Victory in Marriage

I finally have peace in my marriage. It didn’t come easy and it took months, maybe years to get to where I am today.

Although I haven’t arrived at that state where there’s more joy and peace in my marriage, I can safely say that when you trust and obey god things go much smoother. I guess I learned this the hard way.

I really feel that my brain is wired for fights and arguments, especially with the husband. I allow everything to bother me. Small or big, it doesn’t matter.

Our weekends and time together has been nothing but disappointing and frustrating. We’ve been growing distant. There’s nothing to talk about or do together. We don’t bond or talk about our future and so on.

Not only does this eat me up inside but I’ve allowed emotional companions like bitterness, resentment and hatred to dwell deep within my heart. Do you know what those emotions do to your life?! They’ve caused me to be angry, physically sick and I’ve developed insomnia. This kind of stuff negatively effects your life and the people around you.

We were not made for anything but love according to Gods word. So any other emotion challenges our original purpose. The hardest thing for me to do is to love when I feel violated.

I’ve heard it said when someone squeezes oranges they get orange juice which is sweet. Yet when someone squeezes us, what happens? Does something sweet come out of us? When I get squeezed, anger, hatred and other strong emotions come out.

My biggest problem in life is to allow god to take over. The Lord has been dealing with my heart about my marriage yet I refused his help, sometimes intentionally. Call it pride or stupidity… But when we don’t follow god life gets harder for us.

My life sure did get harder. Sometimes I deal with difficulties by avoidance or removal of the upsetting event or person from my life. The easiest way for me to get rid of all my marriage problems is to file for a divorce. I’d rationalize by thinking divorce would give me peace, revenge, and freedom from suffering.

What keeps me from divorcing my husband? One simple sentence…I love Christ. And since he is opposed to divorce that makes me opposed to it too. Yet that old mindset has a strong hold on me.

My solution to problems, it seems, is to run away. So if god doesn’t want me to run away, how can I stay? It’s a big price to stay and suffer. Surely it can’t be gods will for me, can it?

When I think about these questions, I’m reminded that god knows the plans he has for me. They are plans for good. Plans that won’t harm me. Plans to give me hope and a future. So why isn’t this working in my marriage?

My reaction to my husband is the cause of my suffering. God, my husband and I were married at the alter. Yet I leave him out, especially when I face difficulties. My focus tends to be on my circumstances not my lord.

Many times I judged my husband and built a case against him. Even when god would remind me that love is patient, kind, and keeps no scores of wrongs, I was too stubborn to listen.

So what happened? Things kept getting worse. My emotions depleted all my energy. Anger that tore through my heart and every organ subsided in me. Anxiety, panic and all sorts of phobia entered my life! Why? Because I didn’t listen. When god said forgive, I said no. Who did I hurt? I hurt my husband, my body, and my son.

God also said he that began a good thing in you will be faithful to complete it. He is not finished with me yet. Here’s how I know.

On top of all the emotions previously mentioned, last week I hit rock bottom. I was so depressed, I hated my life. Yet there was god. And even though he never left and I heard him at times offer me help that I refused. Something on the inside wanted change. I didn’t want to be depressed.

So I started obeying gods prompts. If he said go hug your husband, I did it. If he said forgive him and pray for him, I did it. It’s that simple. Relationships are not about looking at our partners faults, it’s about allowing god to love them through us!

This isn’t always easy but neither is running away or fighting with your spouse. As I started doing little nice things for my husband, I would always pray. I prayed for gods will to be done in my life. I prayed for god to help me see my husband the way Jesus sees him. I prayed for patience and for god to guard my tongue from harsh words. I prayed when every part of me screamed out this isn’t fair.

Result… depression no longer has a hold on me; my heart of stone is melting; I’m living with more peace and joy. Why didn’t I let god take charge sooner? Why am I still taking charge of other things that I should be willing to give him? Even though on the outside things look the same, god changed me from the inside.

Now when I have a problem, I pray for god to change me before he changes my circumstances. The Lord is faithful and he is good. He wants to help us. His ways are better than ours. The more I learn about him the more I trust him with my life.

