Her constant pacing was
making me uncomfortable. “Umitta, please sit down. This isn’t helping.”
“That’s easy for you to
say.” She snapped. “I’m sorry. I know you are only trying to help.” She said sinking
into the chair opposite me. “But it’s just soo frustrating. I told him this
would happen, but he wouldn’t listen. He never listens!”
I knew I had to calm her
down when she got up and started pacing again.
“Let’s go for a walk.” I
said walking towards the door. The fresh air would do her some good.
Her husband had just lost
his job. He’d gotten a job offer from a rival firm a few months earlier, which
he had turned down against her advice because he was expecting a big promotion
and bumper raise at work. Instead, he was sacked!. So even though I knew she was dealing
with a variety of very different emotions, i wasn’t entirely sure which
Ummita I was dealing with per time. Was it sad, mad or scared Umitta?
“What are we going to do?
We just bought that land in Sango Tedo, so don’t have much in
savings. How are we going to survive? I warned him this could happen, but he
just wouldn’t listen. He never listens!”
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“Why did you come to me?”
“Huh? I don’t
understand.”
“Out of everyone you
could have spoken to about this, you came to me. Why?”
“Errr....I don’t know.”
“I think it’s because you
thought I’d see things your way and possibly side with you.”
Her mouth opened as if to
deny it, but was quickly shut because she knew I was spot on.
Ummita and I are very similar.
We have the same “gift”- a gift which was a borderline curse during the first
few years of my marriage. You see, we are able to tell the future. No, not in
some mystical or psychic way, but…. It’s hard to explain. Just think of it like
women’s intuition on steroids. We have this funny way of playing out a million
different scenarios in our head, and somehow instinctively knowing what the
outcome of almost all situations will be.
“Humor me a sec, I want
to show you something.”
“Ok”
“Imagine I want to give
you this key” I said holding out my car key. “But you get it under one
condition- that you catch it when i throw it”
“Ok”
“I think if we both close
our eyes when I throw the key, you have a better chance of catching it.”
“That’s utterly
ridiculous” She laughed. “Both our eyes need to be open so you can throw it in
the right direction, it’ll give me a better chance of catching it”
“Trust me. This will
work. Now just close your eyes”
Watching her reluctantly
close her eyes, I took a few steps back. Closed my eyes, and threw the key.
“Did you catch it?” I
yelled.
“Of course not! I told you it wasn’t going to work.”
“Yeah you did, but do you
have the key?”
“I already said I don’t”
She didn’t get it. I had
to try a different tactic.
“Ok, lets try this again. I’m gonna tell you
something a very dear friend of mine told me before Aden and I got married, something
that would probably have saved me a lot of grief if I’d taken heed of a lot
earlier than I did.”
“Ok” she sighed. I could tell she was getting slightly impatient.
“She told me never to tell my husband I told you so .”
I saw her mouth open as
if to say something.
“Babe, let me land first.”
I said before she could say anything. “I got married thinking- no, knowing I
was smarter than Aden. After all, situations proved I was always right, so I
didn’t understand why he’d have an opinion contrary to mine, and I loved to
tell him so every opportunity I got. The more I told him I told you so the less he sought my opinion and the more mistakes
he made. It got to the point where I patiently waited for him to make the
mistakes I knew he would so I could tell him I told you so.”
I could tell my words had
started to sink in, so I continued.
“I didn’t trust him to
make the right decisions, and he didn’t trust me to support any decisions he made. It was a
vicious cycle that threatened to destroy our marriage, because I didn’t trust
his ability to make what I presumed to be the right decisions, I wasn’t in
support of anything he wanted to do, even if it was right. It was spiraling out
of control, it was no longer us against the world, it had become us against each other and I was powerless to stop it.”
“So what did you do?”
Laughing and shaking my
head, I continued. “I fasted and prayed. Then fasted some more. I prayed that
Aden would quit being soo stubborn and would listen to me. I prayed that he’d realize
I was always right and fall in line!”
“Did it work?”
“Nope. Nothing changed,
well except maybe my weight, I think I lost about 5kg from all the fasting.”
I could tell she was now
slightly confused.
“To cut the long story
short, a book by Stormie Omartian called The
Power of a Praying Wife, found its way to me. It outlines specific areas women
should pray about concerning their husbands. I thought it a little strange that
the first set of prayer points were for wives to pray about ourselves. I mean,
I wasn’t the problem, but it was a small price to pay to get him to fall in line.”
“Did it work?” she
whispered.
“It took a while, but
yeah, it did. Though not in the way you think. God convicted me in a major way! I
was the one who needed to change. I felt my heart fill with the realization
that it wasn’t about me, or what I wanted, but about what was right for us, because i can never want better for my family than God wants for us. The
first thing I had to do was stop saying I
told you so, the second was to lay down our opinions before God and ask for
direction, conviction and humility concerning His will. If I was still
convicted about my choice, the right thing to do was pray for Aden, generally
that God would make him a man that I could trust to make the right decisions, a
man that would hear His voice clearly concerning all things, and specifically
that God would convict him concerning the issue at hand, and give him the
humility to make the necessary adjustments. If I was wrong, then I had to
humble myself and make the necessary adjustments. God showed me that I had
elevated the “gift” He had given me for the benefit of Aden and I above Him. I
realized that if I felt Aden was going down the wrong path, it was God and not
my superiority complex that would get him back on track. In marriage there is
no I. What affects one affects both. But what struck me the most was that most times, neither of us was right, there was often a different path God wanted us to go down.”
“Oh my God!”. She sobbed.
Realizing she was crying, I pulled her into a tight hug.
Realizing she was crying, I pulled her into a tight hug.
