Pre-Marriage Prayer....

Praying for your marriage is something we all consider. The person who stands next to us day in and day out, who never gives up, even when they are angry is someone we know we need to pray for. Praying for God's grace and presence over your marriage should not even be a second or third thought, it should be your first thought in the morning and your last thought at night. Even something you do together.

What about before you are married? We don't think about praying over our marriages before they happen and yet it dawned on me today, that this is what I need to do. This is exactly what I need to do. I was writing verses in my journal regarding someone close to me, and it dawned on me that I can't fight for this person in this world, I need to fight for this person in the spiritual world. On my knees. I need to pray day in and day out. 

It is a crazy thing, when everyone is looks at me and wonders why I even bother. Let me tell you why, I bother, it is quite simple actually, God tells me to keep fighting. Coming from someone who was once married, I don't know the first thing about fighting for someone, because I know I didn't fight nearly hard enough for my marriage. I gave a halfhearted attempt at fighting for my ex, but nothing like I am doing now. 

Matthew 19:6 - Since they are no longer two but one, let no one split apart what God has joined together. Matthew is talking about marriage here, vows that two people took in front of God when they became man and wife. So why am I quoting it here? Have you considered praying this over your future spouse? Probably not. Yet, this verse, when I look at it with the eyes of a woman fighting for the one she loves, I see how praying this over this man is the best thing I can do, on my knees, fighting for him in the spiritual world. 

I remember my grandma and even more recently my aunt, telling me that to pray over something is to give it wholly to God. To let God be in control and that is a bond no man or woman can break. Do not mistake me for someone who easily hands over control of things in her life, I don't. This does not come easy for me, but I know I can't do it on my own. Philippians 4:13 reminds us that we don't have to for God is our strength and with Him, we can do all things. So praying for this man, is the only thing I can do. It is the only way I know to fight for him. 

For those of you that know me personally and know who I am talking about, you would think that this something that should hit the man over the head. He is after all a man of God, yet even men of God struggle in some areas in their life and he is struggling. I see it. I hear it. I feel it. Crazy right? No. God driven. 

We need to speak these verses into our life, and into our relationship (you know that one that God has planned for us). This man, he is fight feelings, strong ones, of rage, bitterness and anger. I won't get into all of that here, those that need to know, know and are praying. I am praying. What this is about though is praying for marriages that God has planned, but we are not aware of. Trust me, today when this realization hit me, I was in awe. Why should I pray for my relationship with this idiot, I asked. (yes I used idiot). He is not praying for this. Why should I fight, why should I pray for something he doesn't even realize fully that he wants? 

The other day I wrote a twitter message that said, "While I struggle w/what to do, #God has revealed something vital I have missed focusing on my desires & not on Him #walkinfath #p31obs" This was written on May 15. What is the realization that missed? That no matter how much he fights with himself in regards to being in my life, he has stayed. No matter how many tries he has tried to talk himself out of being here, He is still here. In his heart he knows where he belongs, but in him mind, in that tiny place we all have that wants to be defiant, he is scared. 

Did you know that Satan uses our fears? He does. He loves them. They are our insecurities, that little voice that tells us we are not good enough, that we don't deserve to be happy and on and on this annoying voice goes....Tell it to stop already! I did, and when I did, God hit me with this realization that I am where God wants me and that is enough for me. We need to pray for our future relationships. This is the person that is going to be with us forever. The person that we are going to do this thing called life with. God has to be in that! It will never work without Him in it. 

Here are some verses that I wrote in my journal: 

Proverbs 16:3 - Commit your actions to the Lord, and your plans will succeed. Why this one? Every action we make leads us up to the end goal. Every action needs to be a God honoring action. By praying for this relationship, my actions honor God. The idiot may need more time to realize what I have, but in the mean time, with God, I am strong enough to fight for us without him. God will succeed where He is asked to help, God will succeed in His plans for our life, if we let Him in and have Faith. 

Song of Songs 7: 10 - I am my loves and he claims me as his own. Your right, verbally he has not. Even mentally he may not be there, but spiritually he knows. I have spent countless hours talking myself out of it. Telling myself that this is not what God wants, it can't be, because it is too hard. At times too painful. Wake up, God didn't promise easy and He didn't promise a hurt  free existent. I am fighting a worldly view and Satan, neither which I could do on my own. I need God. I

I am still in the process of finding more to use in this spiritual battle. Trust me, I argue with God regarding this man daily. In my journal along with these verses, I let him go. I gave my dream, and my heart to God. I let it go. How is this fighting if I am giving up? Oh ye of little faith, I am not giving up, I am giving it to God. God has it. I am trusting Him in this situation. I am praying. 

My next question was, "What if he doesn't come around to our way of thinking Lord". God gave us free will. He face us the choice to choose Him over all and he is giving this man the choice to choose what God has planned. I pray day in and day out for him, not just in the issue of a future relationship, but for the personal demons he has to fight. Satan wants nothing more than for him to sink into anger over previous relationships, over all that he has been through and continues to go through. 

