L.O.V.E.

L= Living for the Lord (First)

     Living for each other (Second)

O=Overlooking each others faults

V=Viewing each other in the light of Gods word and way

E=Expectations - Don't set them to high and give them to the Lord

I am not at all an expert on marriage.  I learn from my mistakes, and I listen to the biblical advise given to me and my husband by those that I have come to trust.  So begins this post on L.O.V.E.

Our pastor and his wife celebrated 40 years of marriage this past Sunday...40 YEARS!!!  I could only say WOW, as is my reaction almost every time I hear of long lasting marriages.  I have a hard time seeing my husband and I married that long.  I pray that we are, but as I have mentioned in previous post, my husband and I have gone through hell and back in a hand basket in regards to our marriage.  So what makes a marriage work?  What causes couples to fight the hard fight to save their marriages from the grips of the enemies hands? I hope I can answer those questions, using my experience and looking at Gods word.

Today I am looking at that all familiar passage found in Ephesians 5:22-33.  I know its that dreaded passage about wives submitting to our husbands.  I will be totally up front and honest with each of you reading this...I am not at all the submissive wife.  Those who are reading my blog that have counseled me and my husband, and those who know me well, know that I am far from being submissive.  I speak my mind, I speak from my heart.  I am very vocal.  I hold back nothing when it comes to telling someone how I feel.  I will say here now, that this is an area in which I have come to ask Christ to work with me on.  Do I think that as wives we need to live under the thumb of our husbands...NO!.  Do I think that as wives we need to live under the direction of our husbands...YES!  This passage of scripture talks about what a godly marriage is suppose to look like.  This is what I want for my marriage!  So many people stop at that word "submissive" and fail to look any further at this passage.  A wife can only be submissive as long as she is married to a godly man, who tries to love his wife as Christ loves the Church.  Marriage is a description of how Christ loves, protects and leads the Church.

So while looking at this passage in Ephesians and the above acronym let's begin to explore how the two fit together. 

L= Living for the Lord (First),Living for each other (Second) 

First and for most our individual lives, and the life of our marriage must be living for the Lord.  We can not have a marriage, that reflects a godly marriage if our own lives don't reflect that we live according to the will of God.  If we are not living a life that reflects the love and will of God towards others then our marriage will not reflect that either.  If we ourselves as individuals are not spending time growing our relationship with Christ, then our marriage suffers and we can not have strong healthy marriages.  We have to choose to live for the Lord daily, and once we do that then that will begin to reflect in our marriages and our marriages will be able to handle the storms that come.  Once we begin living for the Lord, then we can begin living for each other.  This will reflect in our marriages as a respect for each other, no matter the trials.  If we don't respect, we don't love.

 

O=Overlooking each others faults

 

To overlook means to fail to notice.  I am horrible at this on my own.  I notice every mistake my husband makes.  So how do we "fail to notice" each others faults.  We focus our eyes on Christ.  We begin to look to Christ and not look at our spouse standing in front of us.  We have to choose to look to Christ for our everything.  Why?  As long as we look at our spouse standing in front of us, and expect them to meet every one of our needs they fail.  No amount of anything, yelling, ignoring, whatever will keep them from failing us. We must first choose to focus our eyes on Christ.  David tells us in Psalm 121 to lift up our eyes because that is where our help comes from.  So if we are focusing our eyes on Christ, we can overlook the faults of our spouse.  This is something you must choose to do daily!  Guess what...If we are living for the Lord and choosing to make this decision daily, the ability to overlook our spouses faults will be easier.  Why?  Because our eyes will be focused on what they need to be focused on from the time we get up to the time we go to bed, and that is on our Lord.

 

 

V=Viewing each other in the light of Gods word and way

 

This is something that all couples must strive to do daily.  Marriages can not survive the attacks of the enemy as long as the marriage is not grounded in the word of God.  Just like your individual relationship with Christ, your marriage needs to have a relationship with Christ as well.  Marriages are only as strong as the word they are built on.  If your marriage sees attack after attack from the enemy, maybe it is time to begin to start building your marriage on the word of God.  Get into the word!  Once you begin to view each other in the word and the way of God, then you can begin to do battle with the enemy.  The enemy is busy at work, destroying marriages and families.  This is an area in which he knows he can easily win.  Why?  Because so many couples just throw up their hands and say I am done, I no longer want to do this.  You want to know something...I believe that if your marriage begins to seek the word of the Lord daily, the battles you face will not overcome you.  The enemy is scared of Gods word.  Begin to seek God's word for your marriage together, and see the battles that have plagued your marriage begin to subside.  I know that this is an area that my husband and I certainly need to work on.

