4 Ways to Care for Moms with Unbelieving Husbands
“Mommy, I don’t want to go to heaven if Daddy isn’t going to be there.”
Lauren* hears the sadness in her son’s voice. She sees his upper lip trembling and the tears sitting in his eyes. Feeling something like physical pain, her mind races to come up with the most helpful thing to say to his nine-year-old heart.[1]
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Fiona sits down on the sofa, Bible and notebook in hand. She closes her eyes and silently joins in with the song of praise that’s playing over the smart speaker. Her husband walks into the room. After a few minutes, the song in her heart turns to sadness as she hears him say, “Alexa, turn it off!”
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“Can it wait, please?” Jenny responds, struggling to keep the irritation out of her voice, as her husband interrupts her quiet time for the fourth time in a week.
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When we come to Jesus, he doesn’t just call us “friends” (John 15:15)—he also calls us “family” (Hebrews 2:11). And when we come to Jesus, his family becomes our family, too. Women like my friends—Lauren, Fiona, and Jenny—become our sisters in Christ.
One of the ways we are to love our brothers and sisters is found in the book of Galatians: God asks us to “bear one another’s burdens” (Galatians 6:2). In doing so, God is calling us to become more like Jesus. Jesus entered our world and met our greatest need on the cross. But time and again in the Gospels, we see that he also entered into the worlds of those he met—he never dealt with people in a cookie-cutter way. One beautiful example of this is the way he saw the practical needs of his mother and provided for them, even as he endured the agony of the cross.[2] Jesus shows us what it looks like to “bear one another’s burdens.”[3]
So how can we support the moms in our churches who are married to unbelieving husbands?
I asked that question to Lauren, Fiona, and Jenny, and four common themes came back. Just as all wives are different, so too are each of their husbands. He might be open-minded and supportive of his wife’s faith, or he might be openly hostile to the gospel—or somewhere in between. This list is not exhaustive, so please do ask the women in your own church family how you can best help them.
1. Pray for her
It’s often our husbands or those closest to us who see us at our most ungodly. But a sister married to an unbeliever may face particular temptations towards shame and guilt in times of marital conflict. She may struggle with thoughts such as, “If only I were less fill-in-the-gap, perhaps then he would follow Christ.” So, let’s pray that God will help her to resist despair—remembering that she’s called to pursue godliness, not do the work that only God can do.[4] And as she continues to “work out [her] salvation” (Philippians 2:12), we can pray she will both find her joy in the Lord and adorn the gospel to her husband.
For some wives, it can feel pointless to persist in sharing the gospel with their husbands. And some may have to remind themselves to keep praying when, year after year, they don’t see any progress. We’re given a beautiful picture of God’s ceaseless grace in the parable of the lost coin in Luke 15:8-10: his is a love that perseveres in searching for sinners. So, let’s pray that our sister imitates him, trusting in his good plans, even when she can’t see any spiritual fruit.[3]
She may also feel torn between the needs of her husband and children and the needs of her church family. We can pray that God will help her as she seeks to serve both well—and that God will give her wisdom to discern what that will look like in the different seasons of her life.
2. Befriend her husband
The mom married to an unbeliever may long for her husband to have a close male friend who’s a Christian. Someone who, in being a true friend to him, will point him to the One who is our greatest Friend. How might we encourage the men around us to consider taking steps to befriend her husband?
One of the most meaningful ways we can support a sister in this position is to commit to praying faithfully for her husband to repent and believe—and to encourage her by regularly reminding her that we’re praying.[5]
3. Disciple her
We all need spiritual role models, and it’s no different for the woman married to an unbeliever.[6] She’s likely hungry to learn from older women in the same position how to “love [her] husband and children” (Titus 2:4) in her particular context.
Maybe we’re on our church leadership team and there are ways we can facilitate this. Could we start a prayer support group? Could we ask an older woman in this position (perhaps from a partner church) to give a seminar for younger wives in our church family? Could we invite a seasoned mentor to read the Bible with the new Christian who’s also married to an unbeliever?
As a wider church family, let’s be sisters who provide a gospel lens on difficult life situations, who pray with our friend for her husband and children, who help her to battle the unfounded guilt she may feel every Sunday morning when she walks out of the house, who discuss the treasures of God’s Word with her, and who encourage her in her walk with Christ during the week.
4. Love her children
The mom married to an unbeliever can feel like she’s paddling upstream as she seeks to raise her children in the Lord. She may dread the half hour before Sunday school, with two energetic preschoolers who want their Daddy. She may feel like giving up on family devotions with her reluctant tweens or have the grief of watching older children choose not to prioritize church on a Sunday. She may not know how to respond if her husband buys their children books that offer an alternative worldview. Let’s pray for her as she bears this responsibility, and let’s pray earnestly for her kids’ salvation.
Lastly, we can step up by taking an interest in her children’s lives (even if they are not interested in church), by spurring them on spiritually, and by encouraging our brothers in Christ to give them examples of what godly men and Christlike fathers look like.
We all have different gifts and we’re all in different seasons of life, but let’s think about how we can bear our sisters’ burdens[7]—and, in doing so, glorify the One who called us into his dearly loved family.
* I’ve changed my friends’ names.
[1] For those who might find it helpful, I’ve summarized how my friend responded: “Heaven isn’t going to be like our time on earth, where we live in a family with a mommy and a daddy—we will be with Jesus, which will be amazing; we will love everyone around us; and we won’t be sad that people we once loved are not there. Our love for Jesus will be so big that there won’t be room in our hearts for sadness. But we love Daddy so much, and the most important thing for him to do is trust in Jesus in his life. So, let’s pray together for Daddy.”
[2] John 19:26-27
[3] Carolyn Lacey makes this point in her excellent little book Extraordinary Hospitality (for Ordinary People), chapter 5. She also makes a similar point about the importance of God’s people imitating his persistent love in chapter 4.
[4] 1 Peter 3:2
[5] Mark 1:15
[6] Titus 2:4, 1 Corinthians 11:1
[7] Galatians 6:2
