There’s the lists. And the laundry, the books and the homework and the learning.
And these kids we’re raising, they keep falling, a lot like their mother. Parenting’s this way of bending over in humility to help the scraped child up because we know it takes a lifetime to learn how to walk with Him.
And then there’s this fear beast that I thought I’d already wrestled down, skinned, hung and mounted — and it’s the thing that breathes again ugly and too close.
It’s strange how knots in the pit of the stomach can try to undo everything.
For the life of me?
I can’t get it all right.
Heaven and earth both know I am a miserable mess away from perfect. This is exactly why the bruised knees just have to bend at the table of communion, and say, yes, please.
I need Jesus.
I need His life.
I need the perfect, sinless sacrifice of Jesus Christ who can take all the broken messes and make them into mosaics of Grace.
~ Ann Voskamp
Yes, I am having one of those nights… on the verge of tears for the past three days and now tonight they fall because the wound is too deep and the heart is too weary and the mind is just not willing to fight it anymore. I was holding it together and holding it tight until I read this post above and my protective wall of resolute determination to control all emotion has collapsed in my lap.
I am never more certain of my need for grace than when I find myself on my face in the dog hair covered floor… when I find myself in the filth of my pit of flesh. As I am on the inside wanting to scream and yell out my feelings of mistreatment and disrespect and yet struggling all the more with the sheer certainty that I am being sifted and I do not want the pain to be in vain.
It’s crazy how the simplest things can crush you when you are seeking to be holy as He is holy, when you are desiring to pursue righteousness as He commanded… when you want to be one who is pure at heart so that you might see Him… and the simple fact is that nothing matters but seeing Him.
So in this realization… in this cry out for His grace to be lavished upon me and for His mercy and the cleansing of His Word to wash over me and remove this filth of fleshly ick from my inner being I must decide what’s more important… winning my right, my way, my desires, or submitting to this test and saying Yes, Lord… what are you trying to teach me.
Oh how much easier it is to ball my fist up tight than to let my arms fall limp at my side and bow humbly before Him.
And then there’s this fear beast that I thought I’d already wrestled down, skinned, hung and mounted — and it’s the thing that breathes again ugly and too close.
It’s strange how knots in the pit of the stomach can try to undo everything.
For the life of me?
I can’t get it all right.
For the life of me I can’t get it all right. I always fail. I always fall short.
I always end up right here again doubting even my own existence, and at the point when it seems like all the levelness of life has just been shook into a disheveled heep… I am there in Philadelphia clinging to the One who has said He is holy, He is true, He has the key and what He opens no one can shut… not even me.
And I cry out… Oh God let them know that You have loved me. Let them see that Your Word is true and right and let them see in spite of me because I am so messed up.
I am flesh and I am tired and I am full of feelings I wish I didn’t have… anxieties, anger, frustrations, disappointments, and I cry out… Oh God let them know that You have loved me… for when I confess my sin You are faithful to forgive me and cleanse me of all unrighteousness…
It’s amazing how God just can slam the breaks on your life and flip things up side down and around and send you out in a whole new direction.
I am thankful that He is in control.
Less than a month ago my husband and I were considering a transfer to another state. He was in the running for a position advancement at work and while in this running, another job offer several states away was sent to him through the grapevine.
Then out of the blue our former realtor calls and wants to show a lady our house. The house that we had on the market for a year over six months ago, with no one showing any interest in purchasing.
You see we had decided that God must not have wanted us to move. We began making plans and adjustments to stay where we were… then God says… Surprise!
While in the planning-on-staying-put-in-the-house stage of our life… I had finally quit arguing with God about my inability to answer the call to children’s ministry. I began keeping a check on the church employment offers in children’s ministry in our area… knowing that God was leading me here eventually in His time.
When our house sold, less than a week following the grapevine job offer from another state… I thought, “Well this is it. God is moving us here, and here is where our ministry in the Lord is heading”
I believe I have shared before that whenever I decide that I know exactly what God is up to He never fails to remind me that I am completely clueless. And the truth is I am perfectly okay with that, I used to not be, but now I have learned that what He has planned far exceeds my limited ability to rationalize my own life course.
