The night rain was hooting through the window. The children were already asleep for the night. George was lost in the pages of the newspaper; and not quite long, Sarah, his wife of twenty-one years, joined him in the bedroom.
She looked at him; “honey, I have a confession to make” she began. “Oh! Yea; what is it?” he asked without looking up, his eyes still glued to the pages of the newspaper.
“I have not been faithful; I have cheated!” she said. For the first time, he looked up from the newspaper. With fierce anger, he jumped up and did what he has never done before in their twenty-one years of marriage, slapped her.
“How could you? Twenty-one years of my faithfulness to you, is this how you chose to pay me back? You’re cheating on me? How dare you? I work hard all my days to give you a better life; I deny myself a lot so you could live a happy life; how can you stoop so low? Rubbish!” he bellowed.
Full of anger, he began to pace around the room. “From day one, out of love and respect for you, I have kept women at arms-length; not because I am stupid, and you have the guts to do this to me?” he roared.
Just as he was about to pounce on her again enraged with the sting of her unfaithfulness, came a knock on their bedroom door. Richard, their nineteen-year-old eldest son pushed open the door. Strolling behind him were his two siblings, Sandra, 16, and Patrick, his twelve-year-old younger brother.
“Mom, dad; is everything alright?” Richard asked.
“Get out! Get out!” screamed George at their children.
“Richard, it’s alright, please go back to your rooms. Daddy and I are going to sort this out; Sarah told their children.
The children strolled out of the bedroom.
As the children left the bedroom, George locked the door and began shouting at his wife again. “Who is it? Who have you been unfaithful with? I need his name, address, and phone number right now. It is high time I told him who I am and what I am made of tonight. He reached out to violently grab his wife’s phone but Sarah humbly surrendered her phone to him.
Browsing through several numbers and images on his wife’s phone, he roared, “show me his number, and his face. Where is that filthy animal that you are messing with?”
Meekly, Sarah pointed to a picture on her phone, “this is the man I have been unfaithful with” she said.
As George was looking at the picture, there was this puzzled look and confusion on his face, as it was his own picture and phone number that was beaming on Sarah’s phone screen.
Even more puzzled as he looked at his wife, he asked, “Me?”
And quietly, she answered, “Yes, you! I have been so unfaithful with you. I have been so unfaithful to my First Love because I have been so busy loving you. In my effort to being a good wife, I have forgotten all about Him, my Jesus Christ”.
As if air valve was removed from a tire, George sagged down on their bed, even more confused.
“When you met me”, continued Sarah, “I was so devoted to my First Love. In fact, you used to tell me that the most important reason you chose me as your wife was because of Him. I loved the Godly man you used to be. We would pray and long to have a Godly family together. I could vividly remember the days we would fast and pray and tell God that if He would just bless us with a good job, we will forever dedicate our careers to Him. And God did bless me, God blessed you, yes, God blessed us. We did so well professionally, we made good money, and we got married, and could afford a good wedding.”
George looked intently at Sarah as she continued;
“I could remember as if it was yesterday, the first few months of our marriage, we would pray as a family, go to Church, have fellowships, worship and had Bible Studies together. But somehow, we slowly stopped living by that scripture. Don’t you remember that scripture, ‘as for me and my household we will serve the Lord’?”
“Oh yes, we started having children whom we’ve failed to raise in the Godly way as we pledged. With success came the need for us to change our friends. We quickly discovered that our born again friends and family were boring. We started worshiping money, success, and materialism. Just take a look at us now; we live in a big house without God.”
“Simply as a joke, we started finding fun in all the ungodly places; a little too much drinking have since become our new way of life. Foul languages are now our watchwords. Our utterances are not seasoned; our reasoning is not refined, and our actions are so unbecoming of who we were called to be.”
He looked away from her.
“It was in order to please you that I changed too. I thought that being a good wife means tagging along with everything you do. I didn’t confront you when you started going astray, rather, I simply got lost with you instead of I pulling you back to God. I became so lost, so much so that I became proud, shallow minded, self-centered, and all this while; I thought this was I being a good wife.”
“Truth be told, this is not myself. I have so much changed from the woman you found at the beginning. You? You are no more the man I so cherished to spend the rest of my life with. Yes! We both have changed a great deal, George. What is wrong with us?”
He looked back at her.
“Is it all these; the good house, the good meals we eat, the money we
have, the so-called comfortable life that has made us forget the one who gave them all to us? I am nothing without my First Love and I feel ashamed that I have abandoned the one that is responsible for all I am and all that I have.”
“George, can’t you see? We have started having troubles in our marriage because we have since taken Jesus Christ out of the equation of our love. We are doing everything on our own, that’s why we have failed, and we will continue to fail if we keep on like this”
She reached out and touched his hand.
“Please, George, I want to go back to the woman I used to be. I want to return to that woman after God’s own heart that I used to be. I miss the peace that only Christ can give. I miss the worship, I miss reading, listening and meditating upon His Word. I miss going to Church and the fellowship of believers. Yes! I miss the studies, praying, and meditating with you as a family.”
“What does it profit me to live in a good house, make good money, and yet lose my soul, and my God? George, I am going back to my First Love. Only as a wife submitted to God, will I be the best wife to you and the best mother to our children. Remember, he who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from God; but I cannot bring favor to you if I continue being disconnected from Him. I want my spiritual life back. I want Jesus Christ back in our home, our marriage, and our family.”
Suddenly, George started breaking down in tears. His spirit convicted; he reached out and grabbed her tightly in his arms. “I am sorry. Honey, I am so very sorry for laying my hands on you. I am very sorry for everything. I am sorry for going astray and taking you with me. You chose to marry me because you thought you were marrying a Godly man. I miss being that Godly man. Please forgive me.”
“Marriage is not supposed to be a stumbling block in our walk with God; George sobbed. The thought of you cheating on me ripped my heart apart, I cannot even begin to imagine how God feels as a result of our unfaithful to Him. God having blessed us this much and we turn our back on Him is the highest height of our ingratitude.”
“At the thought of you cheating on me I was filled with rage, yet God patiently looks at us in our unfaithfulness desiring us to come back to Him. I want to go back too. I want more of Him in my life than these earthly things; I want God. I want the God of my youth. I am so very sorry for slapping you.”
That night, they knelt down together and repented of their ways, and, rededicated their lives and marriage back to God. The next evening, they assembled in their living room to study the Bible and pray together with their children. Together as a family, they celebrated the return of God back to their home, as the prodigal couple came back home to God.
