A loaded question...

One of my closest friends left me this comment..."hey I hear you so clear when one is married to a basically well meaning spouse and is dealing with life's little frustrations, but what do you say to the spouse who's dealing with more serious issues?  Infidelity, you commented on it at one point?  Financial despair?  Emotional Abuse?  Someone with mental health issues?  Or addictions?  Some thoughts please...(p.s. I know your stance, but sharing some might help)"

  

Wow, that is more than enough to keep me busy for the next 23 days.  But I will attempt to touch on some of it now.

This question makes me a bit nervous because ultimately I will say something that is offensive to someone, but I will focus on the basic truths as I know them.  As a side note to start off I need to say that although I believe that no situation is bigger than God can handle or redeem, I do not believe that a spouse should stay in a situation where they are in physical danger.   And In the case of infidelity, a spouse has every right to leave, although I believe with my whole heart that God can even redeem a situation where a spouse has been unfaithful.    I just pray that I never have need to walk through that process.  

I have not made it any secret that I believe that God is the key to a lasting marriage and some of what I am going to say comes out of a deep faith in Him and in His word.  In 10 years I have been through some weighty trials in marriage.  Although on the surface they may not compare to actual infidelity, financial despair, or abuse, they did evoke a conflict within myself and inflicted pain that was hard to bear.  We cannot compare our suffering with another's because the trials we walk through are specific to who we are.  I do not want to minimize anyone's suffering or imply that I have any clue about the pain.  I have only known my own, and outside of that I can only try to imagine and sympathize.  For one woman having a husband who struggles with pornography can reap devastation.   For another dealing with a souse who is depressed can be a burden that feels too difficult to bear.  Our suffering and pain is unique and individual to our situation and our own places of insecurity and woundedness, but God's redemptive power is available in the same way to all of us.  His desire is for our wholeness and he uses marriage to bring out the junk in us...like fire brings out and burns up impurities in metal.  So whatever our situation or trial, we will come out the other side a different person.  And as we walk through our own pain we are equipped to help others through similar struggles.

Ok, I realize that I have barely scratched the surface of the questions, but the things that I want to say will take hours, and as I share my life and attention with 3 little people and a full day ahead I must pause for now and continue this later.

Focus on the good...

By dinnertime today I was feeling overwhelmed by life(mostly mess and the chores that had been left undone).  I was scrambling to clean up the mess I'd made painting the stairwell, the mess the kids had made throughout the day, and the mess leftover from last night's dinner.  At the same time I was trying to cook a meal(or at least decide what to make) and keep an eye on the little people in my life.  It seemed that everywhere I looked I saw something else that needed my attention and even my rambling thots drifted to things I had yet to do.   I was quite a mess.   Totally frazzled and overwhelmed.  At that point I decided that I should call my loving husband, because surely he would care...and listen and make me feel better.  Of course my timing couldn't have been worse for him as he was dodging through Vancouver traffic and anxiously trying to get home.  Instead of sympathetically listening and being supportive, he said he needed to get back to driving and that he thot I had called about something important and as I hung up the phone I think I muttered "thanks for nothing.".  Can you picture it.  I know we've all been there.  I was offended and began to grumble and shed a couple self pitying tears and then got on with making dinner and cleaning up and the world did not fall apart.  Surprise. Surprise.  By the time the love of my life walked in door, the house was clean, the kids were fed and I was more myself...he had called to apologize and let me vent a little while before and that helped too.  I have an idea that marriage can be kind of like my dinnertime melt down.  When we focus on the negative and all the things we want to fix we can get overwhelmed.  We can get bitter or have a little pity party and get ourselves kind of stuck.   But lately I have been reminded about all the great things about marriage and that is where I am choosing to focus my attention.  I have an amazing husband who is a total gift to me.  He works his ass of daily to provide the awesome life that we have.  He challenges me to be different.  He tells me the truth instead of telling me what I want to hear.  He makes me happy.  He likes my laugh.  He is trusting God to guide his decisions.  He tries really hard to be available to me and listen to me when I need to talk.  He encourages me to have a life and do things that I love.  I know that he even likes me, which is a good feeling.   We are still enjoying each other after 10 years together.  Yes, we both still need work and we fail daily, but I don't want to my focus to be on that.  Those thing will work themselves out just like my day did.  Now the kids are in bed and I have had my prayer time for marriage  and I have shared these thots with anyone who is listening.  Erica posted a cool comment on here and I'm gonna add it...cuz it's good." Marriage is work but I find it helps to remember why we got married in the first place and that beneath all the daily fuss there is a strong, unbreaking foundation.  Like a house near a row of pine trees where all the needles have fallen on the roof.  If you leave the layers there too long, it will rot your roof.  So every once in a while you've got to get up there and sweep the crap off.  God is the one to throw you the broom, sometimes in a gentle jaunty way as if to say "Hey, heads up...here comes a broom"  Other times he chucks it like a javelin and it hits you in the face."   

