What I must change...

I spent the last week catching up listening to all the Joyce Meyer messages I was behind on. She talked a lot about being offended and defensive. Growing up, my mom drilled into me that if you don't stand up for yourself, no one else will. So, that is what I grew up doing, standing up for myself. It is a lesson I am glad she taught me but there is a time to defend yourself and a time to just shut up. I'm only just now learning this.

The other day someone in authority looked at me with such disappointment in their eyes over something I knew I did not do. This was something very minor but the feeling that came flooding into my chest were huge. It was in that moment that I realized this had nothing at all to do with the other person but EVERYTHING to do with ME. The fact that my own father NEVER once told me I was good at anything, never encouraged me in any way whatsoever, never once told me he was proud of me. And that is only the beginning. But when I grabbed hold of this revelation, it took all the "perception" I had about the other person away. Even all the pressure I put on myself subsided.

I have concluded that when other people cause such strong emotion to rise up within ourselves it is only revealing what is already inside of us. God is at work trying to grow us. But most often we get defensive or offended and miss what God is trying to do. I have no idea what all God will continue to show me but I know I've hit on something big. I believe we will go around and around and around the same mountain until we "get it". Well, I think I finally "get" this one. I know it is a breakthrough that will lead to many other breakthroughs.

This happened because I started asking God to reveal what "I" need to change, how can "I" get better. Who cares how much other people or your spouse need to change? We can't change them anyhow. But I can change myself. But I cannot do it without God's help.

On another note, is it me or do you ever just think to yourself that you just DON'T understand or get certain things that happen in your life? I don't think I'm the type of person to feel sorry for myself but sometimes I have to admit it is just like..."Come on already"......"Can I just catch a break" Do you ever feel this way? It's hard not to look at other people's lives that post daily on Facebook how absolutely wonderful their life is and think well, what in the heck is wrong with my life. Let's just be real. For a lot of people, Facebook is like their daily press release that they post themselves. They put their best out there competing with all the other fakers that life is perfect. What you see is just what you get with me. My life is FAR from perfect.....for that matter I am very, very far from perfect. But I am a work in progress. Anyway, I have found that just about the time I am ready to give it all up, God comes rushing in with His love, grace and mercy just in the nick of time.

Is that you? Are you questioning something going on in your life and sometimes you just secretly want to throw in the towel? Well, hang in there just a while longer. And ask God, what is he wanting YOU to change in all of this. I know sometimes Christians can say the dumbest things when we go through hard times. You know, like...

• God is bigger than this
• You must have done "something" in your past for this to have happened
• God's going to do something really big through this
• Don't worry, you'll have another one (after losing a child)
• They're only boobs (yeah, that's easy to say when they aren't YOURS)
• This is just God's will
• The rain falls on the just and the unjust

This list could go on and on! I'm sure you have a lot of your own that you are thinking of in your head right now! Sometimes the things we say to comfort others aren't really for them, it is for us. So we can feel like we've done something to help the other person. Sometimes, what we say is true but not what the person needs to hear at the time. SOMETIMES we just want someone to say "This just sucks and I don't understand it either!". I guess what I am trying to say is that when someone we know is going through something, sometimes we just need to confess to the person that we don't know what to say or do but we sure can pray to the one who does. And then just listen. That is really all people want anyway, just to know that someone out there cares about what they are going through.

I wrote this blog for a particular friend and I want you to know that I do care and I know what you are going through SUCKS! I don't know what to do or say because I don't understand it either but you have my word that I can do the only thing I know for sure how to do and that is to pray for a miracle and then wait and watch God work. Thinking of you and your family today!

Inquiring minds want to know...

Well, I guess after several questions as to if we are still "okay" I should probably blog. I wish I had more time to blog. Keeping up with two blogs, a ministry and a full time job and a family is a lot! All that while trying to "work" on your marriage is hard. Seriously hard.