This praying over my future marriage is not just for him, because he has the right not to choose this, even though I know in my heart (thanks to countless arguments with God over this) that he is the one. Does God do back up plans? He does, because we are so messy and human that we constantly mess up His plans for us and miss the first one. We marry the wrong people, I certainly did. We choose the wrong path, I have many times. We lose our way and while He will still fulfill His plan for us, He may have to work with the mess we made. 

This is hard for me to write because it makes me vulnerable. I don't know if he reads my blog, but if he does, I have just made myself extremely vulnerable. Yet I am writing this, not for me, but so that you know, those of you reading this, that you have to pray not just for marriage when or if it happens, but before it happens. Pray for it, bleed the blood over it, do whatever it takes. This doesn't guarantee an easy marriage, (what marriage is easy?), it doesn't guarantee a perfect marriage, but one built on the foundation of prayer and God's word is one that will work. One that will stay together regardless of the obstacles because you prayed God into it before it happened. Of course, once you are married you still have to pray God into it, you have build a foundation on His word, and you still have fight the evils of this world. What are you waiting for? Start praying! 

Until the Next Scribble...............

One of Those Days....

It is one of those days. you know the one, where your irritated for reasons you cant quite put your finger on. Or maybe you can put a finger on your irritation but refuse to do so. Who knows. Irritation is building and you know it is probably only a matter of time until you explode with either angry words or it could be print form. What ever the reason, what ever the cause, you are irritated and those close to you are the ones most likely to suffer your wrath. Unless of course you are in line at the coffee shop and the person in front of you has no idea what they want, while you stand behind them knowing exactly what you want. Heaven forbid the Barista (today's word for those who make your coffee), messes up your order.

As I sit here in the coffee shop working on a paper for class, I have see the irritation of customers who direct their frustration on the poor girls behind the counter. One got their coffee as ordered but decided to complain anyway. The joys of working with the public.

What about us as Christians? How do we handle frustration and irritation? Just because we have the label of Christian surrounding us, this does not automatically guarantee that my behaviors or my initial reactions are going to be changed the moment I accepted the label of Christian or accepted that God was in charge of my life, and neither did any of the other Christians living out there.

We are human and we are going to make mistakes, the questions that Christians face is whether or not we give our troubles over to God and ask for forgiveness when we are wrong. I have mentioned that I am mom (perhaps not in this blog post, but in others) and I am human, very capable of making daily mistakes with my choices, my parenting and my opinions. I can hurt the feelings of my children without ever meaning to. Just ask them.

We need to pray and read the word daily. Will this erase our humanness? Heavens no, we will always be vulnerable to our humanness. Always. The beauty is that God knows this! He really does and He loves us anyway. Despite our faults, our actions and how we behave.

Just yesterday I wrote this in my journal:

     Thank you Lord, that you accept me into your family. You accept me just as I am and you have opened your arms to accept me. For this I am truly grateful and blessed. I am blessed beyond all measure to have you as a Father. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. 

We only have to open our bibles and read His word to gain an understanding of just how much He loves us. It is written on every page of this very important book. All we have to do is open it. I have committed myself to starting my day of in His word and ending my day in His word. Some days I am really good at this and others I just really want to do nothing more than sleep in for a few extra minutes. As a single mom mornings are hectic (and no you don't have to be a single mom for your morning to be hectic). 

One of my go-to bible verses is Philippians 4:13 - I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. Sometimes this is hard to remember, and we can take on frustrations we really do not have to take on.  

I am trusting God to work out my frustrations and the things I am waiting on. We have to trust Him, if we want the best for our lives. He knows our wants and our needs, He knows the desires of our hearts and as Psalms 37:3 says, we need to trust in him and take delight in him and He will give us the desires of our heart. The key to this is that He needs to be our number one desire. 

Let go of your irritation and frustration and give them over to God. He has this, you don't need to fight battles that He has already won for you. He already won today's battles, tomorrows and every other battle we face in the future. We may not get the answer we want, but it will be His best answer. 

Sit back, breathe and pray! 

Until the next Scribble......

