Learning to Live Peaceably: Reflecting Christ in Marriage, by Karen Rowe
Reflecting Christ in Marriage: What Marriage and Loss Have Taught Me
Marriage is a picture of Christ and His church. In this devotion, I’m sharing what I was learning about love, respect, and living peaceably before my husband died—and what I understand more deeply from the other side of loss.
Reflecting Christ in marriage begins with letting Him teach us how to speak, how to listen, and how to examine our own hearts.
Come sit with me awhile.
October 22, 1987, was my wedding day. This year would have been our 39th wedding anniversary.
Days like that bring precious memories.
They also bring reflection—remembering what I understood then, what I was still learning, and what I see differently now.
There are things I would have done better. And if something I have learned can encourage someone who still has the opportunity to grow alongside their husband or wife, I want to share it.
Not because I have it all figured out.
Christ is the Teacher; I am a fellow learner.
Before my husband died, I was learning to show respect for who he was, even before I felt he was meeting my emotional needs.
That was an important lesson in my heart: my responsibility to God could not always wait until I felt satisfied with someone else.
My husband was human. So am I.
A Memory from Our Beginning
When we were young, there were ups and downs and so many things that brought us to the point of being engaged and actually taking our marriage vows.
But I remember being on our way to the beach as husband and wife. We commented about how our jaws hurt from smiling so big and for so long.
We were that happy.
And yet, it didn’t take long for us to discover that we didn’t communicate very well about how we really felt.
I expected him to just know things. He would ask me to tell him how I felt. But I remember telling him, “If I tell you, then I’ll feel like you’re doing it out of obligation because I told you—not because you freely wanted to.”
I wanted to feel that he wanted to meet that emotional need, the way I felt he did when we were dating.
Looking back, I can see how difficult that made it. He was asking me to help him understand, and I wanted his understanding to come without my having to explain.
Telling someone what is in our heart does not make their loving response less sincere. Sometimes that honest conversation is how we help each other learn to love us.
But there is something else here too.
Getting married should not mean we stop pursuing one another.
As a woman, I wanted to keep feeling wanted—to know that my husband still wanted to know me, spend time with me, and discover what was on my heart. And a husband needs to know that his wife still takes an interest in him too.
We grow older. Life gets busier. We walk through things that change us. There is still someone here to know and love today—not only the person we remember dating, or the person we hope they might become someday.
That makes me think about our relationship with the Lord.
Coming to believe on Jesus is the beginning of a relationship in which we keep learning to know Him. Jesus spoke of eternal life this way:
“And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.”— John 17:3, KJV
God does not change as we do, but our knowledge of Him can deepen. We come into His presence, open His Word, and seek Him again—not just remembering what we experienced years ago, but walking with Him today.
We seek Him because we love Him.
And even that love begins with Him:
“We love him, because he first loved us.”— 1 John 4:19, KJV
His Spirit is at work in us. Romans 5:5 tells us that “the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.”
As I think about that, I see a beautiful reflection of what love in marriage can be: continuing to listen, continuing to draw near, continuing to take an interest in the one we love.
We took our vows on a wedding day.
We still had to learn how to live that love in our everyday lives.
Learning to Love and Respect
It wasn’t his job to be the source of all my happiness. He could love me, comfort me, listen to me, and walk beside me. Those things matter deeply in marriage. But he could not take the place in my heart that belongs to the Lord.
A husband is called to love his wife.
He is not able to be her savior.
And a wife is called to respect her husband.
Her disappointment does not remove that responsibility.
Scripture puts both before us:
“Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.”— Ephesians 5:33, KJV
It can be so easy to read that verse and notice the part the other person needs to obey.
But what happens when I let the Lord speak to me about my part?
Am I listening? Am I showing respect? Am I speaking truth with love, or using truth to wound? Have I become so occupied with what hurts me that I no longer recognize how my words hurt someone else?
Those are tender questions.
I ask them as someone who needs the Lord’s correction too.
Our accountability begins between ourselves and God.
“So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.”— Romans 14:12, KJV
I cannot bring my husband’s shortcomings before the Lord as permission to hold on to my own. Neither can a husband excuse his conduct by pointing to his wife.
We can acknowledge where we have been hurt and still ask, “Lord, what needs to change in me?” That is where repentance becomes very personal.
Let Peace Rule in Our Responses
Sometimes we get caught in a painful circle.
One feels unloved and responds disrespectfully.
The other feels disrespected and responds without tenderness.
Each waits for the other to change, and the distance grows.
Someone has to stop adding to the hurt.
Someone has to be willing to say,
“Lord, help me obey You here—even before my feelings have caught up.”
It takes one to begin changing that cycle.
It takes two to build a healthy marriage.
One person’s obedience cannot make another person choose love, faithfulness, or reconciliation. We are responsible for our response; we cannot control theirs.
But we can stop making our willingness to grow depend
entirely on what they do next. And, learn to pray more and before we speak.
In Colossians 3:12–15,
Paul speaks of kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering, forgiveness, and charity
—love—before telling us to let the peace of God rule in our hearts.
That helps me understand how closely these things belong together. I want peace in my home. Am I willing to practice the patience, forgiveness, and love that Scripture calls me to?
