A funny thing happened on my way to church….

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” (1^st Corinthians 4:7)