 

 

E=Expectations - Don't set them to high and give them to the Lord

Boy do I have expectations for my husband as he does me.  Does he meet my expectations? Not by a long shot! Do I meet his?  Nope I fall short every time. Does anyone meet our expectations? How about our children?  We set expectations for everyone.  God only expects one thing from us and that is to serve Him with all of our heart and soul.  Expectations are those things that we set up for our spouse to fail at.  I know that there are good expectations and there are bad expectations.  However, we always seem to set our expectations so high that we set up our spouse for failure.  We play games..He/She met that expectation so lets set this one up just a little bit higher, and eventually the expectations are set so high no one can meet them.  We need to set expectations that are realistic, and more importantly we need to give them to the Lord, so that our spouses can have the help they need to reach them.  How do we do this?  We get into the word of God, we give our spouse to God, we give our marriage to God.  When we do this, then expectations won't be an issue because God is control.

I know I have a lot to work on.  My marriage is far from perfect.  We have our daily struggles, and seem to go through the same fire over and over.  I took the acronym that our pastor gave us before his sermon and prayed about it and asked God to show me how to apply this in my marriage.  This is the product of that prayer.  I hope it will encourage you. 

Ephesians 5:22-33 is not just about wives being submissive.  It also tells the husband to love his wife as Christ loves the church.  Wives being submissive and husbands loving their wives is only do able as long as we are daily building our relationships with Christ individually and as couples.  Don't beat yourselves up when you fail, we are human, and far from perfect.  Don't give up either when we fail to keep our eyes focused on the One who matters.  I drop my eyes down often, actually more times then I care to mention.  However,God in His awesomeness, loves us unconditionally, and gives us the the opportunity to keep on trying.  Begin to rely on Christ to strengthen your marriage, and strengthen you.  I know that marriage is hard, Paul even tells us in 1 Corinthians 7:28 that we will have trouble in our marriage, but as long as we are building strong marriages that are grounded in Gods word we will have the ability to stand and fight when the enemy attacks.

My prayer for each of you who reads this blog is that it will encourage you to fight the hard fight.  This is also a prayer for myself and my marriage.  Hang in there, don't give up, God wants to see marriages strong and healthy.  I will say it again...My marriage is far from perfect, but we try daily, and know that God wants our marriage and our family together.  The enemy is busy trying to destroy marriages because of what they stand for.  So stand and fight, for your marriage and all marriages.  Know that I am praying for all of you!

 

A Life Made Beautiful

Over the last few days, I have been looking back over my life. Not to dwell on the things that I did or did not do, but because God has impressed upon my heart to go into counseling.  Now this is not anything new, it has been a thought and passion of mine for several years. Yet, I have wondered why me?  You know like Moses, arguing with God and coming up with a million and one excuses why God could not use him.  Instead of giving up on Moses, God looked at him and said okay you will do what I am asking you to do and here is Aaron to help you.  Well God has allowed me to put this off, and has listened to all my excuses and has told me now is the time and here is your husband to help you.  Not only is now the time, but he has given me a passion for families, and marriages.  Of all people I know, trust me, I have asked why me many times.  After all I am the one who ran away, got married, got divorced, remarried, nearly destroyed my marriage.  Why on earth would He want me to family counseling and marriage counseling?  What do I have to offer?  With that last question asked and after a friend said to me "because you have lived through it all."  did I realize I was the right person for this.  So I must remember God does not call the qualified He qualifies the called.  So I guess that means since I have lived through so much, that my call has been qualified because God has called me.

There are a lot of people who don't see or hear the message that God can take a person so ugly (sinful) and make them into something new and beautiful.  I look at my life and see the amazing things God did, before I gave my life to Him and after.  You may be asking how could God do anything amazing in my life when I was not following Him?  I would like to believe that His hand of protection and guidance were covering me because of the prayers from a praying mom.

