Certainty in an Uncertain World: Part I

Scrolling down my newsfeed on social media these past few days, I've seen so many different things. Ranging from a color design of a cup making people angry to the same color of that cup being shed all over the world because of terrorism. 

How are we supposed to react to these things? How are we, as Americans, supposed to react to people getting hurt over something so small like the color of a cup? How are we, as Americans, supposed to react to terrorist attacks getting closer and closer to our front doors? 

Well, those are tough questions. I wish I had the answers to them, but I don't. I wish I could write this long post about how I know EXACTLY what we need to do to be successful at not reacting the wrong way. Which would ultimately lead to us succeeding in handling these issues.

I don't know these answers. I don't know how we should react and I don't know how to handle these situations we are being forced to be apart of, because we are American. 

That's one of our biggest fears as humans: the unknown.

I've started trying something new. I've started trying to focus on what I DO know and it has brought me more comfort than ever before.

What I do know though is that:

 1. Our God is a God of LOVE.  

John 3:16 says, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him, shall not perish, but will have everlasting life." 

I couldn't imagine how painful it had to have been for God to watch His son die on the cross. He could've stopped it. He could've kept it from happening by wiping us people off of the face of the earth, but God loved us(and still loves us) and He knew that in order to truly save all of us sinning filthy humans, He had to send His only son to die for us. 

I have two sons. If I had to save the world by sacrificing either one of them, I wouldn't. I don't think I could. I don't love the world enough to do that. 

Especially with all of this evil that's starting to come out in the open. This evil hasn't just sprouted up out of nowhere. It has always been here. God knew back then how much evil was in the world, yet he stilled loved it. He loved it so much that He wanted to save it from ultimate evil: HELL.

 He loves you, He loves me. He loves the people of Starbucks. He loves those syrian refugees coming into our country... 

He loves the people of ISIS...

How can God love such evil people? How can God love the people that hate other people and still be a God of love.

 God's love is unconditional. 

Unlimited. 

Absolute.

 No matter how much we sin against Him, do bad towards others, and hate... God will always love us.

He loves us, but that doesn't mean he loves and approves of what we do. There's a difference. He gives us freewill as a privilege, because of how much He loves us. 

If we let His unconditional love be a guide for how we live and love, then imagine how much hate would disappear. Imagine how much different our world would be if we were to love one another more than talk about, hate on, judge, and discriminate one another.

Something I wish I knew before I got married: Part III

3. Our marriage needs armor.

Do you ever feel like giving up on your marriage? 

I'll have to honestly admit, there have been times when thoughts of giving up on my marriage have crossed my mind. Even if it was just for a second. 

Those were the times when I was at my lowest with my husband and it felt like we were on two totally different planets. Either he did something that I didn't agree with for the hundredth time or he said something to me that hurt me and made me mad or upset. 

It was probably one of those selfish times when I was basing how I felt on how he was acting and being.

The devil knows how to come into your marriage, especially when you and your spouse are doing good and think you have things all figured out. The devil knows how to sneak up and pounce at the most happiest moments of your lives. 

He knows how to take the most innocent actions or words and twist them in your head to the worst possible scenarios, just so you will hurt and possibly make someone else hurt along with you. 

It's only human of us to want someone else to hurt as much as we do when we're hurting. We want someone to understand that we're hurting and we want them to feel it too, so they'll sympathize with us or feel sorry for us. The devil knows that. He knows how human we are. 

Why does the devil want so much to do with our marriages and godly relationships? 

Because the devil wants nothing more than to get rid of the relationships that he knows can bring you, your spouse, your children, and all of those who people that look up to you, closer to God. The devil wants to keep you from having that close relationship with God, by taking away your Christ-centered relationships. 

The world makes it so easy to end relationships nowadays. You can end them over a text, a phone call, or an email. You can even hire someone else to do it for you, to save you the trouble. The devil knows about all of those things. He wants you to think about those things and resort to thinking about how easy it would be to just end things and be done with it. 

So in other words, the more you put God in the center of your relationships, the more you get closer to those people who help you get closer to God, the harder the devil will try to make it harder on you to keep those relationships.

How in the world are we supposed to keep those relationships, if the devil is fighting so hard against them? How are we to resist the devil, when he comes to us so beautifully wrapped?

Our God has already defeated the devil and He has given us the authority to defeat him as well.

Ephesians 6:10-18 says this, "Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorites, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 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. Stand firm then, witht he belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all of this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints."