Forgiveness

As I sit here, trying to work on my presentation for class, I am stuck thinking about forgiveness. It was a conversation that got started and just decided to weave its way into my thought process, blocking all else until I sat down to write it. You know, that nagging little thought that starts out as a small pebble of information and keeps growing until you have this boulder of information that just needs to be said. I know you all know what I am talking about. :)

Forgiveness, it is the hardest thing to do. The very last thing that you want to do or give to someone who has wronged you, betrayed you, violated you, or just ticked you off. Everyday we run into people who innocently (and I say this because they in some cases they have no knowledge of their offense), cause us distress. Strangers who step on our toes by mistake, who cut in front of you in line, making you want to run them over with your cart, (nicely of course), or to bigger more traumatizing events caused by people you know, or even someone you have never met. Victims of rape have a really hard time forgiving their attacker (who they may or may not know), domestic violence sufferers, whose trust is broken and betrayed by the one person they are suppose to depend on with their life (parent, spouse or other relative), or the little girl whose best friend took her candy and ate it; all of these suffer un-forgiveness in their hearts for a time. What about divorce? We all know that no marriage or relationship is perfect, but divorce brings out the vicious and the ugly in the person we vowed to love for ever. That we promised before God to forsake all others and stay together in the good times and the bad, how do we forgive this person?

As I write this blog, I want to point out that I am not immune to anger, bitterness, or un-forgiveness...just the very opposite actually. I can hold a grudge better than a dog can hold onto his bone when someone is trying to take it, or better than a super-glued shelf to wall can stick. Its not about my ability to forgive, its not even that I forget, its that God gave me the grace to forgive.

What does un-forgiveness do? Well from personal experience I can tell you that not forgiving someone is dangerous. If you can't forgive those who trespass against you, why should God forgive you when you trespass against Him? Matthew 6:14-15 says: "For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive you". Who wants that?  No one.

When we don't forgive others, we don't hurt them. They don't care. I will bet you that they don't even realize they you are angry and if they do, most likely they don't care. It is not affecting them. It is eating at you, keeping you from moving on, keeping you from living and keeping you from God. It keeps you from fully being able to love someone else. It is like a prison where you are kept in by your own refusal to forgive. You have the key! Go ahead and set yourself free. Pray, God will be only to glad to help you forgive.

I am not perfect and I hold a lot of stuff in. It comes out in my writings or my more so in my poetry, which is how I usually find out its there. I am so good at hiding my feelings, I don't even know about them until I sit down to write.

Have you ever looked at someone and saw red, literally? Has the very mention of a person caused your blood pressure to rise and your heart to start beating a mile a minute? Has a person you see or have talked about make you want to cry? Or start punching them until they can't stand anymore? If the very site of or mention of a person makes you want to cause them bodily harm or causes you anxiety, your un-forgiveness has now affected your health. Also this is a sign that you need to forgive them.

Forgiveness is not easy. There is no perfect plan or timing. It is just simply something that you need to do. For you. In the words of Elsa, from Disney's, Frozen,"Let it go!" Pray, pray and pray again. I pray for my ex-husband. I do. I pray for wisdom to see what he needs to do, for his sight to return so that he can see what he is doing to the children I know he loves. I pray for understanding and patience on my part so that I am not quick to anger or to judge. I knew his heart, I no longer know it nor do I understand it. I pray that he is happy and that he does well.

I pray for others who have hurt me or wronged me. It works. I don't hate my ex, part of me will always love him. He is the father of my children, and someone I used to love unconditionally. A part of him is always with me, whenever I look at my children I see the best parts of both of us. I see him in the way K works out problems, I see him in the way she gets excited over her Robotics team. I see him in S's sympathetic (which is not as often anymore) nature towards those less fortunate than she is or who struggle with something. I see him in A's very sensitive nature and even in M who has had nothing to do with him. So in a sense holding on to my anger and not forgiving him not only hurts me, but it hurts those four beautiful and innocent children we created together. I use him as the example of my un-forgiveness, because his betrayal hurt the most, and in some ways caused the most damage.

How do you forgive? How do you forgives someone when your very core resists doing so? Don't focus on the actions the person took against you. Focus on the lessons you learned from the situation and move away from the anger. What caused the person to do what they did? You may never know, but I once read somewhere that a happy person doesn't intentionally hurt anyone, only unhappy people do. So again pray for that person, it's what God would want you to do. There is no ten step program to forgiving someone, there is no right way or wrong way.

Colossians 3-13 says: "bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complain against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you must also do."

Forgive and set it free. It doesn't mean you forget, because let's face it, its hard to forget someone pulling our braid in third grade and chasing us around the playground causing us to fall, skin our knee and cry. Besides if you know anything about psychology, you know that everything stored in your long-term memory is always there just waiting to be recalled by some little trigger such as a piece of candy similar to the one little Johnny stole from you in kindergarten. Memories are forever stuck in our mind. If you were to forget, you would not be able to learn the lesson you needed to, therefore allowing yourself to repeat the incident. So no, you don't forget, you forgive and don't dwell on the event.

What does forgiveness do for you? Oh so much my dear! It allows you to feel a calming sense of peace. To be able to love unconditionally and wholly. To see that the person who wronged you is not some vile creature that you would find in a Steven King movie, but rather just a person who has faults and weaknesses just like you do. It sets you free of bondage from anger and bitterness. It allows you to move on and find peace. Forgiveness is for you...not them.

Okay so back to school work I go.

Until the next Scribble.......