Well the house is under contract, my husband and I are not moving to Indiana. If the Lord wills, we are moving closer to His current job. His commute will go from on hour to ten minutes. And not only is His commute closer (which will help with my concerns of him driving for an hour home after working a twelve hour night shift) but God has also provided us with a beautiful new home that we love.
The finding of this home is a God thing as well… it is in a location we would have never considered on our own. But like I said God has a way of putting us where He wants us.
So, while in the midst of our current house selling and our making the offer on the house we have now signed a contract on… we continued to house hunt and we continued to pray about the three states away thing… because we had not heard a word on our offer.
Then through another God thing, I learned about the resignation of our children’s ministry assistant… my heart stopped.
Could it be?
Could this be where God wants me now?
I immediately began conversing with Him and praying and seeking His guidance… because I was beginning to become so sure that we were to be headed in the three states away direction… it had been over a week and we had heard nothing on our offer concerning the house that we loved… so no news of course had to mean we were supposed to be moving three states away… right?
And now this… what’s a girl to do?
What in the world was God up to?
My husband was on nights again… and when we got home from church he called and I sat and listened with forced patience as he shared how he didn’t think the Lord was calling us three states away… he realized that if we went we would be going for the sole reason of the job advancement. He knew that if he was going simply to chase a check… we were going for the wrong reason.
My heart stops again.
I now share with him my news and discuss with him about what I should do… We laugh together as we consider the absolute roller-coaster ride the past few weeks have been.
My husband confirms my heart and chides me in love as I try to unqualify myself again… He knows my heart well… better than I like to admit.
I make my heart’s desire known to my church the very next morning bright and early… and then I wait.
And now I need to make a new picture with a new title…
My blog post title is no longer accurate as “Confessions of a Christian Housewife”
It now needs to read “Confessions of a Christian Children’s Ministry Director”
On Good Friday we remembered that He died on the cross for our sin. He died not just for the sins we committed or the sins we will commit, but He died for the sin.
The original sin that day in the garden… when the world was flipped upside down and the curse of death was unleashed to wreak its havoc.
This inherit sin that is the root of all sins… it was for this sin that He went to the cross and when this sin’s debt was paid its cost was so great that its payment more than enough covered all the sins that came as a result of that one original sin.
Friday He died.
Friday He was mocked, beaten, betrayed, hated, denied, whispered about.
Saturday He was whispered about…
He was fought about…
He was cried over…
He was mourned…
He was doubted.
Sunday He was doubted, but He rose!
Sunday He rose from the grave because death could not hold Him.
Sunday He was shouted over,
He was worshiped,
He was praised,
He was doubted, but those who doubted now believed!
Friday He was denied and He died,
Saturday He was dead and doubted,
Sunday He was doubted but His deity was clearly declared as He stood before His disciples!
But today is Monday.
Today He is alive. He is the risen Christ. He is Jesus, the Son of God. He has died, never to die again. Now He extends His nail-scarred hand out to us all and says “Now it’s your turn. Will you die too? Will you die to your will and be raised in Mine?”
Today.
Will you die today?
Will you die trusting in His divine authority to see you raised from that death in eternal victory?
Will you die to your will and live today in total surrender to the One who calls out to you and says, “Come and follow Me“?
Today it’s your turn to die. Will you go to your knees in your garden of Gethsemane and lay your heart out before the Father and surrender your will no matter how hard that surrender will be? Today will you cry our, not my will but Your will be done?
Just for today.
God doesn’t ask for your tomorrow.
God asks for your today.
Yet you do not knowwhat your life will be like tomorrow.
You are just a vapor that appears for a little while
and then vanishes away.
James 4:14
So what will you do with your today?
Will you choose to live today saying- Yes, Lord. Here I am…
I was truly excited to hear that my next product for review as a Gabby Mom was the Eternal Encouragement magazine. Don’t get me wrong, I love the email subscriptions, but there just is something about being able to have a great read in my hand that allows me to actually turn the page.
I opened the magazine and began reading at the first page and I didn’t make it through the first article before I began taking notes and heading to my computer to share quotes as facebook status updates and twitter tweets.
Every article was filled with God’s Word and it magnified His grace and love and pointed us to a true and real relationship with our God through His Son Jesus Christ.
