As we approached home, I reflected upon what our counselor advised me to do, shut up and pray (Take the Muzzle Off Your Man).  She even led me to a scripture, Proverbs 27:15-16,  A quarrelsome wife is as annoying as constant dripping on a rainy day.  Stopping her complaints is like trying to stop the wind or trying to hold something with greased hands.   Ha!  Never knew that was in the bible.   She suggested that I tell my fiance what’s bothering me, remind him once and if he still hadn’t responded to pray to God about it.  If I went to him a third time, that was considered nagging.  Well, if I hadn’t mastered anything else in life I was a pro at nagging.  A matter a fact, I began to love to nag because I knew how to get to him.  I would actually sit and think of ways to really get under that skin. To nag is to annoy or irritate a person with persistent fault-finding or continuous urging. I felt my nagging was justifiable because my fiance had areas that I believed he needed to improve.  I just wanted to help him to become a better person.  So my strategy was to make him talk about what ever was bothering me.  Obviously, that didn’t work or it wouldn’t have become nagging. But what else was I to do?  I didn’t understand how me attempting to help you become better was a problem.  Just do what I asked.  That’s simple.

Of course after every lesson there’s a test.  And of course if you don’t study you fail.  So I failed, not once, not twice, but several times before I finally put what was taught to me in action.  This nagging was embedded in me so deep and I didn’t even know I was nagging at times.  The more I nagged the less we saw of each other.  He eventually stopped going to counseling.  Now why would he do that?  That just gave me one more thing to nag him about.  Come on now…what else was I supposed to do, follow the advice of my counselor and pray? And I’m not getting my way?  Huh! Yeah right! I had to let this out.  You would think he liked this nagging that he claimed was so bothersome.  This ugly cycle continued.  I’d call, text, write and try again.  Even when I was able to get it all out he was hearing me but not listening.  There’s a difference. (Is You Hearing or Is You Listening to Your Spouse?)

The day finally arrived when I got tired and gave into my counselor’s advice.  I bit my tongue and prayed instead of picking up the phone.  I opened a book of prayers and read a prayer about nagging.  I still have that book but until this day, I haven’t found the prayer I prayed that day in the book.  It’s like God just put it there for me at that moment.  A week after reading that prayer, my fiance called me and asked was I ready because he was on his way to take me to our counseling session. The same sessions he abandoned and that I prayed for him to return to.  So in the words of my counselor, Shut Up and Pray! Ladies, we can’t change the man but God can. And in the process of praying for his change, He changes us as well. Gotta love HIM!

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