The shortened version of my life:

I remember a very cold (and it was VERY cold)  night right after I ran away.  My boyfriend and I had no place to go (smart planning huh), so we slept in a truck cuddled together with not even a blanket... freezing.  That was the beginning of things to come.  After that for several months (I can say we were never homeless), but close enough to being homeless.  We lived in a motel, and this motel was not the Holiday Inn.  It was one of those run down motels along Santa Fe Drive in Denver.  If you know where Santa Fe is in Denver then you will know where I am talking about.  It was a run down motel just across from Cinderella City Mall (remember that mall?).  Oh how I felt like trash.  I felt totally worthless, unlovable, you name it I felt it.  I was scared, ashamed, and  felt totally isolated from anyone that truly loved me.  It was at this time, when I saw a glimpse of the horrible man that I was soon to marry. 

After being married to this man for 8 years, I began seeking away out of this marriage.  I was not a christian at this time, however I "knew" what the bible said about divorce.  Divorce is wrong.  If you get divorced and remarry you are committing adultery and going to hell no matter what.  Here I was being abused by a man who would drink and become abusive.  He always tried to hit me anywhere that no one would see bruises, and if he did happen to hit me someplace where a bruise was obvious I would just stay inside, and hide myself away until the bruises faded enough that I could cover it up.  I seem to remember always (if not always pretty darn close) wearing long sleeved shirts even in the summer time.  So out of desperation I decided to go and see a pastor at the church I grew up in.  I was really desperate!  So after speaking to this pastor and telling him about the abuse, this pastor looked at me and said "If Christ died on the cross for your sins don't you think you can handle a little bit of pain yourself."  What?!?!?  Wow that really made me stop and think.  Yes Christ died for me, I knew that, but I never made a commitment to Christ, so why should this apply to me?   Some how this must have applied if someday I would choose to surrender my life to Christ.  So with my head down I walked out of that church feeling once again, dirty, ashamed, because how could I even be thinking about divorcing this man.  That day I went home determined to change my marriage on my own only to experience more abuse over the next two years.  Finally, after talking to several people, and having the feeling that I needed to get out NOW...I packed up an over night bag, told my husband that I was going to Washington State, hopped on a plane and went to Minnesota.

Over the the course of the next several months I met and fell in love with "my knight in shinning armour".  I was divorced, and remarried pretty quickly.  That is when the shame of committing adultery really began to plague me.  I was a horrible person, and you might as well have placed a scarlet "S" smack dab onto my forehead.  Talk about shame!  I was feeling the most awful shame a human could feel.  My husband was even committing adultery because he married me a divorced women and he was in school to become a minister, how on earth was that going to look.  There is no way that anybody would allow him to preach the gospel behind a pulpit with a wife who is divorced and remarried.  Not only was I committing a horrible sin, but so was my husband.  I had doomed us both to hell. 

While my husband was doing his student pastoral internship in Oregon, I found out that I was pregnant.  Things were not at all good in Oregon.  My husband hated his internship, our living situation was not at all like we were told it would be, and my husband and I did nothing but fight.  I knew that this was all because God was trying to use my husband, but he could not because of me.  After all we were unequally yoked.  Our son was born, and the immediate feeling of unconditional love swept over me.  I have never known that type of love.  Yes my parents loved me unconditionally but I never personally experienced loving someone unconditionally.  Over the course of the next few months, I started feeling this urgency of someone loving me unconditionally.  It would be over a year later when at a church service on July 21, 2001, I gave my life to Christ.  Not just for Him to be my saviour, but for him to be my Lord. 

Change does not take place instantly in most cases, as it did not in mine.  However change does begin at the cross, even if we realize it or not, but it does begin there.  My husband and I have had many years of ups and downs.  We have seen many blessings.  We have even seen our marriage completely destroyed.  However, because of Gods hand in our lives, and our willingness to once again become completely surrendered unto His will, God restored our marriage, and healed our hearts.  Do I still struggle with feelings of guilt because I am divorced...yes, but God has forgiven me!  I have struggles everyday with my past sins and wrong doings.  God has forgiven me!  Just because I struggle with my past does not mean that I am not forgiven.  It means I struggle with my past even though I know I am forgiven.  We are told to pick up our crosses and follow Christ.  If my cross is my past, then I will pick up my cross and surrender daily to Christ because He has forgiven me, because I have surrendered my life to the only one capable of loving me unconditionally with my past, or without my past.  God has forgiven me, and He loves me unconditionally, beyond what I think unconditional love is.