There were very few advertisements in the magazine. Those that were in it were truly helpful products focused on growing in Christ. As a fairly new homeschool mom I found the advertisements for curriculum and website referrals very helpful. I think I have just about looked into every one of them and marked them in my favorites on my computer.
As I read through this magazine I was encouraged as a believer, as a woman, as a wife, as a mother, as a teacher. It is a magazine that I will not through in the trash when I am done, but it will be added to my bookshelf as a reference from which to pull information.
In the very last article in the magazine Lorrie Flem the editor of Eternal Encouragement Magazine and More had this to say, My quick description to describe our ministry to others is this, “We encourage women to trust and obey God, stay home, embrace obeying their husbands, consistently and lovingly train their children, and put their first fruits into their own homes.”
If this ministry description is a standard for your own life, then Eternal Encouragement magazine will help you reach and maintain that standard. It’s well worth the money for the subscription and the time to read.
Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior,
not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine,
teaching what is good,
so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands,
to love their children,
to be sensible, pure, workers at home,
kind, being subject to their own husbands,
so that the word of God will not be dishonored.
Titus 2:3-5
Eternal Encouragement Magazine & more is an excellent example of this Scripture verse being fleshed out. Women teaching women to love God, to love their husbands, and to love their children so that the Word of God will not be dishonored or the testimony of Christ maligned. May we all as women work on building each other up and encouraging one another with the Truth of the Word not our own opinions… may we be women, wives, and mothers who walk in a manner worthy of our calling always growing in the grace and knowledge of our God.
(Subscriptions are available printed and digital andany subscription receives the NEW EE Etc. Web Magazine that is published 8 times a year. This has full magazine articles that are only available to Eternal Encouragement Subscribers via a new online magazine website.)
EE Disclaimer: I received this product free from EE magazine for an honest review.
A year ago I sat at this very same computer and wrote how I was overwhelmed… but I was overwhelmed with me, with issues, with frustrations, with junk… today I sit here as a woman overwhelmed again.
However this time, I am overwhelmed with Him. Today I am overwhelmed with His grace and His goodness.
I wish I could take you into my head and heart even deeper. I wish I could show you the battles that I have fought. I wish that you could see how faithful He has been… some of you reading this know.
You have prayed with me, stood by me, and fought with me through your prayers and words of encouragement and through constantly taking me back to the Word of my God.
You have interceded on my behalf, you have been faithful to send that text, write that card, make that call, say those words, pray that prayer, do that thing, when the Holy Spirit prompted you… and because you did… you were used by Him to help keep hope, faith, and love alive in me.
Never, ever, ever, underestimate the power of a kind word, a small gesture, a simple sincere how are you doing? They are more powerful than you can even imagine.
After finishing my study of the book of Job this morning, I sat on the couch overwhelmed with sobs as I was washed over with a wave of His grace. His abundant, sufficient, amply supplied grace. I am so undeserving of it, but He gives it any way.
Oh how I pray that when others see me, when others hear me speak His name, when they hear me share His truth, they can grasp that I mean what I say because I know that from the depth of my being that HE means what HE says.
He is good, so very good.
He has never failed me.
His Word has won every battle I have ever fought.
I don’t know where you are at. I don’t know what you are going through. I do know that if you will fall into Him He will rescue you and He will redeem you, and He will restore you. I can’t promise you it will be immediate. You may even think He has forgotten you. You may doubt He is even there, but hold on to the memory, the mere thought, the smallest hope in Him… and trust His Word. Be obedient to His Word no matter how much your mind and others around you call it foolishness. Trust and obey Him and leave the consequences of your trust and obedience in His hands as you rest in the absolute assurance of His eternal goodness and lovingkindness.
I am sitting here at the computer after consuming a plate of pancakes and sausage at pretty much bed time. I enjoyed every bite… every bite that is except the last one.
That last bite passed my lips and slid down my throat and landed in my stomach like a brick.
Then on top of that brick landed a pile of condemnation and whispers of “oh that was disgusting”
and “I can’t believe you just ate that this late”
and “wow, your jeans are already tighter”
and “that’s really gonna help that swimsuit look”
and “didn’t you just pay money to help you lose weight… well you just threw that money out the window with that plate”
The real confession…
The first thought that passed through my mind in response to the whispers was to go to the bathroom and make myself throw it all back up. There was a day not that long ago when that is exactly what I would have done… that… or I would have taken some stuff to make it come out the other end.
