Not many people would say they have not come across the name Pastor Jerry Eze, at least on one of the social media platforms. For those who may not know him, Jerry Eze is a Nigerian Pentecostal pastor and the founder of Streams of Joy International, a ministry that has grown enormously through its online prayer programme NSPPD (New Season Prophetic Prayers and Declarations). I just stumbled on a story said to be his testimony about his marriage, and I found myself reading it differently from the way such stories are usually consumed online.
He said that when he got married, marriage was "hell" - the problem was largely his wife's anger. He recalled an incident during the first week of their marriage: in the kitchen, he asked her a simple question; she became angry and sent the cups and plates she was arranging crashing to the floor. He was shocked, packed his things and left because he genuinely feared that he might be beaten - and this was not an isolated incident.
Eventually, he told God he was done, reasoning that they were both successful and could simply go their separate ways. He recalled another incident while they were in London - his wife had gone into a shop while he remained outside; he went into another shop; when she returned and could not find him she became upset; she left him there, and when he asked her friend for her whereabouts the response was reportedly "Let him find his way back."
By the time his wife returned to Nigeria, things became even worse. Then one day, while praying, he told God that this was the end - and then, according to his testimony, he received an answer that completely changed his perspective: "This marriage is not a destination. It is an assignment." Instead of approaching marriage primarily from the standpoint of what he expected to receive from his wife, he began to see himself as someone who also had a responsibility within the marriage - he had to learn to love, to control his reactions, not to respond to every expression of anger with anger, and to stop expecting his wife to behave exactly the way he wanted.
The marriage did not suddenly become perfect, but eventually, he says, the woman he once described in those difficult terms became one of the sweetest people one could meet. Now this is where Jerry Eze's story stopped being just about Jerry Eze for me - it raises a much bigger question about what we actually expect from marriage. We often enter marriage with an invisible list of expectations; and when it becomes difficult, our first instinct is often to ask "When will my spouse change?"
Perhaps one of the hardest questions marriage can force us to ask is "What does this relationship reveal about me?" His assignment was not to change his wife - it was to work on himself. But there is an important qualification: marriage being an assignment does not mean someone must endure everything their spouse does; patience is not permission for abuse, forgiveness does not mean pretending nothing happened, and two people both have their assignments in a marriage - you cannot do your spouse's assignment for them.
Marriage is not simply about finding someone who will make you happy; it is also about becoming someone capable of making another person feel loved, respected and safe.
