In the next 48 hours, we will be bidding goodbye to 2018 as we enter into a brand New Year. This will be through the mercy of God.
Therefore, we will be exchanging New Year’s banters in joy to have made it to another year. Some people had fallen by the wayside through illnesses, accidents, old age or other natural deaths. But for those who have survived all the odds in the outgoing year, it calls for celebrations. Happy New Year folks and let’s welcome 2019 with great hope and new optimism.
In the New Year, husbands and wives who patched and survived all marriage challenges, I congratulate you! Wherever you are, celebrate yourselves because you are in for a better happy home from now. It is only the living that can amend hiccups in marriages and renew their vows because I still speak the language of the New Year – new year, new resolutions and new marriage life.
If we have survived the rough situations and walked into the New Year, I do not think there is any marital challenge that cannot be amended except the two people involved are not ready to resolve their differences. But if the two look back to the very beginning of their relationship, to the first one week, and month and thought of the chilling new nights they laid naked beside each other starring them in the face, a little remorse might happen. You woman, have you forgotten the days you lied to your parents to sneak out to see your guy? Oga, have you forgotten when you were a watchman who arrange the room, dress your bed and wait for her? Your heart skips a beat with the least from the crawl of an ant because you think she was at the door. Does your heart skip for her again today?
How many of us are conversant with the story of 82-year-old South Korean Evangelist David Yonggi Cho, who has the world’s largest congregation. He said as a young evangelist, “I got married to my wife and brought her in an enviable well-furnished home. She had everything money could buy, from food, clothing, electrical gadgets etc. After one week, I returned to my evangelistic preaching mission all week and would only return on weekends with my laundry. Then my wife who was kind initially began to complain out of depression. And I had expected her to understand that I am doing the work of God. She did not understand it as depression gets higher in her life.
“My mother-in-law spoke to me and asked, did you bring a ‘thing’ into your home or a wife? I felt the American devil was at work. When I prayed to God and the Holy Spirit told me, God must come first in your life, but the rest of your priorities must be arranged. I began to pay attention to my wife’s care, nurture our relationship and depression disappeared.”
Now, do not forget that Evangelist Cho was working in the vineyard of the Lord, he was not womanizing nor taken over by alcohol, yet his marriage was about nose-diving until he made a U-turn and began to nurture, care, love, press her ‘mumu-botton’ and melancholy returned to the devil, leaving his wife alone.
This illustration is for both spouses. Most husbands and wives are guilty of negligence. If you prefer other ‘things’ to your husband or wife, peace will not reign in your home. Where there is no communication between couples both should know that they have become roommates and not married anymore. When you share your experiences, feelings, fear, doubt and express love for each other, you bond better as a couple. If you are not communicating, do not hug each other, hold hands, don’t kiss, you have become classmates because couples should have intimacy. Men, move a positive step towards your wife. Provide for her, surprise her with gifts as little as orange and apple, tell her I bought this for you. A woman can give out all she has, but the one her husband bought she will forever appreciate and never give it out. You do not need to break a bank before you make her happy. Use kind words for each other, be romantic in your approach and correct politely. Build his and her confidence, when you look back, be there for each other. Shut your ears to gossip and embrace what God has given to you. So many are looking for the specification in your hand, but do not have any. Tell yourself, I will be a better spouse in 2019 and begin to work towards it.
What is it that you cannot let go as a spouse? Where is the place of God in your marriage? Have both of you brought God Who created the institution of marriage into your home? For how long will you draw the battle line with the one who accomplished you to become a father or a mother? Though I am not a pastor, I charge you from 2019, replace anger with a loving smile, temperament with kindness, and envy with love, open your hearts to learn new vibes, ask questions, read books and learn from other successful marriages. Replace pornographic sites, Telemundo, Zee World and home videos with dedication towards positivity. Don’t be a lazy spouse, do what you are supposed to do and leave the rest to God. Do not compare your marriage with your friend’s own. Focus on your own and make it successful.
I have not forgotten a dear neighbour who I admire till date. Her in-laws visited and after exchanging pleasantries, they inquired after her husband, she looked at the clock and told them, by now, 2:00p.m, he is having lunch at the office canteen. After his lunch, he will return to his office and spend 2hrs before he starts heading home; but has to stop by his private printer-partner for a 40-minute meeting. By 6:00pm, he should be here. The in-laws waited patiently and lambasted their brother when he walked in at exactly 6:00pm. “How can a woman know your movement in and out like this, are you not a man again? All her timing about you were correct, you should not allow your wife to know everything about you this much. The husband laughed so hard and nodded at his people, when they left, brother and sister hugged themselves, kissed and moved on. The two were the most important people as far as their union is concerned.When we see some couples who are so close, families accuse the wife of using diabolical means to hold their son and brother, never! Those are women who understand the importance of feminism, sexuality, great meals and the needs of her husband. Both worked out their salvation and are enjoying it.
Some spouses are still under the tutelage of their family who directs the affairs of their marriages. That spell must fall off from their eyes in 2019. For how long will you be a mummy’s boy? I give it to my dear girl who told me how she prefers her mother-in-law to her biological mother, because she tasted the pudding and eating was easy.
“When I travel to visit my mother-in-law, after Mama has cooked for me, she would chill two bottles of Gulder beer for me because she knows I drink. While I am eating she would touch my drink and ask me, is it cold to your satisfaction, should I return it to the freezer? I am not advocating beer drinking here, but look at the relationship that brought them this close. Mother-in-law freezing beer for a daughter-in-law; two great women I call them.
What are those things your husband or wife complains about, it will not reduce you to change such habit, rather will earn you respect and responsibility? Self-righteousness has taken a toll on many marriages. This is how we do it and it must be done this way and the relationship keeps cracking. Use submissiveness to bring your husband into your corner.
Spouses who deny themselves sexual pleasures out of useless anger and bickering, you are missing in action. Sex is to be enjoyed by couples not with side chicks or sugar-boys. Be both prostitutes in your locked bedroom. Take yourselves to cloud 7 and back. Do not pretend about your sexual needs. Take a clue from Evangelist Yonggi Cho and return to your youthful husband and wife. Create fun loving times for yourselves. Age is just a number. Care for yourselves, surprise people who think your marriage is over with a new 2019 relationship.
A story had it that a wife who strayed with other men while her husband was alive with grown children came back like a prodigal son. To her, warming other men’s bed was part of ‘big girlism’. On a certain day, she knelt by the bed of her husband with sincere tears and began to confess her sins and said “If you forgive me, I know God will forgive me, and her husband said, I have forgiven you, but if you go back to your sins, you will die”. She was forgiven and went to sin no more.
Dear spouses borrow a leaf from this man and forgive each other. The world will be a better place to live in. All unending bickerings, jealousy, bitterness, anger, adulterous spouses, nonchalant attitude, selfishness, grudge, envy and wicked manipulations shall go with the winds of 2018 IJN. With all these, spouses should leave to fulfill and enjoy their God-given marriage in 2019. Happy New Year!
Credit: Agatha Emeadi, The Sun