Transformed/ Big Dream, Wee Step

So here we are on week 4 of the Stressed-Less Living online bible study and I again have hit a dilemma  if that is what it can be called, so first off…

I’m sorry.  This week I had to go with a mash of two of the suggested topics.  Though I didn’t know it until I started writing, but it is just the way it is.

I am loving this poster!  Found it online, but it speaks what God keeps gripping my heart with.

I have spent the last year with the biggest struggle of my life.  I honestly thought I would be divorced by this time.  My husband lost my trust almost a year ago and I was left with my world rocked after 23 years of marriage.

I just found that after all those years we should have been beyond that, and quite honestly, I could not forgive or get over this.  Many choices I made this last year have been to try and prepare for separating, rather than repairing my marriage.  We started counseling with our pastor, who is really great, but I am always in the same place.  By Christmas I had lost all feeling and had become so bitter.  (I am admitting this, while not completely being over it).  Now, our pastor, recognizes this and has been really good about giving us, and me, Godly direction and addressing what is going on with me.  He is also hardball hitting my husband with what he needs to be doing.  The problem is that I stopped being transformed by God and started letting the world speak to me.  And my own human sin nature.  I only really revealed a portion of just how seriously over I was.  In my heart I was already separated or divorced.  But I wasn’t and I was making my husband pay every day for the fact that I was where I was and feeling the way I did.

Now some of you would think that, well, he deserved it.  Or I deserved better.  But that is still thinking with the mind of the world.  God has been pointing out a few logs in my own eye.  And by God’s righteous standard mine are no better than his.  I realized that I had to get a grip on what God wanted or I was going to end this with/for all the wrong reasons. My husband has been working hard to change and learn how to be a good Christian husband.  But I have not been acting like a good Christian anything.

And to top it off, in the process of trying to get out, I left all things ministry related, feeling overwhelmed and unworthy, and knowing my heart was not in the right place to be there, yet feeling like I was helpless to have any real control over the situation.

Some of the problem had been building over years of small issues, but most of it is that he is more committed to our marriage, even with his honesty fault, than I am.  I entered this marriage telling him, “Never do this to me or I’m leaving…”

Now I brought into this marriage an already tarnished and broken heart.  I had been in an abusive relationship, got pregnant, then lost my baby boy to SIDS.  I met my husband two weeks after my son died.  Yeah, wait…then we were married 7 months after that and then 7 months after that welcomed my second son, his first.  That was 23 years ago.  No one could have told me that I was asking for a lot of marital trouble with that kind of start.  But most of our marriage was rocky.  We did not become Christians until about 16 years ago.

For the record, he is a sweet man who other women wish they had.  He is a good provider and works hard.  He is easy on the eyes…you get the picture.  He has a very forgiving nature and has put up with a lot from me through the years.  Yet, there has always been, hanging over our marriage, the barrier I put up; have up.

So this is why I started this study.  It was supposed to be like a last-ditch effort.  A “See I tried” kind of thing.  To basically say that God is for this being over and me to have less stress in my life by not being in this marriage.  But what I have found has been that God is speaking to me through the pages Tracie has written, the blog hop, and the guidance of Melissa and our bible study leaders.  God is  not ready to give up on my marriage or on me.  My heart is softening.  God is transforming my hardened heart.

Transformed. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. Romans 12:2 NIV

And it is painful.  And I have this big dream that maybe my marriage can be healed, but I have only taken a wee step in obedience by hoping again.  So, if you think of me in your day please pray for me, asking God to renew my mind and keep my eyes and heart open to His leading, and my marriage, and my kids, and everyone that has been affected by this.  Thank you.

Dear Lord, please forgive me for not loving enough, for the conditions I place on my love, and the ungodly way I have been allowing my thoughts to go.  Let your truths and word sink into my soul and touch my heart anew.  Help me to make close friends who are positive and good Christian friends.  Help me to open my heart to that too. I have kept from getting close to other Christian women because of old hurts and not wanting to get close to others.  Lord, you are a great God, and I know you love me in ways I just can’t comprehend.  I want to feel it like I am suppose to and to be able to give it like I should.  Thank you that I can come to you and be honest and that you don’t reject me the way I have rejected others.  Forgive me for that.  I do not want to turn away from you or what you have for my life.  I love you. Amen.