I know the dangers of this, but even so, it is still my first thought on how to handle this ick that now sits in my body.
I knew I should have just had a glass of water, but I saw the pancakes and the sausage… and I did eat. So then my minds solution is to make what went down come back up.
Stupid flesh.
Obeying it only feels good in the moment… it never feels good when the moment has past. Then your own thoughts on how to fix the ick usually put you in an even ickier place… oh the endless cycle of condemnation that comes when you obey your fleshly desire.
So how do I fix the ick…
Tonight I confess.
I repent of choosing to obey my flesh rather than what I know is beneficial for my mind, body, soul, and spirit.
I drink a glass of water.
I choose to not make matters worse by purging myself.
I begin anew tomorrow.
Yes, I am thirty-five years old and this thought process is still a struggle. But I have victory in and through my God… because tonight I will not make myself throw up nor take something before bed that will kick in when I wake up… I will just trust my God and His forgiveness and His grace and His mercy for they are new every morning.
If you have been with me long you have read of our attempt to sell our house… and after having it on the market for a year we chose to take it off the market and refinance. We decided that God obviously wanted us to stay here for a little while longer.
Well the house has been off the market for about eight months and two Saturday’s ago our former realtor calls and says she is on top of our mountain showing houses and the lady with her was wanting to know if we were still interested in selling our house…
Of course we said, Yes.
She wanted to see it right then.
At this point my husband is getting ready to go on night shift and I am at the ballfield with our girls. This showing is coming right after a teaching engagement I had, and my mind and heart had been focused on preparing lessons not cleaning our house.
The house was a wreck.
The rugs hadn’t been vacuumed in days so dog hair was every where. The floors had not been mopped in forever… we had been running crazy for the past month and plus I had been sick. Laundry was on every clean flat surface. The tub and the closet were full of dirty clothes and towels, not one bed was made, the sink was full of dirty dishes, my husband counted eighteen pairs of shoes scattered through out the house…
I mean it was bad.
But I said, “sure it’s a mess, but go right ahead”
The following Monday we got the call that they wanted to see it again.
So that night I cleaned the house. But I did not get into the frantic crazy clean that I had put myself through when in it was the market for a year… I just did what I had planned on doing that Monday anyway just to get things caught back up from the backburner place I had put it on. I realized that if they wanted to come back after seeing it the past Saturday anything I got done would be an amazing improvement 🙂
So me and my girls head out for lunch while this couple checks out our house again.
After lunch we head to Book-a-Million so my Shelby can use a gift card that she has had since Christmas and while we are searching for a book we get the call.
I suppose that the others in Books-a-Million probably thought we were crazy invaders from outer somewhere because I am on my knees in the middle of the store floor giving my thanks and praise to my God and my girls are jumping up and down and holding hands as they sing “they want our house! they want our house!”
Boom out of no where life gets flipped and change enters the equation of life once again.
And in this change comes the opportunity to choose to trust in the Word of God or not…
The moment the news of the house selling settles down I begin to doubt…
what if we pack our whole house up,
find a place we absolutely love,
and then they back out and decide they don’t want the house…
Oh ye of little faith.
Trusting in God’s sovereignty is easy from the pew… it’s a little harder from the kitchen 🙂
Many plans are in a man’s heart
But the counsel of the LORD will stand
Proverbs 19:21
Here is the thing… what if we do pack the whole house up and find a place we absolutely love and then they decide they don’t want our house and back out of the contract… if that were to happen would I be willing to stop and believe…
Whether for correction,
or for His world,
or for His lovingkindness,
He causes it to happen.
Job 37:13
Either I believe in the sovereignty of God or I don’t. Either I believe the Word of God is indeed the word of God or I don’t… the Word of God is either just another title for the Holy Bible to me or it is indeed the God breathed syllables of life.
How I obey it, trust in it, seek it, rely on it, treasure it… shows how I really feel about it.
Will I trust Him in all of life… or just pull from His book when it suits me?
All of life is a test.
Will I choose to trust God in the pew and in the kitchen.
