A Husband's Prayer

When I look around lately there seem to be a lot of relationships in trouble, or at least struggling. Couples often don’t see eye to eye, or they have reached a stage of passive-aggressive détente. The thing is that if life can be so much better than that, why should we settle for it? Let’s be clear, I’m not advocating divorce. Rather, I’m advocating that we roll up our sleeves and make things work for the better. John Lenin penned the famous lyrics, “All you need is love.” Well that’s theoretically true, but it doesn’t make much allowance for human nature. In fact, relationships do need much more than love. Love is great. Love is amazing. I’m the hugest fan of love ever. However, we live in a world that has been duped by Hollywood, popular music, and even literature. Folks think that if they have love they’ve got it made and the “happily ever after” is nothing less than a foregone conclusion. Then they can’t figure out why they’re unhappy four years later and they want to move out because their spouse squeezes the toothpaste wrong or clicks the cereal bowl too loudly with their spoon. The issue at the heart of this is that we need to redefine love.

At the root of it all, we have a problem with semantics. Too many people believe that love is a noun. They think of it as a romantic ideal, and if you’re lucky enough to have it then you’ve got the ticket for violins and sunsets. That sounds great, but it’s entirely too shallow for long-term effectiveness. The concept that you can just have “it” and that’s all you’ll need doesn’t fly. For if we follow such a line of reasoning, then what do you do when “it” goes away? Are we then off the hook because the relationship no longer has any basis? Love, as a feeling, comes and goes in far too fickle a manner to be depended solely upon. But love, real love, is not a noun at all. It’s a verb, perhaps the best verb of all. Real love is action. We don’t merely have it, we do it. So if we truly love then it will be active … actually, make that proactive.

That being said, I will turn my thoughts towards today’s intended audience. I want to talk to you men, not because I find any particular fault with you, but because you’re my demographic and the group I feel called to speak to today. Men, we need to step up and take the fact that love is a verb to heart. I encourage you to become a student of your wife and learn what makes her happy. Then take a proactive approach to loving her. And here’s the thing: If we work to make our wives happy, and love them unconditionally, then they will generally respond in kind. Love and marriage aren’t fifty-fifty arrangements. Relationship is about giving one hundred percent. So I’m calling on you men to do your part, unilaterally if necessary. It’s up to us to take the lead and set the tone for our shared happiness. Make sure that love, your love specifically, is a verb. That’s the path to the better kind of adjectives, after all.

Now today’s offering has been aimed all along at a prayer, as I fully disclosed in the title. Here’s the thing. I’m a Christian and I believe that God is the author of real love, and that’s why I offer the following prayer for husbands. If you disagree with me, you can drop the last stanza and you’re still in business, but you may miss out on what I personally consider the foundation of my own thirty years of extremely happy and successful marriage. Either way, let’s make sure that we keep our love alive by practicing it every day. To that end, I offer you the following manly marriage metaphor. Love is like a shark. It has to keep swimming or it sinks to the bottom and drowns. So I’m counting on you, guys, to keep your love swimming. A good start will be to pray the following prayer. You might even want to print it out, tack it up, and read it over once in a while. If your wife saw this little prayer in your wallet or taped to the bathroom mirror it would warm her heart to brimming. If you actually prayed it and took it to heart, you might just end up in the hall of fame of awesome husbands. And every guy wants to be in the hall of fame. So remember … it’s a verb.

With All My Heart
(A Husband's Prayer)
With all my heart, with all my mind
May I be faithful, gentle and kind
May I be watchful and creative
Ever wary of the needs
Of the one whom I adore
May I be willing to concede
Willing, also, to forgive
And more important, to forget
Slow to anger, quick to listen
Never speaking curse nor threat
May I be conscious of my duty
To her dignity and pride
Responsive to the subtle hints
Which reveal the heart inside
May I be mindful of how fragile
Close relationships can be
Placing her above my selfish needs
At each opportunity
Lord, rekindle in me daily
The love I have for her
So my thoughts and deeds and motives
And devotion remain pure
May I be the kind of husband
That my wife needs me to be
Loving her with all my heart
And bringing glory, Lord, to Thee
By Frank Carpenter ©