What Could Have Been

confessions

I haven’t done a good “Confessions of a Christian Housewife” post in a while… so this one is well overdue.

Last night I spoke at a women’s event. Speaking is always terrifying to me… because God fills me full of His Word and I learn while I study and He teaches me and I am filled with thoughts and memories and failures and victories and I never know what is going to actually come out when I open my mouth…

So sometimes I leave blessed and full… sometimes I leave with this churning feeling…

Today I am churning… and I am not sure why.

I have been before the Lord this morning seeking to know clear understanding as to why… the only thought that continues to permeate is the one about what could have been…

There was a time when my husband and I struggled. We struggled greatly in our marriage. I believe I have shared that before… Last night as I shared, God had so put it on my heart to help these women understand how important it is to love their husbands and to love their children and to not give up on their families…

There was a time when I didn’t think I could do this marriage thing any longer. You see the lack of peace in my home was just so overwhelming to me. What I know now is that my adversary the devil was right there whispering lies into my mind… firing his flaming arrows of doubt and discouragement… My husband and I were in a battle against the forces of hell… but Satan had us convinced we were fighting each other.

I made a plan to leave while my husband was gone on a trip… that way it could be done peacefully. I had even convinced myself that God was blessing me in this decision… I had even dug up some Scripture and internet research to support me in my plan. I even had it figured out how after some time I could still even be in ministry… But you see I was blind… blinded by fear, emotions, flesh, and sin.

God however took care of things.

He stepped in and intervened by sending a snow storm… that not only cancelled the business trip but left me playing in the snow with my husband. I remember how confused I was at that time.

Now I thank God because that snowstorm was a turning point.

Come now, and let us reason together,”
Says the Lord,
“Though your sins are as scarlet,
They will be as white as snow;

Isaiah 1:18

That snowstorm began a healing… a healing that required picking off old scabs and pealing away dead skin so that the Balm of Gilead could be applied in the deep places of my soul… and in my husband’s… we were now about to take part in God’s most beautiful soul-mating adventure.

The years that followed have been filled with confession and forgiveness and yieldings to mercy and offerings of grace. My husband is now my best friend and there was a time when I didn’t even think he liked me… and I didn’t think I liked him to much anymore either.

Today I adore him. Today I want to see him smile. Today I like him… I really like him… I am flat out head over heels in love with him. Are things always perfect now? Ummmm no. We are both still in the flesh, we both still have hormones, we both still get aggravated, and make mistakes… but the difference is grace. We are much quicker to apply grace and mercy to each other and we are quick to forgive. Really forgive. I love him y’all. God as my witness, I love him.

When I think what could have been if God had not stopped it… I cringe. I was about to quite right before the breakthrough was to come. I was about to let Satan triumph over me. Where would I be? Where would my girls be?

You know where I would be?

I would still be trying to hide the lies I had answered questions with before we were married. I would still be carrying the shame of my past. I would still be walking around in fear of not being loved… if he knew… I would still be in a shadow of darkness when God wanted to use this man to bring me into His glorious light.

I had to make a confession. I had to admit my part in the lack of peace in our home. As much as I wanted it to be all my husbands fault… it wasn’t. Deep down I was the one that had allowed my fear of losing him, to build up the first wall that would be a barrier between our souls. I was afraid if he knew… he would despise me… because, well, I despised myself.

Neither of us were walking with the Lord at the time. So we didn’t understand all this then… but I see it now. We spent a lot of time reacting and self-protecting. I self-protected by lying or hiding and he self-protected by anger and fighting.

I was the first one to use the d-word. In all recollection I don’t think he has ever used it. You see I was a flighter. He was a fighter. My reaction was always to run. His was to fight.

The enemy wanted me to run. Satan wanted me to give up… but do you know one truth that God used? God used to say to me, Nicole, you say you love Me. You say you want to love others with My love. You say you want to tell people about My forgiveness, about My grace, about My Son. You say you want to do awesome and mighty things for the glory of My name… but I am saying to you… You love, because I first loved you. If you say, “I love God,” and you hate your brother, you are liar; for if you do not love him whom you have seen, you cannot love Me whom you have not seen. And this commandment you have from Me, that the one who loves God should love his brother also (1 John 4:19-21 paraphrased for me).

God reminded me that I had prayed for this man. I loved this man. He reminded me that if I wanted His grace and forgiveness for my mistakes I better be willing to extend it to others… especially my husband. If I, as a professing praying and gospel proclaiming Christian woman, thought my husband acted the way he did because he just needed more Jesus… then why on earth would I purposefully remove from him the best opportunity for Jesus with skin on that he ever had in his life… me, his believing wife and his believing children. Would that not like be shoving him over a cliff, or just twisting the knife in his back?

We seem to live in a day where every person is forgivable but our spouses. It ought not to be so.

I don’t know where you are right now in your marriage. I know somethings are out of our control. But I implore you men and women of God… you are supposed to be the most Jesus with skin on in your family’s life. To your wife. To your husband. To your children. To your parents. Walk in love… real Jesus love. It’s not always easy. Sometimes it requires humility and humiliation.

Your family is your mission field and know that it is indeed under heavy attack. Don’t let the enemy turn you against each other when who you are supposed to be fighting is him.

Had God not brought us to our senses, had we not been willing to obey Him, had we not been willing to forgive as we had been forgiven… I would have missed knowing the most amazing man I have met.

I watch my kids wake up to both their parents, I watch them crawl up on the couch with me and my husband… 12 and 9 years old and plenty of seats in the house and they both choose to pile up on top of us… All of us on one couch. I. LOVE. IT. Crowded and glorious. I smile at the future. I look forward to falling in love with my husband over and over and over again. I get excited watching the greying of his beard… knowing that we are growing old together.

What could have been will never be… and I am forever grateful.

The Snowstorm

snowstorm

From our family photo shoot Fall 2013 🙂

Me and Patrick

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