Will I choose to believe in His sovereign will and plan even when the little things in life don’t make sense and don’t go the way I seemed so sure they would go?
Will I seek His will in the little every day things or just call on Him when I think “I can’t handle this one”
Today I choose to trust Him
with the unreturned phone calls,
with the delayed dates set,
with the overslepts and completely forgots
with the packed the whole house up and they just backed outs
and
with the returned phone calls
with the quickly confirmed dates set
with the up on time and out the door and remembered it alls
with the moving everything out and in to the new place God has planned for us…
I choose to trust God with it all… when I don’t like it and when I do. I will submit to His will and His authority and His purpose and His plan and I will seek Him in His Word to help us make sense of it all along the way.
When I fully enter into the current moment with the weight of all my attention, I slow the torrent with the weight of me all here.
Weigh down this moment in time with attention full, and the whole of time’s river slows, slows, slows.
In this space of time and sphere, I am attentive. I am aware. I am accepting the whole of the moment, weighing it down with me all here.
~Ann Voskamp
I read these words and I breathed deep. This is something I fight often. This feeling of “rushed”. I can’t tell you the number of times that I have heard my husband say, “Nicole, slow down“
I will get myself in a tizzy, my stomach tied in knots, my fingers just wiggling, and my mind racing, as I try to remember what I need to get out the door in order to accomplish all that I feel must be accomplished this particular day. I can’t enjoy the present moment because I can’t get the fear that I will forget something that will be needed to take care of that moment up ahead.
Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city,
and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.”
Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow.
You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.
Instead, you ought to say,
“If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.”
But as it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil.
James 4:13-16
It should have been a sign to me a long time ago that when my stomach knotted up, and my words became harsh, and my patience became short, and my flesh crawled… that this “rushing” was arrogance, that it was indeed evil. But some how I have always managed to ignore the signs.
Even when I received a clear rebuke, a clear warning, “Nicole, slow down”
I would huff and ignore it and continue in my “rush”
I have no clue how many amazing moments I have completely missed, I have destroyed, I have trampled, I have ran over… in my “rush”. How many times have I wounded little hearts in my, “Not now! I don’t have time!”
God forgive me…
How thankful I am for His grace, for His mercy, for His forgiveness…
How thankful I am for their grace,
for their mercy,
for their forgiveness… my little hearts (and my big heart)
How thankful I am that He is willing to say, “Nicole slow down” over and over and over and over again.
Life moves so fast…
Today I just want to slow down and be still and know that He is God.
I would love to know how you did… not through this challenge per say… but as an awakening. I would love to know how this challenge helps next week or next month or next year… so would Dannah Gresh and so would Shannon Ethridge.
So please comment below, or if it is more personal than that shoot me an email.
I would love to hear from you.
Day Thirty-Three
I believe that we live in a sexually confused day and age, and many hearts and spirits cannot perceive or know God. Like so many in Solomon’s day, we’ve missed the beauty of yada, not only in our human love relationships but also in our interactions with God. So many long for something deeper and richer, but they don’t know if it’s even possible. ~ Dannah Gresh
I want to end this challenge with a plea, a plea for you to run to your Savior with everything. A plea for you to recognize that your sexuality is intricately connected to your spirituality. Your sex life matters. Your view of sex is connected to your true view of God.
1) Sexuality is designed by Christ as a way to know God more fully; and
2) knowing Christ more fully in all His infinite supremacy is designed as a way of guarding and guiding our sexuality. All sexual corruption serves to conceal the true knowledge of Christ, and the true knowledge of Christ serves to prevent sexual corruption.
~ John Piper
So what does your sex life reveal about your knowledge and heart for God?
Has what you have learned, in your media fast and in your seeking God this past month, opened your eyes and heart to the possibility of a relationship with God that you didn’t even know you could have?
Have you truly been busy running the serpent and his lies out of your life, out of your heart, out of your mind? Are there permanent changes you are going to make in your life now that his lies have been exposed?
Here’s the thing, you can’t stop today.
You have to keep weeding. When you have a garden you do a huge weeding and tilling when the garden is first ready to plant… but that does not complete the job. The weeds will come back. You have to keep weeding that garden. You can choose to weed it daily and the weeding is easy… or you can choose to be lazy and ignore the weeds until you see they are beginning to choke out your fruit and vegetables and flowers… when you wait to go out and weed at that point… it’s harder. It’s even seems almost impossible to destroy all the weeds.
