Helping Your Hopeless Spouse
By Ben McGuire
I curled up in a ball next to my wife on our living room floor, and we wept together. After two and a half years of infertility, we’d lost our first baby to miscarriage.
Like a failing wick, our hope dwindled to near extinction.
She felt abandoned by God. She sank into despair with thoughts of being damaged and broken. She was at a tipping point.
I didn't know how to respond. How could I comfort my wife when I didn't have any answers to why we were going through this?
She didn’t need fluffy clichés. That would be like trying to satisfy her appetite with cotton candy.
She needed substantial, weighty truth. Real food for her soul.
Hebrews 11:1 tells us that it’s faith that provides the confidence (NIV), assurance (ESV), substance (KJV) of our hope – true hope.
Because our faith is grounded in a Person, my wife’s hopelessness (and my own) could only be corrected by a true view of Him.
God is her unshakeable, unconquerable refuge and strength in times of trouble (Psalm 46). In His strength He watches over her (Psalm 32:8). When all seems desperate and lost, He never abandons her.
My wife and I clung especially close to one another after the miscarriage.
I never had “answers.” But I walked alongside her. I prayed with her and over her and for her. And we hid God’s Word in our hearts—memorizing, reading, meditating—to guard our thoughts.
Like a fire on a winter night, kindle rest and safety for your spouse. Help her scatter despair’s darkness. Envelop her in the warm, comforting light of Christ.
The Good Stuff: Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God. (Psalm 42:5-6)
Action Points:
1. Take your spouse to the Word of God in times of darkness. It is a lamp for your feet and a light to your path (Psalm 119:105).
2. Remind your spouse that you made a covenant in your marriage vows. Assure him/her that, like the Lord, you will never walk away from that promise.
3. Resolve to be a place of refuge and strength when your spouse is grieving.
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