A friend’s church; wasn’t mine. My newly-acquired hubby and
I usually met on Friday evenings to attend our local youth service, but tonight
my girlfriend had an idea. (Be careful of girlfriends with ideas.)
“One of our friends is preaching tonight in St. Catherine.
Why don’t you come with us? Should be fun. Just leave hubby a note and let him know where
you are. He won’t mind.”
Having recently married, and still used to going out with my
friends at a moment’s notice, that seemed harmless enough.
So leaving a message for Andre with a smirking friend, five
of us piled into the little blue Peugeot and headed toward St. Catherine. We
stopped on the way to put gas in the car then resumed our journey. After about two minutes on the road, the car began to backfire and rock back and forth as if it were
having spasms.
“Oh, man,” our driver lamented, “The gas attendant must have
put in petrol instead of diesel fluid. We have to go back.”
As he began to turn the car around, my
girlfriend remarked in an annoyingly smug voice, "There is a Jonah on board this car.”
No one had to look around to figure out who that fit. I felt like Jonah. Like I had run away from my
responsibility to be accountable to my husband and, instead of checking in with him first, I had simply gone off with my friends without much regard for
what he might think.
And, like Jonah, the Lord didn't allow me to get away
with it.
As I bashfully returned to meet with my husband, I realized the
Lord had taught me a valuable lesson, and one that I needed to pay attention
to in the future: To show respect to my mate at all times and in all circumstances.
“The wife hath not
power over her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath
not power over his own body, but the wife” (1st Corinthians 4:7)