I haven't blogged honestly because I have been in too much emotional pain to do so. The effects of what happened to me 2010 - 2011 had a much greater impact than anyone will ever know. EVER. EVER. EVER. It is sad to me to think of how many other survivors are going through the same thing. So traumatic. So....life altering. But yet when I imagine what other guys think of my husband for what he did, I imagine that they justify their own "addiction" by saying to themselves "well I would NEVER do THAT to my wife". Hmmmm.....I wonder how many just read that and have thought the exact same things. Interesting thought.

I'm doing better. I can't even begin to describe how awesome our counselor is. Just....AWESOME. He like lives inside my head and my spouses as well. He knows exactly what both of us are thinking about any given situation. My big brother is THE only man in my entire life that has not let me down BIG. I've had someone who I honestly considered a very good friend walk totally out of my life and never speak to me AGAIN. Not even talk to me about the situation....not even once. Totally abandoned me and our friendship. Yeah, obviously, I am still not over it.

I can't really say a whole lot as to why the hubs isn't blogging. Just trying to work out stuff I guess. I know he wants to be much further on the other side of this before he tries to help anyone else. Which I completely get. I mean someone who was paying for prostitutes just three months ago actually wanted to help us. I'm sure you can all imagine my reaction. Especially those of you who know me personally!! Yeah, NOT GOOD.So I get it. I do. He'll blog when he is ready and that is fine by me.

But you know me...I have a LOT on my heart. And I KNOW God wants me to share it. With all the tragedies that have happened in my life, I have not one time given up on God. Not once. I get angry with God and I tell him all about it. But I would never turn my back on him. I'll serve God until the day I die. Anyone who knows me knows this is how I feel. I also know that somehow and some way, I will be the beginning to the ending of pornography. I know that wasn't just a thought in my head. I serve a great BIG GOD and I have no idea what he has in store for my life. NONE. But I know it can't be to harm me. It may just be me and my rambling and my heart for others that sparks someone else to make a huge difference. Regardless, I will for sure make a difference and I'll live my life continuing to do so.

But here is the funny thing...within the past 3- 4 months, three different people have come to me who are actually questioning THEIR faith because of MY story. HUH???? Well, I can honestly say I never expected that one!! They all said the same thing to me and mind you not one of them knows the other. They said they look at my life and how I have consistently served God and always call on him and trust in him yet look at what he has obviously "allowed" to happen to me....his faithful servant and they just don't get it. I agree that God has allowed all of it. Because nothing happens to me without it passing through his hands first.

I was asked since I love God so incredibly much if I ever felt like he ever loved me back. WOW! I immediately answered that no, I don't always feel loved back. Sometimes I don't even "feel" like he is there at all. Then came the question..."You have been so faithful to God, how has he been faithful to YOU!?!? I actually sat in silence for a minute as something HUGE rose on the inside of me. I sat up tall and I started listing right and left all the amazing ways God has been so faithful to me. As each thing came back to my memory I could hear myself getting a little louder and more confident and oh how I felt God's love at that moment. I felt more loved by God than I have felt in a long, long time. And this particular person actually said that because of that conversation, it gave them hope.

Isn't that awesome? God can turn ANYTHING he chooses around for good and he WILL. I believe it. I have to.

Who's your healer?

She says....

Let's just be honest, okay? Is God REALLY your healer? I mean, if we really thought HE was our healer, why would we even have to go up for prayer or fill out a prayer request or get on a prayer chain. If we really and truly thought HE was our healer wouldn't we just stand on his word and proclaim it? It wouldn't take some pastor or lay person, right?

But in most cases, I believe, we look to man. We go to the pastor or someone who in "our" eyes "fits the bill". They are "good enough" or "spiritual enough". In our eyes they are righteous. So we turn to them, really borrowing THEIR faith for OUR miracle. It is my opinion that we do this to our spouses non-stop.

