Letters to My Daughters: Weathering the Storms in Your Marriage

Show Notes

Trials and difficulties are a given in any marriage. Dennis and Barbara Rainey offer couples Biblical, practical advice for how to weather the storms and grow stronger in the midst of suffering.

What is The Barbara Rainey Podcast?

Barbara Rainey mentors women in their most important relationships. She loves encouraging women to believe God and experience Him in every area of their lives.

** Rain and thunder **

Samantha: Nineteenth century poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow famously wrote,

Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.

But sometimes it feels like more than just “some” rain is falling. Barbara Rainey says followers of Jesus know something bigger is going on, even in the difficulties.

Barbara: Most people who have been through suffering—whether it’s shallow, small things or really deep, tragic things—can say, on the other side, “I didn’t enjoy it. I didn’t like it, but I knew God better. I came to know Him better as a result.” I’ve heard so many people say that. I would say it’s true about us too. We’ve learned more about God in the valleys than we have on the high places and hills in the sunshine.
Samantha: Welcome to the Barbara Rainey Podcast, from Ever Thine Home, a podcast dedicated to helping you experience God in your home. Thanks for joining us!

How can you have hope in the midst of difficulties? That’s something we’re tackling today, specifically in the arena of marriage.

Any married couple can tell you, it doesn’t take many weeks or months after the wedding to realize, it’s not going to be completely smooth, easy, and it won’t always be happy. Barbara’s husband, Dennis, says the forecast does include some stormy weather.

Dennis: If you think about it—the vows are built, the traditional vows, “…in sickness and in health, in financial success and in also being poor.” The basis of what we promise, when we establish the marriage covenant, is that we’re going to take the storm head-on. We don’t know what it will be; but we’re pledging to one another to not quit, but to keep on loving, keep on believing, and make our marriage go the distance.

Samantha: Barbara and Dennis recently celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. And when you’ve been married for that long, you go through some dark valleys together.

Barbara’s the author of a book titled Letters to My Daughters: The Art of Being a Wife. And one of the chapters in that book deals with the subject of suffering, something she and Dennis know about.

Barbara: It’s been an integral part of our marriage relationship. It’s in there because I think most brides, most young women, get married with some of what I call “fairy tale theology.” They get married thinking that: “Everything is going to be great for us. We’re not going to have difficulties. Yes, there will be some uncomfortable moments, but we’re not going to really have hard stuff. We’re going to be great. We love each other, and everything’s going to be great.”

For those who are Christians—like you and I were when we got married—we also start our marriages out thinking: “You know, we believe in God. If we do it God’s way, it’s going to all be good. We’re not going to have any hard things.” That was how I started our marriage—thinking: “A plus B equals C. If I obey God and I do these things that are in the Bible, then God, therefore, will give us an easy, nice life.”

Dennis: It’s the hard stuff of life. This is a broken world. There is a heaven, and it’s not here; it’s not now.

Barbara: Yes.

Dennis: God came, in the person of Jesus Christ, to give us an abundant life now and help us face these hardships; but it’s like the funeral you and I participated in earlier this year—a dear couple that we loved greatly, who buried the body of their 15-year-old son. It’s unthinkable—

Barbara: Yes.

Dennis: —the grief of losing a child! No couple—standing at the altar, about to say their vows to each other—can even fathom the grief, the loss, the agony, the darkness of the valley. And yet, there are a lot of our listeners who are in it right now, or who are about to go in it, or who have been in the valley and they’ve come out the other side, and they’re nodding their heads.

Barbara: Yes. And I think that it also illustrates the importance of building your marriage today because we don’t know how many days we have. Our days are all numbered, but we don’t know what the last number is.

That reminds us that today is the day we need to focus on. Today is the day we need to live as if it were our last, even though that’s hard to do in a practical way. But we need to focus on making our marriage all it can be today, focus on getting to know Christ today, focus on growing today so that, when those hard times do come—and they will come—because Jesus said, “In this world, you will have trouble,” period. Done. “…you will have trouble.”

