comfort her. The quiet house and empty chairs at the dinner table hit her deeper and harder in the days that followed, so she needed opportunities to talk and lean into me as she processed her new reality. She didn’t wallow in self-pity or mope around with a sad affect. Life was moving on for both of us, and she had plenty to do. But still, her role in life had been redefined, and she had to work through it all. These are times when couples have to lean heavily on the gracious heart of God—and on a grace-filled spouse with whom they have the freedom to be vulnerable.
A marriage has to be a safe place to process the fragile side of your heart. Things change. Sometimes life doesn’t add up for us. Couples need to be a safe harbor for each other when they get turned down in life, when those youthful looks or that younger body is gone, when they’re not as strong as they used to be, or people don’t find them as interesting or as needed as they once were. When there’s a seasoned grace in our love, we can process these times with far more class.
Love is fragile. Emotions are tender. There will be times in your journey as a couple where the shadows that cross over your spouse are darker, thicker, and more ominous than you’re used to handling. Then there are the quirks and one-off things about your spouse that make them one of a kind. God’s grace wants to own these times. His divine heart beats with freedom. That’s why grace-filled couples give each other the freedom to be different and the freedom to be vulnerable. It’s simply a commitment to treat each other the way God treats us.