You might be wondering where all this came from. Well, as my husband and I walk out our journey of healing, I realize that I am guilty of doing this. Rather than turn to the Lord, I turn to him. I mean, he has skin on, know what I mean? I can look him in the eye, he can show me emotion, he can make me feel good or bad. And in these moments, I lose complete sight of God.

I KNOW I am not alone in this. Have YOU ever gone to your husband and poured your soul out to him with tears streaming down your face as you tell how hurt you are? Then he says all the "right things" and you just have those reassurances that you need to get through one more day. This all feels wonderful, I myself well know. But I have come to realize that each and every single time, my husband falls WAY short. Because he CANNOT meet my needs. He can meet some of them but on a spiritual level it is impossible. When I get all caught up in HIM meeting my needs and him showing me love and comfort, I will be disappointed each and every single time.

Somewhere along the line, I started looking to him rather than to God. Somehow, I stopped surrendering my husband to God. I stopped surrendering EVERYTHING to God. I think it is CRUCIAL that we learn to look to God to comfort us. Our spouse cannot fill this need. Oh maybe temporarily, maybe in some small ways. But as long as we look to our spouse to discover who we really are we will be let down.

We must turn to God. We must surrender all to him. We must get on track and stop making our spouses accountable for our right behavior. When we do this, I believe God will be SO very faithful in showing us how much HE loves and cares for us. I believe he will show us clearly what to do according to HIS word. Then, we can rest in him. Surrender your ALL to him. Stop making your spouse meet all your needs and let your heavenly father meet them. I promise, your marriage will turn around the moment you start to do this!!!!

When despair becomes desperation

She says...

Despair. Desperation. Do these words have the same meaning? Let's look at their definitions.

1. Despair - to lose all hope or confidence 
2. Desperation - to surrender to despair

Throughout the past year or so I have had many days where I have been very weary and full of despair. I never lost confidence in God but I lost most of my confidence in my husband, my marriage, and myself. Despair is a terrible place to be in physically and emotionally. I look back over my life and see when there have indeed been other times where I have felt despair for brief moments. But nothing like last year.

Despair is much different than feeling sad, depressed, grieving, hurting, or just upset. Despair is to feel like there is no hope in your situation. You continue to focus on all the reasons why there is no hope. It builds up until you can't see any way out. If we stay caught up in despair, we will eventually become depressed.

In my own life I seem to get closest to God, grow the deepest in Him, feel SO loved by Him, SO close to him when my despair becomes desperation. I know that might sound strange but it is so true for me and I think many others. When I am losing all hope that is when I fall to my knees in complete desperation. That is when I seek God the most.

This healing process is a long one as I am sure you can only imagine. I have had days where I think I am mentally scarred forever. That the old me will never return. I have thought to myself that my heart is scarred like my breasts and I will never ever be the same. I talk to God and tell him all of this. The other day as I was having my quiet time and having this discussion with Him and I saw in my mind in great big letters as if on a white wall that said "SURRENDER". I knew what God was asking of me. He wanted me to surrender ALL to him. My thoughts, my fears, my marriage, my concerns, my doubts, my husband, my children, my ALL.

It would take several posts to tell you the awesome things that has happened since I started to truly surrender ALL to Him. I thought it was pretty interesting when I looked up the definition of desperation and found that it said "to surrender" to despair. We are, or at least I know I am, SO guilty of thinking I can handle my life on my own. You know, like when we say "Well, all we can do now is pray". When that is what we should have started out with. I myself have said to God that if He could just take care of this "one little thing". Like I could actually handle the others myself.

God wants us to surrender. What if you were to surrender? What would that look like for you? Here is the definition of surrender.

SURRENDER - to yield to the power, control, or possession of another upon compulsion or demand 

I don't know if you know the old hymn "I surrender all" or not but it is truly a lovely song and I think you will feel the same if you hear it. I hope you will consider surrendering...yielding to God's power. Let him take care of you like he longs to do. I want to leave you with the lyrics to the song. 