In my anniversary reflection, Ruth’s words caught my attention:
“…thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.”— Ruth 1:16, KJV
Ruth was speaking to Naomi, her mother-in-law. Both had experienced devastating loss. Ruth chose to go with her into an unfamiliar future, and her commitment reached beyond loving Naomi to identifying with her people and her God.
That made me think about our own walk with the Lord.
Will I trust Him when I cannot see how things will work out?
Will I receive His instruction when it reaches into my expectations, my tone of voice, and the way I treat the person closest to me?
Marriage is a picture of Christ
and His church in Ephesians 5.
That makes the ordinary moments matter:
how we listen,
how we disagree,
how we apologize,
and whether we are willing to receive correction ourselves.
The fruit of the Spirit belongs in our homes too.
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.”— Galatians 5:22–23, KJV
I want what I share about Jesus to be reflected in how I speak to the people nearest to me.
Before I Answer
“Commit thy works unto the LORD” reaches into our everyday actions too.
Before I answer, before I try to explain my disappointment again, I can bring that conversation before Him and ask for help responding in a way that honors Him.
From the other side of loss, I want to encourage you gently: if there is an apology you need to make, a kindness you have been withholding, or a pattern the Lord has been asking you to surrender, bring it to Him.
You do not have to pretend your pain is small. You can tell the truth about what you need. You can seek wise counsel and help.
Respect does not require remaining in danger,
and forgiveness does not remove accountability.
Love makes room for truth and appropriate boundaries.
But in those everyday places where pride, impatience, resentment, or unkind words have taken root, let us be willing to receive the Lord’s correction.
Our spouse is a person to love,
not someone who can carry every burden of our happiness
or heal every wound in our heart.
We need the Lord.
And we need to let Him teach us how to care for one another.
We had a really good marriage, and like all marriages, we had some very difficult times.
That Day on the Porch, We Learned to Listen
I remember one of those times. I don’t remember which year of marriage it was. It seemed like, as our marriage continued to grow, there were difficult places we had to cross over together.
And believe it or not, even though we had a good marriage, that word divorce came up.
We had gotten so seemingly against each other over little nitty-gritty details that didn’t even make sense. Looking back, I can see how much confusion had gotten between us.
The Bible says,
“For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace…” —1 Corinthians 14:33, KJV.
My husband said, “Well, what do you want to do?
Do you want to go to a marriage counselor?”
My reply was, “Are you kidding me? You want to go to a complete stranger who doesn’t know us, we don’t know them, we have no idea if they know the Lord or not, and you’re telling me we can’t just go out here on the porch before the Lord and talk to each other and let Jesus be our mediator?”
So we did that.
Literally, we walked out onto the front porch.
He sat in a chair to the left of the front door, and I sat on the porch swing facing him on the other side of the porch.
And what I understood the Lord was showing me, I shared with him.
We were going to have an honest conversation. We were going to pray, take turns, and each ask God for help with the same thing.
I explained it this way:
“I’m going to tell you everything on my heart that’s real to me. Whether you see it the same way or not, you have to believe that this is what I’m experiencing in my heart.
“And I have to pray for the Lord to help me get it from my heart and out of my mouth, filtered through the Holy Spirit. Then we also have to pray for the Holy Spirit to filter your ears as you hear it, so you can understand.
“Then it’s your turn. You tell me everything that’s real in your heart. We’ll ask the Holy Spirit to filter your words as they come out of your mouth—and filter my ears as I hear them.”
We needed to tell each other honestly what was on our hearts, even the things that were difficult to hear. Because in our hearts it was real to each of us.
And we needed the Lord’s help to receive those words with understanding instead of letting the hurt turn into another argument.
We could acknowledge what the other person was experiencing, even where our understanding of it was different.
In about ten minutes, after we had both expressed what was really on our hearts, we looked at each other and said, “Is that all?”
And it was over. Our marriage was restored back to peace and love, and all that other junk just went away.
That is how it happened for us that day. We took it honestly before the Lord, together, and had that conversation.
“Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” —James 4:7, KJV.
I cannot go back and live my marriage again with everything I understand today. I can thank God for the ways He was already teaching me, receive His grace for what I wish I had done differently, and share what I am still learning.
That day on the porch, we both needed help speaking
—and we both needed help hearing.
My hope in sharing this is that it helps someone pause and ask:
“Lord, before I tell You again what needs to change in my spouse, help me receive what You are showing me about myself.”
A Prayer for Our Marriages
Lord Jesus, thank You for loving us while we are still learning. Search our hearts. Help us take responsibility for our words, our expectations, and our actions. Teach wives to respect their husbands and husbands to love their wives. Give us humility to apologize, courage to speak truth with love, and willingness to receive correction. Comfort those who grieve, protect those who are unsafe, and guide those whose marriages are hurting. Help us trust You with what we cannot control and obey You in what You have placed before us.
In Jesus’ name, amen.
Sharing with thanksgiving, in Jesus’ name.
Karen, a fellow learner.
Continue Learning with Me
Come sit with me a little longer as we learn to bring our hearts, our words, and our relationships before the Lord.
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I also share conversations about emotions, spiritual growth, and learning to walk with Jesus—one lesson at a time.
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