I Still Do

I made a vow to my husband 25 years ago to love, honor and cherish him in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, for better or for worse until death do us part. Was I thinking ANY of those negative parts would EVER blanket my marriage? HECK NO! I was convinced that Cinderella honeymoon phase was going to last forever and he was my Prince Charming who had come to rescue me from my tower of mess - cue Taylor Swift’s Wildest Dreams song… especially the part “He’s so tall and handsome as h***…” or Dixie Chicks Cowboy Take Me Away. Yep, that was me.

As a child product (and eventual train wreck) of divorce, I vowed long before I met my husband, I would never divorce. I never wanted that nightmare in my life again - not to mention for my future children - no matter what. For the first time in my life I had high hopes and inextinguishable dreams - the fairytale. And no one was going to take that from me.

And then reality set in…

The purpose of this blog is to share my struggles and the One Source my victories and answers have and continue to come from - God, His son - my precious Savior and friend, Jesus and the Holy Spirit, my earthly Guide and Comforter.

I've had very few people to rely on, no family, and little church. With the exception of a spirit filled prayer group coupled with a short span of church resource, It has only been God holding my hand and guiding me through. Looking back, I wouldn't have wanted it any other way. Like a blacksmith forging a piece of iron into a sword, with each painful hammer strike, God has and continues to refine me through the flames of His fire.

Early on and for a small season I surrounded myself with “many counsellors” because the bible says there is wisdom in the counsel of many. Having had given my heart to Jesus 5 years after we were married, I made a vow to God when I was saved that I would go where He wanted me to go and I would do what He wanted me to do. I eventually realized that my marriage and my family was my mission field and if I didn't lose heart God would eventually make a message out of my mess. It was sheer tenacity and determination to not end up as yet another christian divorce statistic. My vow to God and continuing to press deeper into Him is what has gotten me through.

I really wanted to do things God’s way. The gravity of my marriage reality was emotionally and physically distant, cold, hard and bitter. To make matters worse, all I continued to do was make things worse when I tried to solve things myself.

“ I eventually realized that my marriage and my family was my mission field”

I have tearfully been back to the drawing board almost my entire life. I have been to countless counselors both secular and christian. I have read so many self help books - mainly christian. I have poured through my bible, I have been to bible studies for wives, and been to marriage seminars. I have a BA in Liberal Studies and aced half way through getting my MA in Marriage and Family Relationships and Child Development, which came very naturally to me. I opted to stop that degree but that’s another story for a different time. I am educated and smart but was incredibly broken. I had amazing resources I was trying to implement but with no change. WHAT WAS I MISSING?!!

I didn’t have any answers for my marriage, which was deeply woven with emotional abandonment and orphan issues on both sides. Love, respect and trust were rare blips on our radars and although they would surface occasionally during a happy moment, typically our own deep seeded deficit of truly being able to trust one another took over. We unconsciously poured ourselves into situations we could control aka counterfeit comforters; my husband in his law enforcement career and I as a mother. We neglected our marriage and each other. We were self absorbed, prideful, arrogant and stubborn. And we fought the wrong way on every level. We were loud, cruel and verbally and emotionally abusive. And yes, we fought in front of our boys. Overall, we both failed each other and our children. Each of us desperately wanted to be loved but we were going about it all the wrong way. Eventually my christian “counsel of many” only yielded pity and sympathy for my seemingly impossible marriage.  But I had made a vow. And that small voice inside me reassured me not to give up.

“We were prideful, arrogant and stubborn and fought the wrong way on every level.”

I slowly began to realize only God had the answers. God is the only One who turns the impossible into possible. So like a turtle, I pulled myself into my shell and away from the voices of almost every friend I had to begin the long journey of seeking the higher way and finding God's voice in the midst of my mess. My life became His way only for me because divorce was not an option in my mind and I had made that vow to God (which at the time I had no idea what He said about people who make vows to him! When you make a promise to God, don't delay in following through, for God takes no pleasure in fools. Keep all the promises you make to him. Ecclesiastes 5:4). Enough said.