You may ask me if I think divorce is wrong and my answer would have to be....yes.  You may also ask if God makes a provision for divorce and I would have to say...yes, with a big fat BUT!  When we are married God joins us as one, and He tells us what God has joined together let no man put apart.  I believe that if God can take a broken marriage such as mine and restore it, He can do that with any marriage, but only if He is given the opportunity.  I hate divorce, I believe divorce is wrong and against the will of God.  If you are in the situation where your marriage is not strong and is becoming completely torn apart I would suggest that you seek good godly christian counseling.  I know of a godly counselor that offers a platform where Jesus can do His work in your marriage.  Please contact me I would be happy to pass that information to you and even say a prayer with you.

My title to this blog is "A Life Made Beautiful", because God has made my life beautiful.  He took what was broken, dirty, and full of shame (me), and made it beautiful.  I remember growing up hearing and singing the words to a song called "Something Beautiful", this is a song that I never forgot even in those dark days way back when and even in those dark days that I experience now.  May these words be a blessing to you!

Something beautiful. Something good. 

All of my confusion He understood. 

All I had to offer Him was brokenness and strife. 

But He made something beautiful of my life. 

Standing For Traditional Marriage

Wants again just sharing my heart...

What an awesome showing of support of the CEO of Chik-fil-a yesterday.  Way to go everybody that went to stand in long lines to show your support for "traditional" marriage!  However, I chose not to go.  Not because I don't support "traditional" marriage, but I just could not bring myself or my family to stand in long lines to show support for marriage that is no longer what God intended it to be.  Why, stand in line showing how strong marriage is between a man and a woman when so many marriages fall apart for no more of a reason then who forgot to take out the trash .  I just could not do it.  So hats off to those who did!

Over the last few weeks, even longer I have been burdened by the state of marriage.  To be honest, I should be the last one to have such a heavy heart regarding marriage.  I have been divorced, and my current marriage became so totally broken that it took God intervening to bring healing.  I think God every day that my husband never gave up on us, and he kept praying and seeking God, during a time when I could not and just really wished he would walk away.  Praise God, that I now have a marriage that was healed and restored, and our hearts that were shredded into little tiny pieces were made new.

Yesterday marked a day where everyone who supports "traditional" marriage (boy how I hate having to clarify what kind of marriage) stood in long lines to show the world what they stand for.  This is fine and dandy, but how could so many people take this stand when as a nation there is a 40-50% divorce rate for first time marriages.  That rate goes up for each time a person is married.  Before you blast me, I understand the reason why so many people went out and did this, trust me I totally understand.  However, it makes me wonder what those who don't agree with us are actually thinking about the "traditional" marriage.  Honestly, what kind of example can we really make when the divorce rate in America is so ridiculously high?  What was the motive behind so many of those standing in those lines?  Were they doing it out of love or were they doing it out of hate?  What was the point behind it?  Honestly I don't know.  I read so many posts of people doing their "deed" to show support of something that they honestly do really believe in.

So many people are so quick to judge the homosexual by telling them that they are wrong and living in sin but at the same breath ignore the couple that lives next door who just filed divorce papers.  I know two different topics, but both are sin full.  Sin is a sin, no matter the sin.  Like I mentioned before, I am divorced and remarried, so biblicaly speaking I am a very sin full person.  Trust me I have experienced the pointing of fingers, and the whispers behind my back, and the God can't use you because you are divorced routine.  Talk about feeling hurt.

All that to say this...  Is the homosexual more sinful because it is so in your face, wake up and there it is in the news?  Or is it the couple serving each other divorce papers today secretly so the neighbors don't know?  If we truly are honest they both are sin and neither is more sinful.  The bible clearly tells us that both are wrong.  Yes, I know that for divorce it is ok in case of adultery. 

So it brings me to this...If we are going to take a stand for "traditional" marriage, don't you think that maybe before an impact can be made in our society, we need to begin to strengthen our marriages?  To me I feel like those who favor legalizing homosexual marriage feels this way because we who support "traditional" marriage do such a horrible job at keeping our marriages together.  We have to many people just walking away from marriages because it is so much easier then staying and working it out.  Trust me, I know.  I really wanted nothing more at the time for my marriage to just end.  The pain, the continued broken heart, the feeling of worthlessness was so much more then I could bear.  Ending my marriage would have been so much easier. I understand, those desperate feelings of "lets just call it quits!!!!!"