We don’t like that. I never liked that verse—I always kind of wondered why it was even in there. It is because He’s telling us the truth that we will have trouble and we will have difficulty. So the best way to prepare is to live each day on purpose and to live each day with focus and intentionality in your relationship.

Dennis: You don’t prepare for the storm in the middle of the storm.

I will never forget a Green Beret, who came up to me at one of our Weekend to Remember marriage getaways, way back when we started FamilyLife years and years ago. He came up and said, “Dennis, as a Green Beret, we practiced what to do in a crisis over, and over, and over again in training so that, when we were in the crisis, it was second nature. We knew what to do.”

I think what people need to look at is—to look at the Bible as the training manual. In fact, at this funeral of this 15-year-old young man, an older man came up to us as we were at a table afterwards, talking with some folks. And this gentleman came up, and he said, “I really appreciate what you had to say in the funeral. You quoted the Scripture as being the source of life and perspective in the midst of a dark moment like this.” And he said, “I love what someone shared with me years ago, that the Bible is an acrostic:
Basic
Instruction
Before
Leaving
Earth.

I like that. Basic instruction before leaving Earth. We need to know how to live now in light of eternity. As a married couple, you have to know how to live together. We’ve been through some hard things in our family, some difficult challenges. Husbands and wives do not suffer the same. They do not process grief in the same way. We’re different, as male and female.

I’m so glad that Barbara has this chapter in her book to coach women to know how to view suffering, how to view the valley in their marriage and not lose heart / not lose hope—but to not give up.
Samantha: Some of the valleys we experience are deep and dark, like the one Dennis mentioned: the death of a child. Excruciating, painful! But for a lot of wives, the valley might not be as deep, but it’s long. It’s just a general discontentedness about life and where you are. It weighs on you every day. If a wife is in that moment, where she’s saying, “This is not what I thought life was going to be.” She might not even think of it as suffering. It’s more like, “This is not what I thought marriage was going to be. I thought having kids would be more fun than this.” We asked Barbara, “What should a wife do in moments like that?”

Barbara: Well, first of all, I want to say that that is suffering. It’s just a different kind of suffering because I think that is a common experience for many, many women.

I think a lot of us go through seasons of life, whether it’s because of hormones or it’s because of the season that our kids are in. I remember a season like that for me, in the late teen years, before we became empty nesters. I remember being so exhausted every single day. I think there’s a cumulative effect that a lot of mothers feel—it just kind of builds—so that by the time you’re in your 40s or pushing 50, there’s this general fatigue with life.

I think that is a kind of suffering because we do live in a broken world. That is a difficult thing to deal with because it affects everything about you—it affects your marriage, your kids that are still at home, your perception of yourself, your perception of life, your enjoyment of life. So I think that those really can be called kinds of suffering.

So the answer is—and I don’t want this to sound like a pat answer because there isn’t a pat answer—but I think the bottom line is: “Continuing to believe God that He is in control and that this too shall pass.”

Those were long years for me. I remember having conversations with Dennis, wondering, Am I ever going to feel normal again? Am I ever going to feel like I used to feel again? Or was that just for my youth and that is gone and it will be gone forever? I think women can feel really insecure about that. I think men can, too, because men can go through those things, too. But I think it’s more common for women.

So I think that continuing to believe that God is at work, continuing to believe that He is with you— there are a lot of passages in Scripture where God says, “I am with you.” He does that repeatedly because He wants us to remember that He is with us. But I think helping yourself remember, reminding yourself of what the truth is about God and His word, and what He says about you as a person— that He loves you, nothing is too hard for Him, and that He will never leave you nor forsake you. This is a season. God will use it for good in some way. We don’t always know how He’s using it. I don’t know how He’s used a lot of things in my life. I can’t look back and describe it to you, but I believe that He has used it for good in my life.

