The deepest pain of a sundered covenant finds its truest mirror in the heart of God, for He has known the breach of a broken marriage. Turn your eyes from the faithless one for a moment and consider this: "He has committed unto us the word of reconciliation" because He first reconciled us to Himself. Before you plead for a breakthrough in your earthly home, see to it that you are anchored in the peace that surpasses all understanding, the peace made by the blood of the Lamb. When we speak of the joy this reconciliation brings, we can say, "We know it is so, for we have felt it." Let that felt reality be your floor in this flood of sorrow.
The leaves of the tree are for healing, and the very least thing about Christ has medicine in it for a broken heart. Do not despise the small channels of grace, a verse half-remembered, a hymn fragment in the night watches, the silent tear before the throne. These are leaves dropping from the celestial tree. The Lord who made the marriage covenant is not indifferent to its violation; He calls your husband to account with a word that can unmake and remake a soul. But the reconciliation you crave between man and wife must bow before the greater reconciliation between the sinner and his God. All things are of God, and if there is to be any true mending of this earthly bond, the Spirit must first do a work in the heart of the wanderer that no human pleading can accomplish.
Pray, then, as one who shoots the pointed arrows of petition from a bow fully bent. Ask for the salvation of your husband’s soul, for a man walking in the dark valleys of lust is blind from his birth spiritually. No surgical skill of moral reasoning can give him sight; a Divine hand alone can open eyes sealed since the beginning. This is a case that baffles all natural effort, his understanding has become unshipwrecked, at a distance from God. Therefore, let your cry be: "Lord, blot it out from Your eyes! Wash him, purge him, but O, take not Your Holy Spirit from me, for I am undone if You do!" The hearing of faith comes not by self-reliance, but as a work of the Spirit. Myriads of tremblers have felt faith leap up when Christ was set before them as Prince and Savior, giving repentance and remission.
Remember Peter’s restoration. That look of Christ severed him from the crowd; he went out and wept bitterly. It was a weeping that preceded full mending. The Lord of restoration works in the solitude of the chamber, in the bitter tears that open the sluices of a hard heart. Do not be surprised if the breakthrough you seek comes first as a breaking, a breaking of pride, a breaking of the spell of sin. The phrase "the Lamb" is the keynote of heaven’s marriage feast, and no earthly union can be healed except under that crimson banner. The harlot spirit and the simple faith of Christ are at war. Point your husband to nothing but the Crucified; no emotional plea, no guilt, no memory of past joys will do what a sight of the pierced hands and feet will perform.
Heal me, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved. This is the word of reconciliation. If the Lord does not build the house, they labor in vain that build it. Yet, His bow is not bent forever, He delights in mercy. "Restore unto me the joy of Your salvation," David cried from the depths of blood-guiltiness, and that prayer was heard. Let your tongue, even now in the night of weeping, learn to sing aloud of His righteousness. The valley of Achor becomes a door of hope when our evil ways are forsaken. So pray for that forsaking, for that miracle of mercy that makes the dead man live, that awakens the slumbering spirit from the direful power of darkness. The consummation of love’s great design is yet to come; until then, wait and weep and watch at His feet, knowing that the healing of the nations proceeds from the throne from which abundant streams of grace flow down.