I Surrender All

1. All to Jesus I surrender;
   All to Him I freely give;
   I will ever love and trust Him,
   In His presence daily live.
   • Refrain:
     I surrender all,
     I surrender all;
     All to Thee, my blessed Savior,
     I surrender all.
2. All to Jesus I surrender;
   Humbly at His feet I bow,
   Worldly pleasures all forsaken;
   Take me, Jesus, take me now.
3. All to Jesus I surrender;
   Make me, Savior, wholly Thine;
   Let me feel the Holy Spirit,
   Truly know that Thou art mine.
4. All to Jesus I surrender;
   Lord, I give myself to Thee;
   Fill me with Thy love and power;
   Let Thy blessing fall on me.
5. All to Jesus I surrender;
   Now I feel the sacred flame.
   Oh, the joy of full salvation!
   Glory, glory, to His Name!

"Joy comes with the MOURNING"

I was reading Psalms yesterday in the NLT where it says "Joy comes WITH the morning.

I thought to myself in my own life that joy has come with MOURNING. That is always when I break totally through. I kept reading the chapter and sure enough David goes on to say in verse 11 - 12...You have turned my mourning into joyful dancing. You have taken away my clothes of mourning and clothed me with joy, that I might sing praises to you and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give you thanks forever!

So, I think David saw it the same way. I'm going to write another post soon about "When despair becomes desperation"

I think of all the things we go through in life and sometimes it can be so much and so overwhelming that we only "mourn" or deal with things that are either so small they are the ones we "think" we can handle on our own or they are so big we are forced to deal with them whether we want to or not.

You notice how I didn't even mention God once? I don't know if this just only happens to me but sometimes my problems can seem so big and so overwhelming that I spend all my time analyzing and over analyzing every situation to see how "I" can handle it and deal with it. Then before I know it my despair has become desperation.

But I truly believe that each and every time that is where I truly find God and grow exponentially! Think today about just one thing you are holding onto. I believe this will come quickly to your mind. Ask God to show you how to give yourself permission to truly mourn over it. I believe with all my heart no matter how big or how small that joy WILL come for you!!

What are YOU missing in your relationships?

She says...

I have about a 20 minute drive to my job every day. I always go the same way. During the warmer months when the trees were still so pretty I would just be in awe of what I got to look at each and every day on the way to work and all the way home. But without fail, at least a couple of times every week, I will see something on my way in and wonder to myself "Have I seen that before? Maybe I have missed my turn?" Inevitably every time I have indeed NOT missed my turn I just really haven't ever noticed whatever it was before that day. I have been working there over four months and I just can't believe the things I have never even paid attention to.

I have spent this week pondering all these things. Yesterday on my way home, I was thinking about all of this and I noticed all the signs that I never noticed were there too. I really felt lead on the way there and on the way home to not have any music or preaching on and just be still and listen for anything the Lord might speak to me. I didn't really feel anything on the way in but on the way home when I noticed all these signs such as a curve up ahead, or an intersection coming up, or the name of a street, etc and I felt God ask me a question. "How many things have you missed all these years in your relationship with your kid's, your spouse, your siblings, with ME?"

Whoa! I kept repeating the question to myself in utter disbelief. I tried to defend myself in my mind and it didn't do any good. I realized I have missed SO, SO much. When I thought about my own marriage I wondered how many signs were there all along the way and I never even stopped to notice. Isn't that how it is? We get so caught up in our own little worlds in our own little routines and we just let life pass us right by. Before you know it, your marriage is in shambles and your children are grown and there you are.