I had spent year listening to people I thought had better insight than I did. I honestly wanted to do the right thing. When I looked at my circumstances without God, the world screamed "Divorce is the ONLY option!"  But in the seeking, God continued to tell me to "stay."

Looking back I can share that it really didn’t matter how many resources I had, I continued to focus on the WRONG half of my marriage - my husband, and how he was failing me. It seems in the healthy relationship department of give and take, I was holding the door open for everyone else. I could give others great advice but when it came to living it myself, it was easier said than done.  I truly believed the lie that I had nothing to do with the problem.  I was a bible quoter but not a bible liver as far as being a wife was concerned. 

“But that is how dysfunction works. We believe the lie that the problem is everyone or everything else.”

But that is how dysfunction works. We believe the lie that the problem is everyone or everything else. It keeps us perpetually in a place of spinning our wheels and never getting anywhere. Dysfunction keeps us distracted and blind to our own failings and how we ourselves contribute to the problem which in turn prevents us from taking responsibility for our part. If we grow up in dysfunction, that emotional environment is the norm for us and basic human survival instinct is to cling to what we know. Change involves a lot of work and can be pretty scary - especially for those of us with trust issues. Half the time we don’t even know we have issues! We think everyone ELSE has issues!

The good thing was that I was continually willing to learn what god wanted me to do. God ALWAYS works with those who are willing and wanting to do things His way. He doesn’t mind if we fail, in fact He expects it and welcomes it. When we fail and are weak, and when we come to Him for help, He then has the perfect platform to be our strength and guide us through “That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong” 2 Corinthians 12:10. This has been my life - riddled with hardship, at least half of it, my own ignorant and unintended fault.

As children, we have no choice regarding the dysfunctional families we grow up in. I am not talking about situations where notifying authorities is warranted. I am talking about unhealthy family systems based on lack; lack of positive communication or communication at all, lack of emotional trust and safety, lack of healthy boundaries, and sometimes lack of physical provision. In most of these cases, I truly believe that we are victims of circumstance. But once we become independent adults, clinging to that statement as a way of defining our adult life only proves to hinder the health that God wants us to have.

As adults we then transition into being products of our choices rather than victims of circumstances. And true to God, He created us to have free will - to make our own choices. We are free to stay dysfunctional and believe satan’s lies about our lives or we are free to seek, grow and change. The choice is always ours.

“Be willing to go to that emotionally painful place inside you and ask God to reveal the root of it.”

My husband and I had a very unhealthy emotional dance for the majority of our marriage. In general, there are a few things that really bug me. A big one is people who choose not to manage their mouths. Admittedly, I was one of them when I had reached my last straw in a marital disagreement.  And so was my husband. I am married to a man who always had little filter when he spoke. We both have gotten so much better! No topic was off limits and he had an opinion about just about everything, God love him. He is a fact guy. He wants the facts - just the facts. And he could have cared less about any flowers I felt necessary to embellish the conversation with. Oh we have come so far since those days.

So, as you can imagine, for the majority of our marriage, he just wanted facts and I was always hurt and offended and then proceeded to tell him what he should be doing, how he should respond to me, and what he shouldn't do. Then he would get hurt and offended because I got hurt and offended which conveyed to him that he was a failure, which in turn relayed to me that I was a failure. Ding ding - and we would both go to our separate corners of perceived of safety and remain divided until the bell rang again at which point we would both come back emotionally swinging. We were perpetually drowning in a sea of hurt feelings, offense and finger pointing. I existed in a state of confusion and often wondered what happened to my prince with the mushy heart I had first met? 

