BY SANMI FALOBI
Marriage is not compulsory, so anyone that has chosen to marry must take responsibility and ensure that the marriage works, while those not yet married should not break their head and become saddened by the fact that they are not yet married.
This was the perspective of Pastor (Mrs.) Stella and Pastor Kosmi Ilegogie, Associate Pastor and Head Pastor of Lively Stone Assembly Int’l (LSAI), Kaduna in a recent chat with Church Times.
Mrs. Ilegogie who spoke first noted that though marriage is good and desirable, there are responsibilities that are attached to it for it to work.
“I want to encourage every lady to please take responsibility and keep their marriage when they marry. Though getting married is not a compulsory requirement for life, but when you decide to marry, you should not take it lightly. You can decide not to marry and be happy, but once you decide to marry, take responsibility to love that man to the very end,” she said.
While acknowledging that there are issues and challenges in marriage, she encouraged couples to work in unity to surmount their challenges. She appealed to wives to be supportive of their husbands, likening it to the kind of commitment that Jesus had for his disciples.
“In John 13, when Jesus chose his disciples, they were not perfect but he stayed with them till the very end” she said.
To prospective wives, she admonishes:
“The man that you are going to marry is not perfect and he will not be perfect because he is going to marry. You also are not perfect and you will not be perfect because you are married. So, you must take responsibility for your home. It is a choice. If you make up your mind that you are going to love and going to love to the end, your marriage will work. The people whose marriages are working is not because they don’t have faults. It is just that they chose to take responsibility to make the home work, and it can work if you do and decide to take responsibility to make it work,” she noted.
“By the grace of God, we are 26 years in marriage this year. Last year, we celebrated our silver jubilee with a vow renewal service and we are still on”, she added, noting that every marriage has its challenges, “but it behooves on the couple to make it work, the difficulties notwithstanding.
“I got married at 24. My salary at that time was N1000 while my husband’s salary, was, I think NI200 or N1300 and we started our life that way. Our babies didn’t even wait for us to have resources before they started coming. As soon as we got married, by the next year, I had my first baby and by the following year, I had my second baby so we had two babies on our hands and we had our own lives; that was four mouths to feed with N1000 and N1300. How could we have survived? … but we trusted God.
“So, you must believe in God for you to survive. God is our helper and per time, we were contented with what we had. We put our children in the schools that we could afford. Thank God for exclusive breast feeding which I was able to administer to the children when they were babies so, at the end of the day, we didn’t have to depend so much on formula milk.
“Then again, at each point in time, no matter what resources you have, there’s nothing that is too small if you hand it over to God; God will bless it. Today, our children don’t look like what they have gone through. They are actually bigger than us, so nobody is going to say what formula milk did you give them when they were young”. She said.
Men: How they can make their marriage work
Giving a consolidating perspective, Pastor Kosmi Ilegogie noted that for men to successfully make their marriage work they should love their wives.
“It is a privilege to have a spouse and so as a man, you should humble yourself to love your wife. There was this story of someone who asked his wife to leave. I can’t imagine asking my wife to leave. This girl that I love and pursued and married. How can I live without her in my life and home?
The basis for a successful marriage for the man is love. Ephesians 5:25 says husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it. 1Corothians 13:4 also says that love endures with patience and serenity, love is kind and thoughtful, and is not jealous or envious; love does not brag and is not proud or arrogant”, he said.
According to him, for the sustenance of the home in the face of socio-economic challenges, there is the need for men to be diligent, have good spending habits, believe and trust God for blessings.
“When love is settled, the man must develop and use his faith for finances and to believe God for favour upon the work of his hands. He must practise Christian works of integrity, diligence, faithfulness etc. He should also exercise good money spending and saving habits”, he said.
While noting that the sustenance of the home does not have to be solely on the husband alone, Pastor (Mrs) Stella Ilegogie enjoins couples to cooperate and see themselves as one.
“I like also to encourage and advise couples to see themselves as one. We may have different bank accounts, but our money is still one. Men go through a lot of stuff as they try to labour to bring food to the table and their wives are there to compliment them. Sometimes, women are privilege to even have more resources coming in than the men and they don’t have the pressure to pay the rent or to pay the school fees, so I will just encourage women to help their husbands. At the end of the day, the man will call you blessed. No matter what the challenge is in the home, you as the wife should make up your mind to help the man” she enjoins.
‘Let us pull our resources together and live within our means and go every step at a time. Godliness with contentment is great gain. If you cannot pay for a school with a particular fee, you can put the children in another where you can conveniently pay their school fees. Okay, if you cannot go for vacation in New York, why not go for vacation in the village and just have fun with your family? I believe that if we make up our minds that we will pull our resources with our spouse, it will work out eventually.
So as a woman, look at what you have as your resources and trust in God and God will see you through” she added.
Singles that are waiting
To those waiting for their partners in marriage, Pastor Kosmi and Stella Ilegogie advise:
“Our hearts are with the team ‘yet to be married’. We love to encourage everyone in this space not to live in perpetual sadness but to choose to give glory while passing through this phase of life until the changes come.
Marriage is good and it is very okay to desire it. However, in a case where you find yourself in a very long wait for a Marriage partner, please be happy. Be deliberate and intentional about living every day of your life in joy rather than sadness.
“Don’t become so desperate and get into depression as though life can no longer be lived anymore because you are waiting for a spouse. Do please find joy in every other thing you have while waiting for marriage to happen. After all, the married are also having stuff they are contending with which they are patiently waiting for to happen even though the wait is painfully slow” the IIegogies added.