I am asking that people join me in praying for our marriages, and begin to study the word to find out exactly what God intended marriage to be.  I honestly believe that before we can make a stand for marriages that will actually make an impact we need to begin restoring the sanctity of marriage by working to make our marriages last and stop looking for away out.  We need to stop accepting the norm that "trying on" marriage is acceptable, because you can't try on marriage.  It is not if it fits you keep it, and if not you don't commit.  What ever happened to dating and breaking up?  Last but not least, when making those vows begin taking them seriously, don't take them thinking that if this does not work we can always divorce.  Marriage is not easy, it was not intended to be easy.  It was intended to last forever, not to just walk away from because "I can't take this any more!!!" ( Words I said many times. I know and understand that feeling.)

I have taken the liberty to find all the scripture in the bible that pertains to marriage.  I have listed them below.  Would you please join me in finding out what marriage really is meant to be, and to portray.  As I journey through this my prayer is that God will open my eyes so that I can honestly stand for marriage the way that God intended it to be and make an impact on society honestly.  I also ask that during this personal study, that if your marriage is struggling that God will begin to restore not just your marriage, but the broken hearts.  If you are not married, I pray that God will open your eyes to the importance of marriage and what all it represents because marriage by no means is "just a piece of paper".  Please feel free to leave comments.  I look forward to seeing your responses.

Marriage:
     Matthew 22:30, 24:38
     Romans 7:2
     1 Cor 7:38
     Heb 13:4

Married:
     1 Cor 7:10, 7:33, 7:39

Marries:
     Matthew 5:32, 19:9
     Luke 16:18
    
Marry:
     1 Cor 7:9, 7:28
     1 Tim 5:14

Salt and Light in a Dark World

I am struggling with writing this blog, because I really have no idea where to begin..  So this may be a lot of rambling but I am speaking from my heart.  So with that said here it goes:

Everyday I see and hear things from people who claim to be Christians that really do not show the light of Christ.  The gospel message that they are sending out is a gospel message that says you must change your way of life before coming to Christ.  You need to stop what you are doing if you want Christ to accept you.  That is not at all the gospel message I know.  I sit here and I wonder what bible these people are reading.  My bible tells me that I can come as I am, that I don't have to change before I come to the cross.  The change begins after the cross.  I also believe that ones conviction is not someone elses convictions.  Christ convicts those of sin, not man.

I wonder why people don't listen when someone tells them about the love of Christ and its through Him that we can be purified and made whole.  It was not until after I read the verse in Matthew about how we are the salt of the earth and if the salt looses it taste how will it be restored.  That is when it hit me.  Those that have chosen to live a different life style are winning the fight that we as Christians have chosen to take on because it is not our fight.  Our message has lost its taste because we are not living as a light unto the world.  So many Christians have become abusive with words filled with hate.  We throw stones while living in glass houses. 

I heard recently about a company that refused to service a couple planning a wedding because they were gay.  They even said they were not going to offer them their service because the lifestyle they lived was unbliblical.  I don't know the legal ramifications that this company could face and really I don't care. I am more concerned about the light of Christ that was just dimmed a little more because of this stand.  How are we to win those who are lost to Christ, if people claiming to be Christan's keep turning them away?  I no longer wonder why Christians are getting a bad rap it is because of companies and people like this who claim to be christian.  They just don't get it. 

I don't agree with this bakery at all. What was done is so very wrong on so many levels.  We are called to love the sinner not the sin, Christ did not refuse anybody. He called all to repentance with a loving heart and open arms. People like this is the reason Christians like me have a hard time sharing the gospel with those living in sin...Sin is sin no mater the sin. One type of sin is no worse then the other. I wonder if this baker asks those of the heterosexual orgin who are getting married if they have had sex with anyone outside of marriage because that is biblical wrong as well. 

The issue surrounding gay marriage really should be a non issue.  I don't think by them getting married it will change the sanctity of marriage at least it won't change mine.  God is the one who sanctifies marriage any ways not man.  What does taking a stand for heterosexual marriages prove any ways?   If the homosexual marriage would be legalized today, it would have no impact what so ever on the traditional marriage.  I will say it again, I do not agree with the life style of the homosexual.  Christ would not have turned them away.  He would have loved them and showed them the truth.  We as Christians are called to do the same.  Colossians tells us that we need to be gracious in our speech seasoned with salt so that we know how to answer each other.  Salt gives flavor, and as long as the salt is tasteless so will our words be tasteless.  Tasteless words will not penetrate the heart, words with flavor that show love are the only way to the heart.

Matthew 5:13-16 "You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored?  It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet.  You are the light of the world.  A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.  Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house.  In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven."

Colossians 4:5-6 "Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time.  Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person."