It was easier to despise and be annoyed by our differences rather than learning how to appreciate and accommodate our differences. Something clicked and slowly,  we both began to take a good hard look at ourselves in the mirror. No matter where we went, there we were; same issues, different day, different circumstance, but same us. And so the dance continued around the mountain until each of us eventually began to stop focusing on the failings of the other and instead began to focus on ourselves. There are many scriptures regarding husbands and wives and how we should act with and toward one another. We both are christians but you never would have known it by our behavior. I believe this is very common among christian as well as secular couples, however.  Dysfunctional childhood patterns don't care what religion one claims, color, culture, etc.  The formative years are from birth through five years old and emotional patterns have been established regardless of one's faith. The key is asking God to heal our hearts and remove those unhealthy patterns from our lives.  It's also learning to be determined to not live by your feelings and instead live by what God says about marriage, the role of a wife, and the role of a husband. God created marriage!  He created relationship!  The marriage connection is SPIRIT!  We need to learn to live out our marriages based on the spirit of God who lives within us and look to HIS word for direction!  A marriage is doomed to fail if both parties insist on living out marriage based on feelings.

“God has truly done a miracle in my marriage. We have defied the world’s odds. We are making it. ”

God has truly done a miracle in my marriage. We have defied the world’s odds. We are making it. It’s only taken 25 years! Although having lived a marital life largely of spiritual and emotional division, God has been so much bigger than our brokenness. Amazing supernatural things happen when we are willing to give the Restorer all the broken pieces. God is faithful and the more we pursue Him, the more He meets our need.

Isaiah 55:8-9 says that Gods thoughts are not our thoughts and our ways are not His ways. Taking this scripture literally is brutal, seriously. Time and time again, regardless of emotional pain and regardless of head knowledge and logic, I have pressed into trusting a Force I cannot see, cannot have a human conversation with, and cannot be physically hugged by. And yet during those times of utter darkness and hopelessness, I have seen the trees moved by the wind and I am reassured just because I can’t see Him doesn’t mean He isn’t there. He is there. And He will continue to be there. Because my God - and yours - hears our every cry. He is the same God of Abraham, David, Isaac, Jacob, Moses and Mary and His business is restorative and creative miracles.

What I have learned is this: be willing to go to that emotionally painful place inside you and ask God to reveal the root of it. I encourage you to be brave and courageous and face your demons, so to speak. Because they will follow you all the days of your life unless you confront and deal with them. Those broken places will continue to hold you back from attaining the life you’ve dreamed of. The sooner we take complete ownership, the sooner we will experience freedom on a brand new level. Give it to God and let Him heal you, grow you and change you! God always creates beauty out of brokenness! His word says that what satan intends for evil, He turns into and uses for good! (Genesis 50:20)

Even if you are unaware of your issues but you find yourself going around the same mountain with the people you love, ask God to reveal it. In more cases than not, I suspect those places which we unconsciously push aside or shove deep down have something to do with that mountain that won’t move. Sometimes, like in my case, it takes a long time to work that crap out. But once you allow Truth to invade your hurts, it’s dealt with and the truth sets you free.

This has been the most difficult journey of my life. But through it, God, through Jesus who lives in me,  has given me fearless courage to stand on His promises and fight like hell for what He has given me - a precious husband, marriage and family worth fighting for. He has truly given me beauty for ashes - and it seems like He has only just begun. I stand to see God's miracles and the Kingdom of Heaven be made manifest on the earth. And I also stand to encourage His children to go boldly before His throne of grace and to live a courageous life full of fire, trusting, knowing and believing that if God could part the Red Sea for Moses and make the sun stand still for Joshua, then surely He could fix my marriage. There is nothing too big for God. Nothing.

Father, I pray the blood of Jesus over every reader right now. Fall fresh on them.  I pray restoration and renewal over them, their marriages, their families, and their children.  You say that when we pass through the waters they will not overtake us and when we walk through the fire, we will not be set ablaze (Isaiah 43:2) You are faithful in all things and at all times.  Breathe new hope and life into seemingly hopeless situations.  Let these beautiful women, wives, mothers, daughter and friends feel Your embrace today.  Be tangible to them in some way precious Father and invade their lives with the Kingdom of Heaven. You are Jehovah Rapha - God the healer.  Please heal any who are brokenhearted in any way.  Bind up their wounds and give them beauty for ashes (Isaiah 61:3).  In Jesus name, amen.

Song for the Day

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