So, it’s pulling back and looking at the big picture. I describe this as watercolor painting in my book because one of the things about creating a painting is you come up with an initial sketch. You’ve got to decide where the horizon line is, and what’s going to be your focal point. Often, when you’re doing a painting of any kind—and even a sculpture, although I don’t do that, but I think the same principle is true with any kind of art—you have to pull back. One of the things that’s important about doing a painting is that you walk six feet away and look at it, or maybe even farther—and you see the whole more clearly when you’re away from it.

The same is true in our lives—we need to pull back and remind ourselves of the big picture: “God is in control. He still loves me. He’s working good in my life, even though I don’t see it or feel it, and I don’t know what the outcome is going to be. I can trust Him.”

I think the message is, “Don’t quit when it gets hard.” Our temptation is to want to run away when things get hard or when things get difficult—to escape from the pressure, escape from the pain, escape from whatever it is that you’re feeling as a result of the suffering. But God is saying: “No. Stay there. I’m with you. I won’t abandon you. I’m going to use this for good.”

So my encouragement to wives in particular is: Don’t give up. Don’t quit. Don’t quit on your faith. Don’t quit on your marriage. Don’t quit on your man. God will deliver. He will come through, and He will show up.

Dennis: And back to the motif or the illustration of watercolors. I’ve watched Barbara create paintings; and it’s fascinating how she shows off light. You would think that would be pretty simple; but to a non-artistic person like me, it’s fascinating how you use dark colors to show off the light.

What Barbara’s actually talking about here is—I think that God allows the darkness—God allows the valleys, He allows the disappointments and the unmet expectations—those things to come into our lives to create some contrast that will call us to trust Him. Because, frankly, if everything went our own way,—

Barbara: —we wouldn’t need Him or we wouldn’t trust Him.

Dennis: —we wouldn’t need God.

Barbara: Yes.

Dennis: And we could live our whole lives just being “happy.” Well, you know what? That isn’t going to happen!

Barbara: Right.

Dennis: You’re not going to be able to live “a happy life.”

Samantha: Barbara says a wife might try to look at the valley, the discontentment she’s experiencing, and point the finger at her husband as being the source of her problems.

Barbara: I mean, it’s very easy to blame somebody else. That’s one of the hard things about marriage—is that it’s so easy for both of us—husband or wife—to blame the person who’s right there because they’re handy, and it’s really easy to find fault and say, “Well, if you only…, my life would be so much better.”

But that’s not really what the reason is. The real reason is that God—because He’s our Father, and He’s a loving, kind, gracious Father / is so patient—and He’s saying to us: “You need this right now. This will be for your good right now. I know you don’t like it. I know it doesn’t feel good, but I’ve got purposes and I’ve got plans for you. You will be glad in the end.”

Most people who have been through suffering—whether it’s shallow, small things or really deep, tragic things—can say, on the other side: “I didn’t enjoy it, I didn’t like it, but I knew God better. I came to know Him better as a result. I wouldn’t trade that for anything.” I’ve heard so many people say that, and I would say it’s true about us, too. We’ve learned more about God in the valleys than we have on the high places and hills in the sunshine.

Dennis: I just want to read a couple of passages, just based upon all Barbara is talking about here. If you’re going through a hard time, I’d like to recommend the best-seller—the Bible—and the Book of 1 Peter, which was written to a group of people, who had been scattered and who were followers of Christ. They were called the diaspora—they were scattered saints, having to represent Christ in cultures that punished them for it.

Barbara: Well, they weren’t just scattered—because we tend to think of scattered as they are just living in different places—but they lost homes / possessions.

I mean, they had really experienced some difficult traumas that we face today when houses burn down or we go bankrupt and we lose everything. That puts a little more context in what these people were living in.

Dennis: So I just want to read what God wanted to say to some folks who were going through hard times. Just listen to how God coaches and gently nudges people who are in the valley—1 Peter, Chapter 3, verse 13: “Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts regard Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.” But listen to this conclusion to this passage: “For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil.”

