Now you are probably wondering if I am incredibly cynical or am just of the opinion that there is no sure way that people can stay married till death do them part. And the answer is neither. Because these techniques with no surety that I am referring to are the ways of the world. They may even be recommended to you by a Christian counselor or therapist. But if they do not include ultimately giving your life, and thus by extension your marriage, over to God, they are not going to get you anywhere.
Why do I know this? Because this is my story. It started with the deepest valley of my marriage(read about that here), and then my husband and I found what we thought was a great solution.... But when it didn't work, I found myself realizing that no trick, tip, or technique outside of falling on my knees before God and surrendering my marriage was going to work. What does that look like? Well let me continue my story where I last left off, and you'll find out.
I finished my last post by telling you that my husband and I at our lowest point decided that we were going to throw out the last 3 years of our marriage, and start over. We no longer would have anything to hold over each other's head, we would get to know each other all over again, and it was like a breath of fresh air. This happened on March 29th of this year. By May 10th, I could once again see my marriage crumbling around me. 42 days since starting over, since what seemed like an incredible breakthrough, and I felt like there was no light in sight. I honestly didn't believe that my husband actually loved me anymore, I felt like a complete failure for all the things I'd done to contribute to that, and I had no idea what to do.
The night before, I had realized that the reason my husband and I no longer had a mutual passion was because we were putting it in the wrong places. Instead of a passionate hunger after God and His desires for us, my husband's passion was completely caught up in anger, and mine was completely caught up in our marriage. PAY ATTENTION to this right here!! My passion for wanting a thriving marriage was driving me away from God even more than my husband's anger was! There comes a time where desiring something that is not bad in itself can become a very big sin in our life. And that time comes when we place that decent desire above our desire for God over and over and over again. This is what I had been doing for 3 1/2 years. And finally, God had to let it all come tumbling down for me to truly realize how far from Him I'd gone and how bad it all had gotten.
The only option I had left was to surrender. And I don't mean just praying that God would fix my marriage because I couldn't, or deciding I was going to pray or read my Bible more often, but actually surrendering. This is what I said to God on my knees in the backyard, my heart torn apart in my hands as I held it out to Him.
“God, my marriage is for Your glory, not my happiness. I promise to love, honor, and obey my husband 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.”
If you glazed over that prayer, I encourage you to read it again. If you are anything like me, you will recognize what a big moment of surrender this was for me. If you have been hurt in your marriage or in any other relationship God has called you to stick to, you will see what a commitment this is.
After finishing my time with God, I wrote down some of my thoughts. These below I think are the clearest picture of the surrender God called me to that night almost 3 months ago now.
The way to accomplish that(God's glory) is to obey God. And he told me to
marry Jacob 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.
Before I finish this section of my story, I want to speak quickly to any of my readers who have been very hurt by others, because I realized something through my story that I had never really heard in Christian circles before. We hear a lot in Christian circles about the "process of Matthew 18."
This is what we are told to do just about every single time that we have an issue with someone. And in a lot of cases, this is a very healthy thing to do. But this is only one passage, and I discovered during my story that sometimes God calls us to a harder road. A road that can be illustrated by a couple different passages of scripture.
This is what we are told to do just about every single time that we have an issue with someone. And in a lot of cases, this is a very healthy thing to do. But this is only one passage, and I discovered during my story that sometimes God calls us to a harder road. A road that can be illustrated by a couple different passages of scripture.
Our Savior died for us before we were ever born. Before we even came into this world and immediately started doing things that broke His heart. This is something we can forget when we are seeking to reconcile with others, is that Jesus forgave us in the most incredibly painful way possible without us apologizing for, repenting over, or changing our sinful patterns.
The road that God called me to was not to go and rebuke my husband for the wrongs he had done to me(which by all current definitions definitely included emotional abuse); in fact God was very clear in His instructions in the days to come to bite my tongue and not tell my husband how he was wronging me. But instead, I was called to forgive EVEN IF my husband never repented of those sins against me, or even cared.
Have you been hurt by someone close to you: a spouse, a child, a parent, a dear friend, or a sibling perhaps? I can tell you that the correct response to that is not necessarily to go straight to them and show them their fault, but instead to start in prayer. I really encourage you to ask God if He wants you to approach this in the manner spoken of in Matthew 18, or whether He is calling you to more of a Mark 11 approach of forgiving them right away, and then being able to be grow closer to God. There is a time and a season for both methods, so make sure you have listened to the direction of the Holy Spirit when it comes to how you should handle the broken relationships in your life.
BUT, to finish this section of my story, I just want to recap that I was in the lowest valley of my marriage, and it was through that valley that God called me to a place of surrender. And that ultimate and difficult scenario was the first big step out of the valley and up the mountain for me. I hope you stick around for the rest of my story, where I share some of the mountaintops God led me to in the days and months following this surrender.
Other Posts in My Story:
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