First, if I get enough feedback, I will do a post strictly on warning signs that you should look for in your spouse. If not, I'll just save it for another day. Second, what are you missing? Do you find yourself irritated with your spouse and constantly rehashing things in your mind about everything they are doing or have ever done wrong? Are you always on the prowl when it comes to your children, always talking negative and never lifting them up and encouraging them? I say this from my own experience. There are SO many days I go over and over and over in my head like a bad stinkin' dream what my husband has done to me. All the while I miss all the hard work and effort he is currently putting into our marriage. I'll get so darn caught up in my OWN hurts that I forget how so very grateful I am that we are still together and we did not let the enemy win. I forget that we are NOT just another statistic of divorce. I forget that my daughters saw me tough it out through two of the worst years of their entire existence. They saw us get weary but never quit.

I look back at all the many times my children have been talking to me and I have not really been listening. And not because I was doing anything important at all. But because I was on my phone or watching something on television or on the computer. Now those days, those moments I will NEVER, EVER get back. I think this is where the enemy loves to trip us up. Right here.

But this is where we have to say..."THANK YOU FATHER!!" Thank you for showing me how I can be a better wife, a better mom, a better sister and a better friend. We have to stop right here and start thinking of everything we can possibly think of that we have to be grateful for. And then this is the prime opportunity to start asking God to show you ways you can pay attention. We must pay attention to the awesome things that are right in front of us before they are completely gone.

I hope this post will inspire you to pay attention. I hope you will look around at your life and find some of the wonderful things that are in it and were there all along only you have just missed them. Until now, that is. I pray anyone that is reading this post will find all that they have been missing and more!! That God will bless you abundantly for taking steps to just be better. I pray you will be comforted and encouraged as you pay better attention to everything God starts showing you.

Mindsets

She says....

Maybe it is just me....I don't know, but some days I am just "myself". Other days I am totally not. When I feel like "me" I am just so positive about life and I'm strong and I just feel great like I could conquer the world. Then there are those days where I am just in a funk. There is no other way to describe it. I feel weird. I don't have a positive outlook on anything and everything seems much worse than it actually is.

Yesterday on my way to work I felt great! I had so much peace and was just totally myself. I was confident, happy, excited about life, had nothing but positive thoughts about my husband and just had a fantastic mindset. So I got to thinking about this. I think it is so important to really pay attention to our mindsets. When I realized how great I felt I pondered why I felt like that. I wondered to myself what was different between that moment and the moments when I feel totally rotten. I realized that the very moment I have a thought that doesn't line up with Philippians 4:8 "Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things" I MUST catch myself with the first few thoughts. If I don't, it is a downward spiral.

But how many times do we not even realize or pay attention to what we are thinking about and in a matter of minutes our thoughts are totally out of control and the course of our entire day is changed. Is it just me? Am I the only one out there that does this??? I believe we all probably struggle with this. Maybe some more than others.

I have spent many months with a few thoughts that I have let settle in my mind. Thoughts about my husband. Thoughts like "I just still can't believe it!", "How could he have done this to me?",  "I don't trust him and I never will", "I am such a fool", and so on and so on. I have been trying to have regular quite time as often as possible. And we have been seeing a wonderful counselor. This week God really convicted me of something. My mindset about all this was totally screwed up. He just showed me how I wasn't even praying for my husband. OUCH!! What a terrible realization! All I could focus on was ME, ME, ME. So all week, I have prayed my heart out for him. And we have had an amazing week. We have progressed SO much.

I don't know who exactly this post is for but be mindful of your thoughts. Pay attention to what your are focusing on and repeating to yourself. Ask God to search YOUR heart and to help YOU. He is so faithful to come to our rescue. If you wait too late and you have already spiraled down in your thoughts, just praise. You cannot worry and be defeated and praise at the same time. Praise God with your everything. It will be hard, no doubt. You may not want to and you may actually by this point want to wallow in your thoughts. Don't let the enemy win here. Start with just naming three things you are grateful for. Put on some worship music. Do what David did and reflect on all the times God has come through for you in the past. Call a friend. PRAY!!!!

Things seem to always appear MUCH worse than they really are. The enemy would love for us to see the worst possible outcome of every situation. But we have a choice. CHOOSE your thoughts, don't let them choose you.