Family Talk Night Light for Couples
A Wife’s Countenance
“He is to be free to stay at home and bring happiness to the wife he has married.” Deuteronomy 24:5
If you really want to know about a man and what kind of character he has, you need only look at the countenance of his wife. Everything he has invested, or withheld, will be there.”
That was the message Bill McCartney, then head coach of the University of Colorado football team, heard in a 1994 sermon. The words cut straight to his heart. McCartney had built the Colorado football program into a powerhouse that won a national championship in 1990. He had also cofounded a national men’s movement, Promise Keepers. But those achievements came at a price. For years McCartney had withheld his time and energy from his wife, Lyndi, and their four children. In 1994 Bill McCartney didn’t like what he saw in Lyndi’s countenance— so he resigned his position at Colorado to devote more time to his wife and family.
As a husband, you bear the primary responsibility for your wife’s welfare and emotional well‐being. What do you see in her face tonight?
Just between us…
- (husband) Do you ever feel like you’re competing for my attention?
- (husband) Do I appear preoccupied by my work or recreational activities?
- (wife) What do you imagine it was like for Bill McCartney to walk away from his successful coaching career?
- (wife) Do you ever struggle with trying to care for my emotional well‐being? Is there anything I can do to help?
(husband) Almighty God, with Your help I wholeheartedly accept my responsibility to care for my wife’s emotional well-being. May I increasingly become a master at it, so that I can see joy and contentment in her face. Amen.
- From Night Light For Couples, by Dr. James & Shirley Dobson
Copyright © 2000 by James Dobson, Inc. All rights reserved. - Quotation from From Ashes to Glory by Bill McCartney (Nashville, Tenn.: Thomas Nelson, Inc., Publishers, 1995).