Why I’m Thankful For My Husband And Our Marriage

By Joni Tapp

When a friend suggested we write a post about what we love about our husbands, I confess I rolled my eyes. Who would want to read that?, I wondered. But over the past couple weeks, I’ve gained a lot of insight about the way I look at marriage and my husband. I’ve realized that I definitely do have a tendency to focus on the few things that are not so great in our marriage rather than the thousands of things that ARE great. I was walking around angry and frustrated, and one day God just kind of woke me up to the fact that I was being completely ungrateful for my husband, our marriage, and our life together. Sure, it’s not perfect and it never will be, but there is SO MUCH that is right. Most of all, I KNOW that our marriage was ordained and blessed by God, and since I know Him to be good and loving, then I know that His gift to me of the sweet man I married is a wonderful blessing. So that day I chose to start thinking of all the things I have to be thankful for in my husband, and I was actually shocked at how much of a difference it made in the way I perceive the few hard things. They’re not near as bad as I thought they were. All that to say, even if none of you want to read all of the things I’m thankful for about my husband and our marriage, it is essential not only for me to make this list, but to dwell on it every single day.

One of the most important things to me is that my husband is a good man. He has strong character and integrity. I never have to worry about him cheating on me or leaving me or abusing me. Just these few things, I think, put me in a small minority of women around the world who have a husband their hearts can trust in. For this, I am thankful.

Along the same vein, but I think deserving of its own bullet point, is that my husband has strong faith. The storms of life don’t shake him, for which all glory goes to the Christ who saved him. I am thankful to have a believing husband who prays with me every night and encourages me in perseverance.

He is very disciplined and hard-working. Sometimes this drives me crazy because his productivity and achievement make me look bad! However, it is a very good thing that God gave me a man who is disciplined and committed to things, because it spurs me on to action when my tendency would be toward laziness.

He is wise and rational. I never have to worry about the decisions he makes because I know they are well-thought-out. He often tempers my high-strung emotion by helping me to slow down, calm down, and think clearly about things.

He has a servant’s heart. He will often sacrifice his own comfort for mine. One example of this is, recognizing that I’m NOT a morning person, he gets up almost every single day to feed our early-rising son his breakfast and lets me get a few more Z’s. He often cooks me eggs for breakfast so they’re ready for me when I get up.

He is a GREAT DAD!!! I honestly don’t think I’ve ever seen a better father than my husband is. He is so involved in our son’s life, spending so much time with him and investing deeply in his personal, physical, intellectual, and spiritual growth. I cannot wait to see how their relationship blossoms as our son grows!

He tries really hard to be a great husband. Transparency in communication doesn’t come naturally to my introverted husband, but he recognized how valuable it is to me and how important it is to our marriage, and so he tries. We’re both learning a lot about ourselves and about each other as we make this journey together, and I am thankful that we both want marriage to be a JOY and we recognize that is worth working for.

He trusts me. My husband and I are both frugal people who want to be wise stewards of our resources. Since he works full-time so that I can stay home with our son, that means I have more time than he does to be able to balance our checkbook and keep up with our budget. Knowing how important it is to him, it really means a lot to me that he trusts me completely with keeping our budget, and it makes me want to do a good job to honor his trust.

So I think that’s where I’ll end it for today, but I know there’s much more to be added… I should print this and post it on my wall so whenever I start feeling discouraged or resentful about something that isn’t going well, I can remember ALL I have to be thankful for.

Joni has been married to her best friend, Justin, since 2005, and together they have a 2-year-old son, Elias. Joni has always wanted to be a stay-at-home mom, so it was such a blessing when God allowed her to do that when Elias came along. Joni is also a Pampered Chef Consultant, since she loves to cook and throw parties! Read more of Joni’s thoughts about being a Christian wife at muddymamas.net.