Article October 17, 2005 Issue

PUTTING GOD FIRST SAVED MY MARRIAGE

By Lyn Wray

WHEN A MARRIAGE is in crisis and the struggle to recover has been ongoing, you may ask yourself, "Why commit to something that seems beyond repair?" I've certainly been at that point. But I realized that I wasn't committed to saving my marriage as much as I was committed to doing what God wanted me to do—knowing that whatever that was, it would be right for everyone involved.

In 1990 I discovered that my husband was having an affair. My initial reaction was shock. At that time, my husband and I had been married for 16 years and had a thriving business together. Neither of us necessarily wanted to end a marriage in which we had invested a great deal of history. So we tried to work our way through it.

As a Christian Scientist, I was accustomed to turning to prayer for all my needs. I studied the chapter titled "Marriage" in Science and Health, as well as "Wedlock," an article written by Mary Baker Eddy that appears in her Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, which states: "When asked by a wife or a husband important questions concerning their happiness, the substance of my reply is: God will guide you. Be faithful over home relations; they lead to higher joys: obey the Golden Rule for human life, and it will spare you much bitterness" (p. 287). My constant prayer was that I would be divinely led by God in whatever direction He was taking me.