May God bless you as you pray with me.

???

Well I guess it was day 5 and nothing profound really happened...in the natural.  It seems it was a little easier to pray, but perhaps because a friend prayed for me.  Living in the natural, we're doing battle in the spiritual and I suppose that is what she did for me today.  Another friend of mine shared with me how she had begun to speak the truth in a situation where a marriage was broken. She had encountered opposition from Christian people eager to just let things be and keep silent.  It is amazing to me how little deceptions have crept into the Christian community.  You hear little comments here and there and wonder how we have gotten so far away from God's heart of redemption and restoration.  I even have a friend who's closest support people in her life are rooting for her marriage to fall apart because they don't approve of her husband.  How in the world did it come to that.  God blesses marriage...yet we are waiting and betting on them to fail.  And then once people have decided to separate, everyone either keeps silent or is eager to support their friend along the road to divorce instead of speaking God's hope in the midst of brokenness.   In the Bible, God allowed divorce because of hardness of hearts.  I was thinking about that today.  We harden our hearts to protect ourselves from being hurt and feeling pain, but it also keeps us from seeing God's redemptive power work.  He has the power when we are willing to forgive to wipe the slate clean of bitterness and mistrust.  Even in the case of infidelity, God can redeem marriages for His glory.  The more I look around, the more convinced I am that we need to keep doing battle in the heavenly realm.  Marriage is so vulnerable, people are so deceived or unwilling to stand for the truth.  I am proud of my friend who is praying for and encouraging restoration.  She is taking a risk...a risk that people will misunderstand and judge her.  That takes more courage than keeping silent does.  And I am joining with her to pray for restoration.  Keep praying friends!!! "Step by step we're moving forward, little by little taking ground, every prayer a powerful weapon, strongholds come tumbling down and down and down"  Share your experiences as you pray.  Are you finding it hard.  Are you seeing things differently?  When we share even our struggles, we may just encourage someone else to keep going or give someone else a chance to bear out burdens.

remember the warning???a note to self...

Well it is day 4 of this venture praying for marriage and like my warning a couple days ago said...expect opposition and that is what I am facing right now.  Because I am surrounded by 3 little people all day, I like to wait till I can get away alone to spend the time in prayer...usually right after I put the kids to bed.  So tonight just after dinner I got this wierd nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach that got progressively worse until the kids bedtime.  I felt depressed/lonely/nervous/fat...wierd...and I wanted to do anything else but pray.  So I figured I had better get on my knees.  Then when I did I was bombarded with fear.  It was a battle for me and I admit that I instinctively wanted to run away from it, but I pressed through and prayed again for marriage and my friends and those of you who are walking through this with me.  It was definately not easy but at the same time I am even more convinced that this little venture is a threat to the enemy who delights in seeing marriages fall apart.  

The thing that I have learned about myself over the years is that I don't like work, I don't like feeling yucky, and I don't like feeling nervous or fearful.  It makes me want to turn and run instead of stand and fight.  But I must.  The same way I must stand and fight for my marriage.  The same way I need to work to do things differently when conflict arises with my husband.  And the same way I need to face my negative feelings instead of running away from them.  I heard a quote today and I might have remembered it slightly wrong, but you'll get the gist.  "Marriage isn't meant to make you happy, it's meant to make you holy. " I guess that is why it is such a threat to the enemy of our souls.  God's desire is for us to become more like Him and He uses marriage to work out that purpose.  It is so sad to see so many throw in the towel and miss out on the refining that takes place through the years in marriage.  So if like me, you're finding it hard to persevere and pray...press through, because it is a worthy fight and it is vital that we win...May God give us all the strength to stand in prayer for the next 26 days.

Telling the truth in a world full of lies.