Weeding out the deception of the serpent out of the garden of your soul is exactly the same way…
Then the LORD God took the man
and put him into the garden of Eden
to cultivate it and keep it.
Genesis 2:15
*********************************
Awake, O north wind, And come, wind of the south;
Make my garden breathe out fragrance,
Let its spices be wafted abroad.
May my beloved come into his garden
And eat its choice fruits!
Song of Solomon 4:16
*************************************
And the LORD will continually guide you,
And satisfy your desire in scorched places,
And give strength to your bones;
And you will be like a watered garden,
And like a spring of water whose waters do not fail.
Isaiah 58:11
Oh precious one… weed daily. Don’t let that old serpent’s weeds of deception grow up and choke out the beautiful blooms of your Creator’s truth.
Ladies, it is my heart’s desire that you not just know God as your Creator, that you not just know God as your Redeemer, but that you also know Him as the Lover of your soul.
In light of His purpose to portray His image (relational love) and His salvation (exclusive love), it is impossible to consider God’s guidelines for sex as arbitrary. Nor can we label them as outdated or old-fashioned.
God’s call for sex to be preserved for one man and one woman who have not even a hint of sexual experience anywhere else is in context with His plan to portray Himself and His love to a lost world.
I believe the exclusive passion and commitment of a bride and groom is meant to be a picture of an exclusive, exciting relationship with Jesus Christ that is free from any other gods. When people witness the passion and mystery of that rarely seen couple who are still emotionally engaged with each other “after all these years,” it gives credence to the possibility of something lasting and passionate. And the apostle Paul said such a relationship will be so rare in our world that it will be called a “mystery.” He went on to say it will make people hungry for the mysterious, exclusive love of Christ.
~ Dannah Gresh
FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER
AND SHALL BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE,
AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH.
This mystery is great;
but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.
Ephesians 5:31-32
Day Thirty-Two
Here’s the bottom line… one of the greatest witness you have to a lost and dying world of the gospel of Christ is a healthy and happy marriage that lasts. Your marriage is one of the biggest leaps of faith you will ever take apart from salvation. We are supposed to go into marriage saying “come hell or high water you are stuck with me and only me, and the only assurance I have of the future is that you will be there with me, I don’t know what we will go though, but whatever it is, we won’t go through it alone, I’m with you baby, let’s do this thing!”
When two people come together in this world, and both are focused on Christ and each other, they show the world that God’s way is true and right. It is a beautiful picture of the love relationship that God wants to have with us. There is a reason that idolatry and adultery are so similar in sound and definition.
In our relationship with Christ we are to have no other gods. We are not to seek nourishment, help, peace, guidance, comfort, pleasure, from any source outside of Him. In our marriages we are not to seek nourishment, help, peace, guidance, comfort, pleasure from any person outside our spouse.
We are to know Christ intimately, personally, and deeply and we are to know our spouses in the same way.
Sex with our spouse (male and female sex) unites us inside and out.
Salvation in Christ unites us with God inside and out.
I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper,
that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth,
whom the world cannot receive,
because it does not see Him or know Him,
but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.
John 14:16-17
(There’s a reason that Eve was called Adam’s “helper”)
Your marriage is more important than any track you can hand out, any show you can put on, any conference you can put together, any concert you might play, any trip to Africa you might make, it’s more important than any message you might preach.
Your marriage validates all these others. If your marriage falls apart because you have put these before your marriage as a “sacrifice” to God… you need to stop and examine your heart.
Therefore, when He comes into the world, He says,
“ SACRIFICE AND OFFERING YOU HAVE NOT DESIRED,
BUT A BODY YOU HAVE PREPARED FOR ME
Hebrews 10:5
In marriage you become one, one body. This is the body you are to care for first, then out of this body you reach the rest of the body of Christ. The first person that God called Adam to sacrifice for and care for was his wife. The first person Eve was called to help was her husband.
This is why saying “I do” shouldn’t be a Las Vegas joke. It’s serious business.
That’s why before you even choose to date or be courted by someone you need to ask yourself,
“Does he meet God’s standard of a godly husband?”