So you hear the Scripture calling us to have the right perspective of our valley. Don’t just look at it from a human perspective. Wherever you are, maybe pull out this book and read 1 Peter, Chapter 3. Then, across the page, go look at Chapter 4, verse 12 and listen to what Peter says here: “Beloved, don’t be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.”

I’ve got to stop there because I think we, as human beings, are really odd. We think, when we get married, there’s never going to be a valley. It’s in the fine print of the marriage covenant—you’re going to go through testing, through trials. But listen to this—verse 13 of Chapter 4: “But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when His glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler. Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed but let him glorify God in that Name.”

The Bible so calls us away from our temporary thinking, from how I’m feeling right now. It’s calling you, not to live by feelings, but it’s calling you to faith: “Are you going to believe that that’s true?” Are you going to trust that God does know what He’s doing? As a couple, will you allow the things that are coming at you to bind your hearts to His—first of all to God’s—but then, secondly, to one another and to not give up?—and as Barbara said, “…not quit and not toss the towel in.” We’re talking to people, right now, who have secretly—or maybe verbally—threatened divorce to their spouse. I mean, it is commonplace in our culture. But this is the biblical way to look at suffering, and the biblical way to run the race all the way to the finish line.

Samantha: There are at least two takeaways for us: First, recognize that storms will come, and use the sunny days to prepare. Be proactive. Second, when trials and difficulties do arise, step back from the painting, look at it from a bigger perspective. A wife needs to counsel her own soul with the word of God.

Barbara: And she needs to realize that God wants to use the hard times for the good of her marriage. It’s not just for her good or her husband’s good, or for the betterment of some circumstance, but God really wants to use these difficulties to help them, as a couple, a husband and a wife, grow closer together. We suffer differently. We handle things differently, but that’s part of what God wants to do to help us become more one—is for me to share what I’m feeling when we’re suffering, and for me to listen to Dennis share what he’s feeling or, when he doesn’t share what he’s feeling, to trust that God is at work in his soul. As we go through that experience together, it bonds us together more than on days when we’re not struggling.

Dennis: What I’d have to say to that is—I wish, at this point, I could reach through the phone, or computer, or your car, wherever you’re listening—and just put an arm around you and say, “Oh, we have such a shallow view of love!”

Barbara: Yes.

Dennis: We think love is like the movies depict it—a couple walking off in the sunset, arm in arm, with the soft breeze, and the music swelling, and people applauding. The reality is—a lot of love is learned in the valley, where two people aren’t feeling the same thing, where two people aren’t finding a lot of romance because there’s no room in the valley, sometimes, for romance. It’s where two people learn how to really love because they meet the God of love in the valley, and they begin to understand He loves them—that’s what they’re supposed to reflect to one another.

Samantha: Well, again, Barbara’s book is Letters to My Daughters: The Art of Being a Wife, and it includes a section on facing suffering and difficulty in marriage.

Barbara first started what would become the book Letters to My Daughters when her daughter-in-love Marsha Kay asked her to share some of what she had learned about being a wife. Each chapter answers questions she lovingly and thoughtfully wrote out to her own daughters. It’s authentic. It’s real.
Ann Voskamp describes Letters to My Daughters like this:
It’s "The gorgeous whole story you've always wanted your daughters to know about marriage. These pages are nothing short of a masterpiece of blazing brilliance, true beauty, and tried and true insights."
And now, for the first time ever, Letters to My Daughters is out in paperback! This is a book designed to guide you into all the riches God has for you in marriage. So be sure to order your copy today.
Here’s how.
Just make a donation of $30 or more to help support the ministry of Ever Thine Home. Your donation will secure your copy of Letters to My Daughters, coming out September 13th. You can give your gift and reserve your copy of Letters to My Daughters at this website:
EverThineHome.com/letterspodcast

Well, thanks for listening today. May your home and your marriage reflect the beauty of Jesus more and more, even in the midst of the storms of life.

Hope you can join us next time, for the Barbara Rainey Podcast, from Ever Thine Home.