Ok.  I have to tell you that when I got married 10 years ago, I fully expected the Fairy Tale.  I had found or rather God had given me the perfect man for me, and somehow I figured that the life we were entering into together would be free of conflict and struggle.  God had shown me that this was the man for me and I couldn't imagine that His purpose could be anything but perfection for us from day 1.  I hadn't had much experience with dating and men and the few relationships that I'd had never made it beyond the infatuation stage, but somehow I had it in my head that love was all about a "feeling".   And when I had the "feeling" I knew that I loved my man.  Then something unexpected happened to me.  I am one of those people who have a crazy bad reaction to the hormones in  birth control and at the advise of my doctor, I had chosen an injection form that stayed in your body for 3 months.  So 1 month before my wedding I went from being a level headed, rational, happy woman in "love"  to being a mess.  I was a wreck struggling to hold onto that feeling I thot was love while all my other wacked out emotions were telling me my world was falling apart.  Some people have their Fairy Tale bubble burst slowly over time, but this was God's way of speaking to me.  He shattered most of my pre conceived notions about marriage within the first few months.  And my very patient, wise and loving husband began to tell me the truth about what love really was...a choice you make daily to love...love being an action and not a feeling.  And that's what I want to talk about today... the marriages that end because people just aren't "in love" anymore.  The idea that love is a feeling vs a choice to act in love is a deception.   A deception that is causing people to quit before they really have a chance to experience the depth of relationship that comes as we chose to walk through the years together putting love into action.  Marriages are ending because people are convinced that the Fairy Tale is still out there somewhere and that they just must have made a mistake in their choice.  How can we be so deceived?   How can we not understand that love goes deeper than a feeling.  How is it that we don't recognize a lie when we see it.  Why aren't people out there telling the truth.  There is nothing in God's word that describes love as a feeling...that's what TV and Soap Operas do, but God's word tells the truth about Love.  Love is Patient, kind, not proud, forgiving, bearing with one another etc.  It is inevitable that the feeling we have when a relationship is new is going to fade as we walk through the years together, but if we throw in the towel we miss out on something so much deeper and more precious.  The feelings are awesome and exciting, but they always come and go.  We can enjoy them while they are there, but build our foundation on something more sure.  And tell each other the truth as we struggle with shifting our belief from the Fairy Tale to the truth as God tells it.  I always wondered why no one told me about this before I got married.  And why did no one tell me that men really are from Mars, and that no matter how much you think you know each other before you get married, you really don't have a clue, or that no matter how good you think your relationship is, it will be challenged by money issues, family conflict, sexual hangups...excess baggage, unrealistic expectations etc...but those are topics we can discuss on another of the 27 days that are left in this little adventure that you're on with me.

WARNING!!!

Don't be surprised if embarking on this journey with me brings some opposition.  We have an enemy who is threatened by a strong marriage.  Even this morning I find that we are grouchy and snappy with each other...perhaps it's time to get on my knees and spend my 15.  If you find yourself in the same boat...do the same.

Men love your wives...

Well I know that we've all heard that one and we can think of millions of ways our husbands fall short on that one daily.  Possibly that might be the main reason a lot of women feel unfulfilled in their marriage.  But do you know that that is only half the verse and men are only half of the problem.  The other part says, and wives RESPECT your husband.  Do you??? Do you even know what that means.   I say this because I didn't...up until about a year ago.  And like many women, I sat with my best girlfriends and vented/griped about what an unloving husband I had.  I also told him/nagged him almost daily about it...all the while not understanding why that didn't draw us closer together.  Wierd.  I told him every day all the ways he didn't measure up, and instead of drawing closer to me, he pulled farther away.  Then I read a book called LOVE AND RESPECT by Emmerson Eggerichs and my world changed.  The book didn't change my world, God did, but the book was the means that he used to communicate His word to me.  To be honest I only read the book to help a friend who was struggling in her marriage, but I needed only to read the introduction, before I had a revelation that I had never, in 8 years of marriage respected my man and he knew it.  That night for the first time I truly respected him and I went home and told him so.  I also had a list of reasons why, cuz in the book he warns you that they will ask...and he did.  And from there something miraculous started to happen.  I mention all this because what happened to me opened my eyes to what was missing in mine and the majority of my friends marriages...RESPECT.  Before you write this off, I'll tell you one last thing that I didn't know.  A man's #1 need is respect.  They would rather be respected and not loved than loved and not respected.  I didn't believe it when I read it either, but then I asked my husband and he confirmed it.  And so began the healing process.  We had always had a pretty OK marriage, but as God taught me what it meant to respect my husband, our marriage became pretty great.  It takes a shift in thinking(and a touch from God) for a woman who feels unloved, to take responsibility for her part.  So my encouragement on day 2 of 30 days to pray for marriage, is to get your hands on that book and find out how to communicate love in a way that your husband can receive it...RESPECT.  And let God begin to heal your marriage the way he healed mine...even the good marriages will be strengthened by the wisdom in LOVE AND RESPECT.  Sorry I didn't mean for this to be a plug for a book, but I would surely miss something if I simply regurgitated the info...and I truly believe that it is the key to help hurting marriages in our generation. 

What my world is coming to...

This is my small attempt to make a difference in a world where marriages are under attack.  It seems like every day/week I hear a new story about marriages falling apart...Christian marriages.  I realize what I am going to say may offend some, but it is meant to provide hope for others.  I know that I have been given some great tools to build a strong marriage myself, but the tools aren't the hope that I offer.  The hope that I offer is Jesus.  God's purpose when we 

become one" is "till death do us part" and at times He is the only one that can keep you hanging on when nothing else can.  He is the restorer, comforter, peace bringer, heart changer, healer and builder of relationships that are on the verge of brokenness.  He has done a major work on mine in the last few years and I have a strong desire to share the truth that I have learned with others and stand in prayer for Christian marriages.  So on that note I commence day 1 of 30 days that I intend to specifically spend no less than 15 minutes every day in prayer for marriage.  And I ask you to join me and share your thots along the way.