We have to be equipped with the armor that God has provided for us to resist all of the devil's evil shenanigans.

We should be quick to pray for the armor of God as soon as it becomes evident that things are going in the wrong direction with our relationship with our spouse. That means as soon as you begin to feel something negative, you should pause. Pray. Breathe. Make sure you have your armor on. Then act. THEN speak. 

By resisting the devil, we resist those moments of wanting to give up. Those moments of doubting that we can keep going.

I've just recently had something happen with my husband that took all I had to hold it together. I was falling apart and didn't know what I should do, how I should act, or how I should handle the situation. I stopped, prayed to God and asked for His armor, and then what I needed to do and say became clear to me. Being quick to pray not only helped me handle that situation, but it helped some other things unfold that needed to get aired out. It brought me closer to God and my husband and I became closer together.

Things aren't necessarily easier now, but they were never meant to be easy. They were meant to be God's way and with God's way comes the devil's schemes to try to lead you away from God's way.

Don't give up on your marriage, because it's the easy thing to do. It's not over yet.

Don't only put the armor of God over yourself... try putting the armor of God over your marriage and sock it to the devil! Then see how things work out.
Our marriages are so precious to God, but they are also precious to the devil. God wants them to flourish, the devil wants them to fail, to make us bitter people, and to make us LONELY people. If we put the Armor of God on our marriage, then we can conquer the devil, not only as individuals, but as a married couple.

I'm so thankful God has given me a teammate to share my armor with, make sure you share your armor with your teammate too!

Something I wish I knew before I got married... Part II

 

2. My Husband is not my complete happiness and he is NOT my savior.

 

When I was younger, I believed that finding the guy for me meant finding someone that was always going to make me completely happy. ALL THE TIME. Someone that was never going to hurt me, make me upset, mad, or make me want to karate chop him in the face…

 

 

I started having boyfriends when I was around maybe thirteen? Not serious boyfriends, obviously, but I thought it was pretty serious then. I dated some really weird guys (no offense to those that I’ve dated that are possibly reading this). I was pretty weird myself, as some of you may remember. I’m still weird, what am I talking about?

Anyway, I always ended things whenever I was hurt or whenever I got mad. I always ended things when things got tough or not easy to handle or when I realized I was the only one making an effort at keeping things together. I made sure that I wasn’t going to be in a relationship that took too much out of me. I expected the special someone I was going to be with, to always make me happy. So everyone that didn’t live up to that, I didn’t want to be with.

 

 

 

 

When I first started talking to my husband, I thought that he was the most sweet, thoughtful, kindest, caring person ever. I was going through a rough time in my “love life” when I first got that message from my husband, a stranger to me (I knew his family, so no stranger danger) , over Facebook: “Hey, how are you doing? J”

 

I had just broken up with my ex boyfriend. I found out that my ex still had feelings for his ex and that he had “hung out” with her the weekend I was away visiting family, without telling me. He also thought that I didn’t care for him as much as he cared for me. He thought that there was something wrong with me and that I just wasn’t being what he wanted me to be. He wanted to “take a break” and “take some space” for himself. I agreed to wait for him, at first. But then I realized that if he really cared about me, he wouldn’t expect me to be any other way than what I was being. Plus, I’ve done that “waiting game” before and it turned into me waiting for something that wasn’t ever going to be what the other person wanted it to be. So I just told him to forget it, we were over, and I was done chasing after and waiting for someone that thought that I didn’t care about him.

 

 I was giving up on looking for someone to be with. I didn’t want any kind of relationship as more than friends with a guy at that time. I was trying to find happiness through relationships and didn’t believe I would ever find it.

 

I wasn’t looking anymore, but God helped me find what I wasn't looking for. He helped me find the one that was there to help me pick myself up, when I was at one of my lowest points. I will always remember the phrase my husband, a stranger at the time, told me, “Hold on to the things that are automatic in your life, let go of everything else.” He reminded me of what I needed to do to be happy again.

 

 He became one of those things that were “automatic” in my life, along with God and my family.

 

When he and I began to date, I learned more than I had ever known about relationships. Our relationship was a long distance relationship. He lived about four hours away from me. Yet we still made each other happy. We were even happier when we were able to see each other over Skype or talking to each other over the phone. We didn’t seriously fight at all.

There was that one week, though, that we do not speak of. The week when we tried to see what it would be like without talking to each other, to see if our relationship was real. We decided not to do that ever again. We doubted our relationship, tried something to fix it, and it worked.

