My War Room-War Room Part 1

For those of you who have a War Room or have possibly seen the movie made by the Kendrick Brothers(makers of Chasing the Giants, Fireproof, and Courageous), you probably quickly realized what the above picture was. But for any of my readers who are new to this concept, let me fill you in a little bit.

Matthew 6:6 talks about an inner room(some translations say closet), for one to go into and pray. The main purpose for this is privacy. We are not to be showy of our prayer, and it also enables us to be more vulnerable and willing to listen before God when we are in private.

I believe that listening to this commandment and finding a private place to pray(even if it is your living room couch when the rest of your family is sleeping), is important for any Christian woman, but let me share with you a little bit about how I recently got to this point of making a war room.

I did mention a film titled The War Room earlier, and having watched the movie a few years ago, I wasn't completely unfamiliar with the idea. In fact, I had a war room in the home where I lived in 2015, and again in the first apartment that my husband and I had together. But it got impractical at one point, and I grew away from the concept and eventually even forgot about it.

So what brought me back to it? Let me share some personal thoughts I typed out on the 10th of May this year. The breaking point for me....

“My marriage is for God’s glory, not my happiness” I said over and over again.

I had to keep saying it because other stupid thoughts kept trying to enter my mind. The type of thoughts that would turn my statement into a falsehood if I followed their subtle trails into the dark corners of my mind.

So there I was as the sun went down, kneeling in the back yard. I was talking straight to God, and this had become my new mantra after I made probably the biggest decision of my entire life.

See, all my life I dreamed of marriage. I thought it would be the hardest thing I ever did to decide I was truly content to be single. Then I thought that saying “Yes” when a man asked me to marry him or saying “I do” on my wedding day would be the most important moment of my whole life. But I was wrong on both counts. See, the decision I made in my back yard as I knew my husband who promised only weeks before to never divorce me after 3 years of not easy marriage, was listening to a podcast by a man who helped divorced men find happiness, was way harder than deciding to stay single. And way more important than saying “I do.”

I always thought because I wanted marriage so much, that the hardest thing would be being single forever. Instead, I found the hardest thing was watching that marriage I had always dreamed of falling apart around me. It was hearing my husband say that he only stayed married to me for the kids. It was knowing that the very attributes my husband knew I had when he fell in love with me were the same attributes that made him seriously consider divorcing me.

And way more important than saying “I do,” was making the real promise before God to truly love, honor, and obey my husband until death did us part after knowing how much that would tear my heart in half because I had experienced 3 years of it.

In case you missed it, this was my big decision before God: “God, my marriage is for Your glory, not my happiness. I promise to love, honor, and obey Michael the rest of my life. Whether he decided to divorce me in a week, or whether we are married for another 60 years. Whether he cherishes me or despises me. And if he does decide to divorce me, and I can’t stop it, I will still love and honor him the rest of my life.”

Yeah, I did that. It’s insane. I have no idea if my husband will actually ever truly love me for who I really am ever again. I don’t know if his demands will be reasonable or whether they will be impossible to accomplish. I just took a commitment to stick with this job, stick with what will always bring me heartache, stick with all of it for the rest of my life. But I will always love him, I will always honor him, and unless it requires me to defy God in a very large way, I will always obey him. (I refer you to the story of Sarah, where she is praised for lying because she was obeying Abraham).

My mind doesn’t completely get this yet. It keeps falling back into the old trap of thinking “Michael will see how I’ve changed and love me again.” But even if that does happen, it’s not the point. Because my marriage is not there for my happiness, it’s not about Michael loving me again, and it’s not about him seeing how I’ve changed. It is for God’s glory.

The way to accomplish that is to obey God. And he told me to marry Michael and to promise to love, cherish, and obey him until death did us part. This is what obeying means for me now. I do not know whether my marriage will turn out to be this struggle until one of us dies, if it will turn into the best marriage the world has ever seen, or something in-between. The amazing thing is in this exact moment, I don’t really care. I’m not distracted. I’m focused. I have a calling, and I was told I would suffer. This is not a surprise, it is my taking up my cross and following Christ.

44 days ago, now, I hit the largest turning point I have yet faced in my life. I was told by a wise female Christian friend the following day when I shared some of this with her, that these moments will come many more times in my lifetime. So I don't hold out hope I won't face a larger or harder turning point, but for my story today, this is the moment that then led to my war room.

Because over the next days, I came to be reminded as I drew closer to God, bit my tongue until I could taste blood, and cried out to God after my husband left for work, that I had forgotten something very important. "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms(Ephesians 6:12)" And I was reminded once again of the film The War Room, which was about a woman in a very similar scenario as myself, where she was in a failing marriage, and came to realize that her husband was not the enemy, the devil was.

So after a couple days of constant spiritual warfare, and taking every negative thought against my husband captive, I pulled out the extra couch cushions, the highlighters, the pens, paper, devotional books, and the sticky notes, and headed down to the basement. Now, our bedroom is in the basement, and I knew I needed a more private place where my husband wouldn't see all of my notes and prayers, so I had to get creative. And thus began my adventure underneath the basement stairs, tucked behind the water heater and furnace, surrounded by unfinished wood, plywood, and cement. Not the prettiest war room, but I automatically got down to work.

Now, I could spend multiple posts sharing about some of the methods I use for prayer and spiritual battles in my war room(hopeful idea for a blog series in the near future), but for now I will leave you with a couple more pictures of the room I now spend close to 2 hours in a day, and close out my story with that.

Note: The pictures are not high quality, and remember that the space I am using is very rough and not in any way aesthetically pleasing.