The NIV 365 Day Devotional

Blessing in the Darkness

After 25 years of marriage, my normally easy-going, even-tempered husband fell into a depression that lasted more than a year. We called it “the darkness.”

He worked (and lived) out of town at the time and was caring for two aunts, which taxed him physically, mentally and emotionally. Also, several of his friends had recently died, including his best friend since childhood.

My husband’s weekend visits home grew less frequent, but when he was home, he stayed to himself. The husband I had known for more than half of my life wasn’t the same one who now sat on the couch and stared at the television.

Even though it was my husband’s depression, it affected me as well. He resisted any attempt at comfort; he didn’t want my help or anyone else’s. We suffered together—alone. He talked a lot about insurance, his pension and what to do if anything bad happened to him. He even suggested that we divorce so that I could find happiness with someone else. It tore me apart to watch the darkness swallow him. I felt helpless and, at times, hopeless.

Proverbs 13:12 says, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick.” Our hearts were definitely sick during that dark time. I questioned God, saying, “Where are you? Why won’t you do something?”

I pleaded for relief for my husband, for me and for our whole family. I never reached the “curse God and die” point that Job’s wife did when it seemed like the gates of hell had opened and dumped calamity and sorrow on her husband and their family. But I often wondered if my husband’s darkness would be our life from then on. I wondered how I could endure it.

The one thing that got me through that bleak time was the Word of God. I used to go down to the lake by our house and listen to the water lapping against the dock. A breeze would blow across my face and I’d recall Scripture: “I can do everything through him who gives me strength” (Philippians 4:13). “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” (Romans 8:35). “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you” (Isaiah 43:2).

Sometimes in the evenings, as my husband slept, I would put my hand on him and pray. Eventually, with the help of counseling and time, the darkness lifted.

That was more than eight years ago. Recently, my husband said that knowing that I wouldn’t leave him, even when he told me that I should, was what stayed with him through the darkness and gave him hope.

It was a terrible time, but it was also good, he said. We are stronger for having gone through it together.

• What has been the most difficult time in our marriage?
• How did it affect our faith? Our relationship with each other?
• In what ways can suffering make a marriage stronger?

Taken from the NIV Couple’s Devotional Bible.