My name is Brenda Ochieng and I am married to one great and loving husband Kevin Ochieng (Thank you Kevin for loving me for who i am it never mattered to you what people said) and together we have two lovely children Randy and Janelle Ochieng. We will be celebrating our six years in marriage on the 14th of February 2013 and my marriage must work! By now i know some of us are already raising their eye brows asking how have we managed to get this far and some of us also are celebrating with us especially if you know our back grounds. Well, i must be quick to say its not by our own strength but God has been the pillar that holds our marriage.We have had our share of bad times and it was not easy at all. I know most of us would love to hear that marriages comprise of only good times but am sorry to say, that is half truth the complete truth is if we have God as the pillar that holds our marriages then even in bad times He directs your path. Ephesians 5:21-33 I know this is one of the very familiar verses that every married couple can almost recite closing their eyes but is it a living word in us? Have we made it our life style to live according to the instructions of God?
21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
22 Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing[a] her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— 30 for we are members of his body. 31 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”[b] 32 This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
This is not what we all want to hear but the fact is that it is what we are expected to do :) I want to tell you a bit of my story. I have a very strong personality and sometimes in marriage its a good thing and sometimes its a bad thing. My parents got separated when i was the age of 14 it probably didn't hit me hard because at that time, i had my share of teenage hood problems to take care of. It wasn't until i was old enough to understand marriage that i realized actually we really suffered as children just because of the choices my parents made. That was my past i don't live in it any more but sometimes it haunts me to think of all trouble we went through. My dad was an alcoholic and also the bread winner of the home and my mum was a house wife but it was not easy for her when they got separated because she had to learn to work to feed us.We were born seven children of which my mum had to take care of all of us since my dad had abandoned all his responsibilities. It was not an easy task to take but she tried.
Having lived with my mum as the provider of all our needs at some point made me think that women don't need men in their lives they can actually do it by themselves. This is not true its very wrong to bring up your children without a father figure in their lives because they will grow up not respecting men in the society. I became very dominant and brought that to my marriage and since my husband has a very quiet personality, it became a problem that only God is still helping us. I wanted to be the one who said how things should be done and reaped off my husband his priesthood. All this time i didn't realize what i was doing until when my husband talked to me and reminded me that he was the head of the family. How was i supposed to trust in his leadership when i saw my dad bring everything down? How was i supposed to sit down and be led while i saw my mother lead all the way? Only God can help us. We are now all grown ups and thanking our mum so much for working hard to see we went through school, ate, dressed, played, and lived like the rest of the other children. I just want us to know that our past can be one of the major hindrances to our marriages and we should always sit down and choose to pick the good attributes and leave the bad ones so that we can be better spouses in our marriages.
My husband comes from a polygamous family and i come from a broken home nothing worked for my parents there are many forces that want to ensure that my marriage wont work but am here to say "MINE MUST WORK" not by my own strength but by the strength of Jesus Christ who is the author and finisher of my life.
Brenda Ochieng
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