Today’s Facebook Friday posted by author Vadim Kurkin offers a simple story with a profound lesson. It’s about marriage, love, and personal responsibility. It’s worth reading all the way to the end.
There was once a man who constantly complained to God about his wife. When they first married, he said she had been different. She used to take care of herself, smile more, and make him feel loved. But now, according to him, she had stopped trying. She complained that he did not earn enough, said he never paid attention to her, and seemed irritated with him all the time.
One day, God finally answered.
“I can help you,” God said. “I can transform your wife into a beautiful goddess. But I cannot do it overnight. Everyone around you would wonder where your wife disappeared to and where this extraordinary woman suddenly came from. So I will change her gradually.”
The man’s eyes lit up.
“There is one condition,” God continued. “If you are going to live beside a goddess, then you must become the kind of man worthy of sharing a life with her.”
“Absolutely,” the husband replied. “For a goddess, I’ll change. Tell me what I need to do.”
“Go home,” God said. “Watch your wife carefully. I will begin the transformation today.”
The man hurried home, excited to see the first signs of the miracle. Instead of going straight to the couch and turning on the TV as he normally did, he walked into the kitchen, where his wife was washing dishes.
He stood there studying her face.
His wife noticed immediately.
“What?” she asked, surprised. He almost never came into the kitchen just to be near her anymore, and he certainly did not look at her that way.
Feeling suddenly self-conscious, she pushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear, straightened her shirt, and smiled.
The man stared in amazement.
She already looked different.
God really started, he thought.
Without thinking, he stepped forward and kissed her. It had been a long time since he had kissed her simply because he wanted to.
Then he remembered God’s condition.
“Here,” he said. “Let me help you.”
He picked up a dish towel and began drying while she washed.
His wife looked at him as though he had just performed a magic trick.
And instead of the criticism he had grown accustomed to hearing, he heard something he had not heard in months.
“Thank you.”
The next afternoon, the man found himself wondering, If God has already started changing her, maybe today she’ll look even more like a goddess.
On his way home from work, he stopped and bought flowers.
After all, he thought, if he was going to live with a goddess, he should start behaving like a man who appreciated one.
When he walked through the front door, his wife was wearing a nice dress and had done her hair. She had noticed his attention the night before and, for the first time in a long while, had felt like making an effort for herself.
He handed her the flowers.
Her eyes widened.
“For me?”
“Of course.”
She lowered her eyes, blushed slightly, and smiled.
The man could hardly believe it.
Goddesses really are beautiful, he thought. And apparently they don’t complain nearly as much.
Then he noticed the dining table.
Dinner was ready. The table had been set nicely, and the house felt warmer somehow. His wife placed the flowers in a vase and kept glancing at them as they ate, smiling every time she did.
And goddesses are thoughtful too, he decided.
But then another thought came to him.
If she is becoming a goddess, I have to keep becoming better too.
So instead of finishing dinner and disappearing into another room, he looked across the table at her.
“What would you like to do tomorrow?” he asked.
His wife paused, genuinely confused.
He had not asked what she wanted to do in a very long time.
“I don’t know,” she said softly. “You choose.”
The man smiled.
“How about dinner downtown and a show? I already checked the tickets. And before that, maybe we could find you something nice to wear.”
His wife stared at him.
For the first time in a long while, she felt noticed.
The days passed, and the transformation continued.
He began listening when she spoke instead of immediately defending himself. He helped around the house without waiting to be asked. He started noticing how tired she was. Sometimes he brought home coffee for her. Sometimes she asked about his day before he had the chance to ask about hers.
She laughed more.
She took greater care of herself.
She criticized him less because she no longer felt as invisible.
And he, strangely enough, started feeling more respected too.
Weeks later, they sat together after another quiet dinner. They had talked, laughed, and cleaned up the kitchen side by side.
The man looked around the table and said sincerely, “That may have been the best dinner I’ve had in years.”
Then he raised his eyes and suddenly stopped.
Across from him stood the beautiful woman he had asked God to create.
She was smiling at him with warmth, affection, and gratitude.
For a moment, he could only stare.
Then he finally understood.
God had kept His promise.
But perhaps the miracle had never been about changing his wife alone.
The more he treated her like someone precious, the more she began to feel precious. The more he listened, the more she wanted to talk. The more kindness he offered, the more kindness came back. And while he had been watching for God to transform her, God had quietly been transforming him too.
Sometimes we spend years asking another person to become warmer, happier, more loving, or more attentive without asking what kind of environment we are creating around them.
A marriage cannot be carried by one person, and no spouse is responsible for creating the other person’s happiness. But relationships often change when both people begin giving what they have been waiting to receive.
Sometimes the question is not only, “Why has my partner changed?”
Sometimes it is also worth asking:
“How have I been loving the person beside me?
___________________________________________
There’s a lot of wisdom in that final question. It’s easy to focus on how someone else needs to change. But stronger marriages—and stronger relationships of every kind—often begin when we look in the mirror and ask, “How well am I loving the person beside me?”
ThePreachersWord 