With the words, “I do” we make a choice. And then we make a zillion choices in the ever-after which will determine our happiness or our not-so happiness.

Viktor Frankl said that “between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom.” Each day is full of those spaces to choose.

I wonder, when I married my husband, if you would have shown me a movie of the coming years of his job-loss related debilitating depression and the downward spiral of 10 years coming after, during which Jeff tried to help start a business, how I would have responded. Maybe I would have passed out cold. I am thankful life it has been one day at a time.

The other day, I looked through some of my prayer journals from these 12 1/2 years. I saw how God had helped me through each crisis of faith. Many times, when I needed wisdom to make wise choices, I asked God. God gave it.

It is God’s wisdom that helps a despairing wife hold on to her commitment and stay by her struggling husband when the world shouts the easy answer, to run away. It is God’s wisdom which helps her see that often the pain she is experiencing is not caused from outside her, but inside her.

You cannot run away far enough, when the problem is inside of you. So much of what we wrestle with as wives has to do with not being fully filled with God. It’s as if our hearts are empty vacuums. This sucks the life out of our marriages.

Through the power of the Holy Spirit a hurting wife can choose to go so deep in her love relationship with God that her marriage relationship to her husband is not a vacuum of expectation but a wellspring of deep joy.

Here are some power verses which have helped me. Personalize and turn these into prayers, especially during feelings of hopelessness.

“I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” *

“We … exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope”. **

Through God’s wisdom, I’ve been empowered to choose to let go what doesn’t really matter, and hold on to what does. It’s been my experience that growth and freedom are sure to follow!

*Romans 5:3-4 **Ephesians 3:16-19 (NIV)