Serenity

Serenity
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Sunday, May 31, 2009

To Praise God...

(Concerning Divorce)......."First, you need someone who is willing and able to walk with you during this time. Someone who will not just sympathize with you, but will also hold you accountable to look at the biblical issues and do what is right. I believe that if at all possible, the best person to do this is your pastor. Another person might be a counselor trained to use the Bible.

Second, you need the church of Jesus Christ surrounding you. Be very careful you don't pull away from the church. Each part of the body needs the other. Make it clear to others in your church you don't want to be left alone. You need their love, encouragement and good counsel. The last thing you need to do is make any decisions about your marriage in a vacuum.

Third, you need to seek God in His Word and cry out to Him to know His ways and His heart for what you should do and how you should respond to your spouse. If you are looking to legitimize your reasons for divorce … slow down, even stop. Notice how much of Scripture is given to God's messages of forgiveness, reconciliation, peace, understanding, and patience.

How much value will you place on the vows you spoke to your mate before the face of your God? When you consider how much God values a covenant, what are the obligations of your marriage covenant before Him?

Will you be patient to wait for God to work in your marriage in a way you have not considered? Will you look to Him to give you the wisdom, the resources, the encouragement you need to do above and beyond what you ever could imagine or think?

Ask God to show you what you can do to rebuild your marriage. Remember, God specializes in redeeming the unredeemable. It is His preeminent desire for your marriage.

In closing, I'd like to challenge you to begin to pray together for 30 days as a couple that God will restore your marriage? That He will be the Builder of your home and that He will bring healing to your relationship. Ask Him for a miracle. You will never regret that you prayed ...."

Praise God for wise, Christian, Bible-believing people such as the writer of this article (found here ).

I am so thankful for the Christian people who have been surrounding me through this difficult time in my life. God has been so good! They have loved on me, supported me, cried with me, prayed with and for me, given me Biblical and godly advice, encouraged me, uplifted me, showered me with hugs and shoulders to cry on, and they have never stopped listening. They have encouraged me to do the right thing no matter what anyone said, what anyone thought. They have given me Scripture to take to heart and will not lead me astray. I believe that it is not how many times you fall down that matter, but how many times you get right back up and keep going. God tells us to press on toward the goal that we may win the prize (Philippians 3:14). If you read my last post you know that my marriage is troubled. A month ago I would have told you it was over forever, there was no fixing it. I praise God that he has been able to soften our hearts a little bit; that He has been able to allow us to see how we hurt the other and the many places we were falling short. I praise God that He has softened my husbands heart and began to calm his anger down. The last few weeks we have talked so much -- and we have been able to talk 100% open and honest with each other. It has been amazing! We are still separated yes, but we are both in agreement that our marriage, our relationship is worth savings. There are many people who think we/I am crazy and that it's not worth it and that nothing will change; but I have God on my side and all that matters is that I follow Him! He tells us in his Word several times that he hates divorce! And how many times does he speak of forgiveness? Patience? He tell us women to love our husbands unconditionally and for our husbands to love us as Christ loved the church. All I want is to please Him and do His will! I believe that I am supposed to do everything absolutely possible to save my marriage. I believe that no matter what anyone else thinks, that as a Christian wife striving to live after Gods Word, that if I do not invest in our marriage, if I dont learn from the mistakes we've made, that I am not in His will. My husband is willing to save our marriage and I believe him. I am choosing to believe him. I am choosing my husband--I am choosing to cling to my spouse, to put him before anyone else (except God), and to put our marriage before anything else. There are so many times I didn't put my marriage first and I should have. I see those now and I want to learn from those life lessons. I want to be so in love with my God and head over heels in love with my husband that nothing else in life matters. God has given us a second chance at getting this right and I want to make the most of it...so that we have the REST of our LIFE to PERFECT it!!!!

