Wild Heart...

"Sometimes when a woman falls for a guy, she [asks him to change], and he changes so much that she loses her Huck Finn, the rascal in the man she fell in love with. Men are willing to change to make you happy -- but don't completely take the boy out of the man. You're gonna miss him." ~Matthew McConaughey

"...in the heart of every man is a desperate desire for a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue." ~John Eldredge in Wild at Heart

Everytime my husband gets excited about video games, guns, camping, ultimate frisbee or some other wild activity my first reaction is to roll my eyes and ask myself silently why he loves those things and what the appeal is. My next thought is "can I change it?" Camping for one, is something I'll never get. Who likes to be without a proper bathroom and air conditioning? Not me, that's for sure. And not him, if I could help it. I had no interest in finding adventure in the wild with or without him.

It's so easy as a married woman to think that we can change these preferences or habits. When I first married my husband, I tried in vain to change everything about him from the clothes he wore, to his deepest dreams. After about two years we hit a stand still, where he could no longer give in, and I could not stand the idea of him not doing so.

What I had to learn through prayer, God, and some really great marital advice was that it wasn't my job to change him at all. Even the things I saw that he did wrong, even the things I know had hidden and often misguided motivations, even the mistakes I saw him make....it was God's job to deal with him on those. I could nag, scream, cry, vent, and even throw glasses at the wall ( which I did do, I'm sad to say), but I couldn't change him. The only person who can convict, counsel, and change a person effectively is none other than the Lord Himself.

So, while I managed to adequately train my dear husband to put laundry in the basket and not on the floor, and to put the dishes in the washer if it's empty and not in the sink, the heart things...the hard things, belong to his heart and to God.

Besides, if I changed him too much I'd lose the man I fell in love with. Rascal and all.