God doesn’t want to see his children suffer. However, we have free will. If we chose to solve things by our strength, we will have difficulty. I’m learning that I’m not smart enough to run my own life. I’ve learned that if I had let god handle my marriage sooner, I would’ve avoided a lot of pain and suffering. God wants to help us so let’s let him.

The Least Expected

The New Testament talks a lot about helping the needy and the poor. I’m usually very good at helping out financially. Yet lately The Lord has been pouring something deeper in my heart.

I’ve been thinking it’s not enough, although it’s a terrific deed, to just write a check and donate it to a need. I want to see it in action. I want to donate myself, my time and my life to a Christ filled purpose.

For a while I’ve been listening to my pastor as he shared his experience dealing and living with the homeless in a nearby city. He lived with them for a week and helped change their lives.

His words really touched my heart. Now when I see a homeless person, I want to pray for them and help them by giving them money, coffee, or food. God is really changing my heart about people.

You see, I was one of those germ a phobics who was afraid to touch things. So I didn’t want to talk to a homeless person or touch them out of fear that I’d catch something. Yet, our god is so awesome and loves to use our fear to move us into victory. So let me share with you one of my victories…..

I’ve been working in an urban area for over a decade. I encounter different homeless people begging for money on my way to work. Once I saw this women who just looked awful. She had a thin frame, gray dirty hair and a face that was exhausted. She broke my heart. She looked like someone on drugs and in bad shape. So I started praying for her. I remember pleading with god to fix her life. Anyway, she’s not the real victory I want to share. I only include her because she was the first I started praying for. I no longer see her so hopefully father god blessed her with a better life.

I met a young man who is homeless and sleeps on the street. I have to say that I need to give Jesus a special thanks for putting up with such a selfish and resistant person like me. The Lord would give me prompts to give this man a dollar or to pray for him. Praying I can do and love to do. But I was hesitant to give him money because I saw him everyday and I felt uncomfortable since in my head I thought he would come to expect this of me every time I saw him and I didn’t want to deal with that pressure, you know. Also, what if I didn’t have cash on me? Would that mean I’d have to go to the bank more often and keep enough singles in my pocket? Too much thinking, too much pressure, too much worrying. My worst thought was what if this man ends up hurting me?

Luckily I found the answers to all the nonsense and distracting thoughts. It was praying and allowing god to guide me. I finally surrendered and told god to help me and to make sure that it was his voice and the Holy Spirit that led me. Of course, god is faithful.

Not only is god faithful, but my dollar and prayers brought back such unexpected joy and I’m discovering a more meaningful relationship with Christ! Glory to god!!!!

You see this man, we’ll call him John, has radiant blue eyes and a face that reminds me of Christ. I was shocked at the resemblance when I first rolled down my window to give him a dollar. ( I secretly hope that I’m one of the few who see Christs’ face in him, call it a special bond that I want to have with Jesus).

So after seeing Jesus face in John, real or imagined doesn’t matter, I was happy… I just felt joy all day ( joy feels way better than happiness by the way).
John continues to be a constant blessing in my life. He asks me to pray for him and shares with me how god is opening doors for him.

Once he was struggling and asked me to pray for him and I said I would. The next day he came to my car so happy and shared with me that my prayer for him worked. I of course told him that Jesus was responsible for answering his prayer and I was just the one doing the praying. I also told him to think highly of himself and that god has bigger and better things for him.

I try to build John up since I got this idea from listening to a radio station. The DJ had a special guest who suggested praying hope and life into a homeless persons life. I knew from listening to the radio station that Jesus was telling me to do that for John.

Lately, god is helping me pick out a book that will forever change John. My prayer is that I gain the ability to hear that still small voice that leads to a blessed life.

So in closing I just want to say that when we open our hearts to Christ, he not only blesses others through us but they can amazingly surprise and change us. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve drove off feeling joy because John gave me a smile, or used phrases like, ” your an angle, hello sunshine, thank you sister,” and so on. I would say to god, ” Lord here I am trying to make a difference in this mans life yet he is the one making a difference in me.” Wow. I can almost here god saying: exactly! Bingo! Ditto! You are getting it.