I feel like this is where we were: "We could not express anything we wanted to. We resorted to hurting each other with our words. We did not build each other up…we tore each other down and caused deep, emotional pain. Quite honestly, we had endured so much hurt and hurting that we could not see any hope for ever communicating well. Our despair was overwhelming." and that is what eventually ended up in us separating. We have to learn how to communicate with each other and how to change our priorities. We have to learn how to be angry but not closed off; how to talk through that anger/hurt and how to resolve conflict. We have to learn all over again how to be open and honest with each other and to trust each other again. I want my husband to be my best friend, the one I can turn to when everyone else has gone. I want to be his best friend; I want to be his encourager, his cheerleader, his safe place. I want our home to be restful, relaxing, cozy, comfy, peaceful, serene, an oasis away from the rest of the world. And most importantly I want God to be the center of everything again!


And I want to thank you for your continued support as this journey continues. I know it will be a rough road and will not fix itself overnight. But God gives us a hope for the future, he has a plan for our life and best of all he never leaves us no matter how often or how far we stray. Praise God for his wondrous and amazing love, his beautiful mercy, and his amazing grace!

Monday, May 11, 2009

Too HeartBroken to Sleep

So its almost 1am and I can't sleep because I can't stop the tears. My marriage is so broken, my husband has moved out, and i can't stop the tears from coming. I do not see how I'm going to get through this. I love him so much!! I've loved him for 9 years!! Even though he's been really mean about this the last few months, I can't stop my love for him. I don't even know if he ever knew how much he means to me. I thought we'd be together forever. " 'Til death do us part." I vowed for better or for worse. Our marriage was/is so young...and it's just being thrown away. I've been mad at him for so long and now I'm just so sad. I'm so sad that he left. I'm so sad that we will never be "J and J" again. I'm so sad that we will never live our dreams together. I'm so sad that we will never take the vacations we had talked about together. I never thought he would actually leave. I never thought we would ever come to this. We always said divorce was not an option for us, and yet here we are. We are the last couple I ever thought would be using that word. We took so much for granted but I never meant for it to end like this; I never meant to take us for granted, but life happens. I never meant to make him unhappy---I tried so hard to make life better for him. I tried so hard.....
How did we get here in 3 very very short years?? There was so much more we wanted to do together. Everyone says I'm so strong and I'll get through this but do they know how many tears I've cried? Do they know how many pieces my heart is broken in to over and over? I look around and he is in everything. I turn the radio on and there are our favorite songs. I even still have a voicemail on my phone from him from over a year ago when we were fighting and he left me a message saying that he loved me and he didn't want to lose me and he wanted us to find the time to have carefree fun again. I kept that message because he was so sincere and I would listen to it over and over when things got tough just to remind me that he loved me and we would be okay. I see him the dozens of pictures we've taken. I see him everywhere in the house. I regret so much, so very much! And I can never take it back or make it up to him. I keep thinking I'm going to wake up and this will all be a bad dream and he'll be right there to hold me and make things better. We've fought so much in our short marriage but I would do anything to go back and do it all over again. I would do anything for him to come back, or better yet to have never never left. Why? Why me? Why now? I do not see how I could ever love another as much as I love him. He is in all my memories---we've shared so much!! Why me? What is the purpose of this heartache? What is the purpose of my world to come crashing down all around me? You cannot make me believe that this is how its supposed to be??? I keep beating myself up wondering what I did wrong or what I didn't do....or what we were supposed do/how things could've been so very very different. I've lost a part of me and I can't even function. Getting through the day is so hard...but coming home to an empty house-knowing that he wont be coming home at all-is even harder. Going to bed knowing that he isn't there to snuggle against and be wrapped in his arms is even harder. Knowing that his annoying alarm clock wont be going off at ungoldy hours and knowing that I'll never be trying to wake his "sleep like a rock"-self up again is so hard. Everything I did had something to do with him. Everything I did was to make our life better, so we could live our dreams together one day. I poured my heart and soul into this...I just don't understand!!!! I just don't understand!! I cry myself to sleep most nights which leads to tell tale signs the next day. I dont' want to see anyone just simply because I dont want to talk about it because I dont want to cry again. ASHFLY---Always Serving Him, Forever Loving You was our "code"...we had it engraved on our matching wedding bands....which I miss wearing so much! I miss wearing my wedding set and letting the world know that I belonged to someone...that someone was mine and I was his--forever.
Will it ever get easier? Will the tears and the heartache ever stop? Does he feel the same way? Is he crying over me? Is he missing me as much as I miss him? If so why can't we work it out? Why can't we go back and try again? Why??