These are not the questions to ask:
“Doesn’t he deserve forgiveness?”
“How much should it matter that I am physically attracted to him?”
“Isn’t there an emotional feeling you get that he’s the one right away, and why didn’t I get that?”
Yes, he deserves forgiveness, but that’s not the real issue is it?
Will you be physically attracted to you spouse? Well, yes, of course, most of the time, but if this is what you are relying on, then when you go through a rough patch the enemy will convince you that you “have fallen out of love”.
Is there an emotional feeling right away… sometimes yes, but many of the best marriages are formed out of friendships and then the friends look at each other one day and realize they want to be more than just friends…
The first and most important question always is: Does he meet God’s standard? Does he have faithful, true, staying love?
Honey, do you want yada ?
Yada doesn’t come from first, ooey-gooey emotions… yada is more than that, it goes much deeper.
Yada is realized in imperfections and craggy disfigurement, hidden beyond the unblemished innocence of not knowing. Yada knows. It knows the unwelcome, unsightly secrets- secrets that could rightfully prompt rejection. But yada overrides the logical desire to dismantle the wounded relationship. Yada reaches into the grace-filled depths of unconditional staying power and finds the strength to breathe life into love one more time. Yada is a faithful love. A staying love.
This is the heart of yada. To be known- just as we are- and still be pursued.
Here is the beauty in marriage.
My husband sees the very worst of me. He sees me roll out of bed after three days of the flu. He sees me gain forty pounds and lose it and gain it again. He sees the new wrinkle, the stretch marks, and the varicose veins. He sees the ill woman raging over the dirty clothes all over the house. He sees the woman who cries for no reason and is easily frustrated because of PMS. He sees me yell at the kids and the dog. He sees me make a fool of myself because of emotional turmoil. He listens to my complaining.
He sees me. The good, the bad, and the ugly…
He sees all this and yet he still lifts my chin and looks me deep in my eyes and says “I love you and I am absolutely crazy about you.” Ladies, this is yada. This can only be known through faithful, true, staying love. Love that says, yes sometimes this relationship gets ugly… but it’s worth it.
It’s worth it for my children to see what forgiveness looks like. It is worth it for my children to see that real love is not based on flowers and candy. It’s worth it for my children to see that you can be real and be loved.
It’s worth it for my marriage to be able to be used by God to declare the glory of His majesty and faithfulness.
It’s worth it for my marriage to be able to show a dying world that God’s Word will heal any hurt and get you through any storm.
It’s worth it for my marriage to be used by God to correctly illustrate His image to a world that Satan has been pretty darn successful so far to distort. Your marriage is bigger than you and your marriage is not just for your own personal pleasure and satisfaction and happiness. Your marriage has the power to display the glory of God. To display the covenant between Christ and His church. To display the image of the Trinity. To display hope, faith, and love.
Your marriage is to be a picture to the world of how much God loves them.
Because God sees us. He sees the good, the bad, and the ugly, and He still lifts our chin and says “I love you and I am absolutely crazy about you”
This is why, as I have grown in grace myself and yada, I will never again look at a couple and say, “I can’t believe she stayed after all that.” or “She should have left him a long time ago” or “Well if I was her I would pack his stuff right now and say hit the road jack!”
Yes maybe she’s a fool… but maybe, just maybe, it’s yada.
Maybe, just maybe, her mission is her marriage.
We would not say this about someone who has chosen to stay in a city in a foreign land that hates Christians, even when death is imminent would we? Maybe, just maybe, God has said, “if you can love him, you can love anyone.” Maybe, just maybe, she is the only one who has never abandoned him and maybe constant abandonment is the reason why he is the way he is…
I will never pass judgment on a woman or man who chooses to stay in a marriage again.
***(Please know that abuse is NEVER OKAY and please know that I am not saying a woman should stay in an abusive marriage, if abuse is a part of the marriage, help needs sought IMMEDIATELY)***
Your challenge today…
Spend today looking at your marriage through the eyes of Christ…
And now look at it through the eyes of others who see it
and hear you talk about it…
Are there changes you need to make?
Then, make them on your face before your unconditionally loving God.
The writing and teachings of Nicole Love Halbrooks Vaughn
