In His kindness, the Father has shown me something about myself that I have found helpful. I pass it on to you in the hope that you will find it helpful, too.
I have spent a good bit of time reflecting on the years of my marriage. And the one response that returns time and again is regret. I see the many different ways in which I failed to be a good husband. God called me to care for my wife, to cherish her, to do what was necessary so that she would flourish. In so many areas, I did not do that. I now understand better why. There were things about being a husband that I just didn't see. And I didn't see them because I didn't know about them. This does not lessen my responsibility nor my guilt. But it helps me understand what happened. I wasn't as good a husband as I could have been but not because I was callous and unfeeling. I didn't know. To be sure, my sin interfered with my being able to see what I was called to do. That's a factor, and it underlies my guilt. But there is also the fact that there were things I never learned, or I might even say, I was never taught. These are things that I now see and understand.
This is helpful to me because it explains much. What has happened over the years is my maturing as a person. I have moved from being like the simple young man of Proverbs to becoming wise. And so, now I see what I did not see before. And that is, it seems, a good way of thinking about becoming wise. So, now I understand my life better. I have been forgiven all those sins because of Jesus, for which I am so grateful. I have been shown by the Spirit that I was not a heartless husband but one who did not know what being a good husband is like. And I am now blessed by the Father with the ability to see so much of what I did not see. And I hope to pass that on.
We are all afflicted with the problem of not being able to see. The areas of our blindness cover all the different areas of living. We are failing in different ways because we don't see what we need to. But, fortunately, what one does not see another does. And so, our maturing as people is helped as one shows another what he sees and the other returns the favor.