Oh friend. I had such amazing things happen in the last two weeks and I made a great change in my marriage.
God is working out so many incredible things. Like the new youth centre I'm going to be the administrator for. . . well I'm officially on the board and we've had a couple meetings. I am helping them make a business plan that communicates our dream and our board chair has even had a meeting with the Mayor of Kindersley. AND GUESS WHAT! The Mayor loves our plan and he is going to give us a letter of his recommendation and he's going to let us pitch our plan to the council!
HUGE! So huge! I can hardly believe this is all happening so fast. God is like on fire in our lives.
So what about this marriage stuff? Well, I had a rough couple last Sundays but God was using it all for my good. Like he usually is. Of course.
Three Sundays ago, Brenton had been getting overly stressed, as usual, and he was not being nice to me. Nothing new there. Then I went to church and I felt like going up for prayer about it. I felt like God was trying to remind me how to stop carrying my hurts for so long, to let them go faster. My pastor taught me (for like the fifth time) how to pray an emotion out of my heart and release negativity, washing it right out of me. It felt great.
My Pastor said to me that if I continued practicing this and doing it, I would find that eventually the negative emotions wouldn't control me so much and in fact, would start deflecting off and not bother me at all. I'm so grateful for his patience in how slowly I was learning this lesson.
I was very excited about that, but I had a little whoopsy the next week. The following Sunday, Brenton had been telling me all week how excited he was to finally start taking one day off every week. A sabbath, as the Bible puts it. A day of rest.
Brenton has never done this before. He's attempted it a few times and each time he quickly gave up after a couple weeks. But he's changed a lot since we started attending our new church - even though Brenton hasn't come more than once since January. But even though his attendance was so low, he was still growing and changing like never before which he says is because we left our old church. We were very stuck in old ways.
So now I was getting really hopeful. Brenton was talking differently, acting differently and he just seemed really committed this time. All week he said he was excited to finally get back to church. And then Sunday came around and he decided that he was just too tired to go and he just wanted to stay home.
I cried most of the way into town. In hindsight, I was totally overreacting. But it's okay because God was teaching me something really cool and important.
So I totally forgot again about praying out those negative emotions and I came in as worship was already going. I had our youngest son with me and our older son was home with Brenton. Caleb and I walk into the service, the music is awesome but we just quietly find a couple chairs and sit down.
Now you would think that nobody would notice that. That we simply sat down. But you know, my new church family knows me so well already that within minutes a lady, who is a leader in our church, comes over and asks me, "Are you okay?"
Yeah, my church is that freaking amazing. I wasn't crying. I was totally composed, but we just were just sitting down instead of standing up and worshiping.
So she totally helps me release those negative emotions and she doesn't blame Brenton for one second, at all. That's another great thing about our church is that they don't take sides in an argument, they just help you heal yourself and control yourself.
We plug into worship, the sermon was like on fire and totally hit my heart. I went up for prayer again and one more time they patiently teach me how to pray those negative emotions out of my heart.
So this is two weeks in a row of learning about this one specific thing. The whole time God has been telling me, "Get into alignment with me." And I could feel how out of sync I was with God when I would allow those hurtful words and actions to take root in my heart. And how much better and in tune with God I felt when I prayed it out.
So last Sunday comes around and I finally got it! On Friday and Saturday Brenton had again said some hurtful things, but it all just didn't get into me like it did before. It still sucked and wasn't awesome (Lego Movie 2!!! Everything's Not Awesome. . .) but I just felt like all the hurtful words deflected away from me and they just couldn't get to me.
I DID IT!!!!!!
After all that patient teaching from my church, I finally got it. I wasn't like having a great time, but it was Brenton's problem that he was upset at me and not mine. His emotions were not my problem. I had made a mistake but I apologized for it, with sincerity, and he still wouldn't let it go. Fine, I did what I could and I was free to talk to him but I just didn't get pulled into his emotions after that.
That was Saturday.
I woke up Sunday morning just feeling pretty happy. Not like, crazy happy but just like really good. I vaguely remembered that Brenton was mad the day before but I felt like I had a choice in that moment - that I could focus on yesterday and remember every little detail.
Or, I felt like I could choose to think about something else and just let yesterday float away and not even remember it.
Isaiah 43:25
"I, I am the one who blots out your transgression for my own sake, and I'll remember your sins no more."
That's my Daddy, my heavenly Father, who says that he doesn't even remember my sins. You have to hear his voice in this verse, like he's gently holding you by the chin so you really pay attention, "Listen little one, who has blotted out your mistakes? I - I AM the one who forgets every wrong thing you've ever done. I choose not only to forgive you, but to me, it's like they never happened."
That's cool and I'm glad to do the same thing because it's so good to just forget about it and go back to being happy.
So I had gone to milk my cow and I came back home, not sure what kind of mood Brenton would be in but I was just happy anyway. He was on the deck when I got out of my car and I cheerfully said good morning and he was cheerful back to me. Then guess what!!!
He apologized!!!
He said sorry for everything he had gotten mad about.
God had already helped me forget about his episode but I'm telling you, that was a sweet thing that morning to get that apology, it was a big juicy cherry on top of a strawberry sundae. And he came to church and he gave a testimony about God teaching him to take a day off every week. We went out for lunch as a family, spent some actual time together and had a great day.
So now, we still have our days where we struggle, but I'm remembering to keep praying those negative emotions out of my heart and if I keep it up, they don't even get inside me in the first place.
One last thing to note: This isn't like shutting people out of your heart or closing off emotionally. It could be easy to confuse the two. This is a mental state where you recognize anything you might have done wrong and you apologize for it, but if the other person still doesn't accept your apology and they keep trying to make a fight over it - then you simply don't feel the need to stay in the fight with them.
You still talk and respond to them, there's no ignoring them or giving them the silent treatment, but once you've made your apology then you are free. Free to not feel guilty, to deflect any shame or condemnation they try to throw at you. You did all you could, then you just stand. You are wearing your armor and nothing can penetrate it.
Ephesians 6: 10-16
The Armor of God
10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.12 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.
13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
Notice all the standing? This is exactly what it felt like. The enemy will try to work through people in your life to condemn you but if you have done everything you could to apologize and make amends, then there's nothing left in the enemy's attacks and you can just stand there and let arrow after arrow go "ping, ping, ping. . . " like they are nothing, like he's shooting straws at you and they have no effect.
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