 

He made me happy and I made him happy, miles apart.

 

We still had moments when we would doubt our relationship later on, because things started getting tougher. He went into the military and went through basic training, I was graduating high school. We made it through those moments though, together. Happily. We talked about getting married and how it would make us both happy to never be away from each other again.

 

After he and I got married, we began our adventure. We tackled it head on. I was expecting him to make me happy, no matter what and he was expecting me to make him happy, no matter what. We’ve already proved that we could do that. As long as we had each other.

We moved far away from family and found out that I was pregnant a month or two later. We were definitely on a “happy high”.

 

We started learning things about each other and we couldn’t get enough.

 

Then things started settling down.

 

There were times when my husband would come home from work wanting to be alone or he’d want to go over to a friend’s house, instead of wanting to spend time together with me. He’d have bad moods and wouldn’t want to do anything that I wanted to do. Of course, as a newlywed, I got upset and hurt at those things. I’d have bad moods too and he’d get upset.

I used to think, “He must not be happy with me. He must not want to do anything with me anymore. He’s tired of me already.” I used to think that it wasn’t fair that he was being that way and I had to be the strong one and deal with it. I was the only one allowed to be moody!

 

 I used to always try to be the “perfect wife”. I used to always think of different ways to try to make him happy even if it meant not being myself. I would thrive under his compliments and tender love, but I would cower and close up when he wouldn’t notice how hard I was trying or when he’d tell me that it didn’t seem like I was trying at all.  

 

I based my mood and happiness off of his mood and happiness. You’re probably thinking that that’s what I’m supposed to do as a spouse, right? Well, you’re wrong.

I’m not saying that I shouldn’t sympathize or try to put myself in his shoes when he’s hurting, in a bad mood, or not happy. Or that I shouldn’t hurt when he’s hurting. There’s a difference.

 

I’m saying that BASING my mood and happiness on the words and actions of an imperfect person will ALWAYS lead to disappointment. Expecting him to be a certain way, feel a certain way, or act a certain way because of how I feel like he SHOULD, ALWAYS leads to disappointment. Expecting so much out of him ALWAYS leads to disappointment. Disappointment always leads to a deeper pain and sometimes even changes the way you look at your significant other and even yourself.

 

When I realized this, I felt so foolish and ashamed. Here I was basing my human feelings on another human’s feelings, wondering why I was getting hurt and feeling inadequate.

 

 

Then I came across this quote:

 

“When you aren’t depending on your husband to fill you up, then he can make mistakes and you are still okay. He can say the wrong thing and you can forgive him quickly. He can struggle and question his direction and you don’t fall into despair. He can be your partner and your friend, because he does not have to be your savior.” – Lysa TerKeurst

 

There it was! I was ashamed and foolish, because I was looking for my husband to be my savior and I was trying my hardest to be his.

 

The Bible says, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” John 15:9-11

 

 

Jesus is my savior and in him, my joy should already be full. No matter what my husband does or how he acts, I should always look to Jesus first and remember that my joy is already full. Then I should react in love towards my husband, even if my husband does something to hurt my feelings or if things aren’t going my way.

 

Yes, my husband should be apart of my happiness and will always be a BIG part of that happiness, but he will never be my complete happiness. Yes, my husband should be apart of my strength when I'm too weak to do some things, but my Lord is my ultimate strength. Yes, my husband loves me and I love him, but Jesus' love is unconditional and there will never be a love like His. My husband was never meant to be my savior, but Jesus IS my Savior.

 

As painful as it can be to have those things we’re insecure about, those arguments that seem to last forever, and unmet expectations, all of those things in marriage can grow us closer to Jesus, our  one true savior, if we do the right thing and let them. The one we should look towards to make our happiness complete, is our savior, Jesus.

 

I challenge you today to take all of those insecurities, painful arguments, and unmet expectations to Jesus and lay them at his feet. Then see how you feel. Imagine what could happen to our marriages if we would all do this.

 

 I struggle with doing this sometimes and I have to keep reminding myself to do it. Every time I take all of those things to the one true savior, my marriage gets better, I get closer to my husband and most of all, I get closer to God. But sometimes I forget to LEAVE those things at Jesus' feet and walk away from them. So I do still struggle with these things. I am not perfect, my husband is not perfect, but our savior is. And he loves us perfectly.

 

I thank the Lord for being my Savior and loving me despite my struggles with these things. You should too.