There are points in our lives that
if we are not careful we can allow the business of life and our own selfishness
to creep in the cracks. The
problem with this is that just as colder weather turns water to ice, if allowed selfishness, bitterness or anything else to creep into the little cracks, they
are likely begin to spread those cracks even bigger if we do not search
ourselves the cracks can easily turn into chasms in our lives, our
relationships and our marriages. Sometimes
it's not big things that Satan uses to try to destroy us, it is the business of
life and ultimately our selfish spirit that he can use to bring us to our
knees. As I reflect back over my life I am sorry to say that I have let this
happen too many times in my life. And this time it literally brought me to my
knees!
As I reflect of the last few years I
see that Shawn and I had allowed a lot of little things to go unchecked and as
a result it brought us to a turning point in our marriage. Here is our story of the redemptive power of
God. When we seek Him he can take what
we have broken and make something more beautiful than we’ve ever imagined out
of it.
This last November, Shawn and I
started a conversation questioning our relationship, what had become of it, the
ways in which we live a life filled with deception in many ways. I look back and see that much of our battles
began in the fields of Iraq. When Shawn
came back he struggled. His moods were
extremely volatile and slowly but surely I began a pattern of keeping things
from him. They were not BIG things, but
he could be set off by the littlest of things.
Previously I was an open book and never had trouble telling him about
all the little parts of life, but so I found myself not telling him things that
I cold “handle” on my own or that I felt weren’t significant because I didn’t
want to fight or set him off. This
became a destructive force in our marriage and over the years it just felt
natural to me to close him out of the parts of my life that I thought he might
get angry about or that I didn’t think he care about anyway.
When we moved to Colorado things did
not get any better. Shawn’s moods were
hardly the issue anymore so much as the business of life. I was in school at night and we there were
many times we were like to ships passing in the night. We tried to make time for each other but when
we had time I often unintentionally kept the conversations to topics that were
happy. Who wants to spend the limited
time you have with someone always talking about the conflicts in life. After I was done with school and working
full-time, then Shawn was in school.
Four years later the business of life and both our abilities to
compartmentalize our lives with each other, we found ourselves often feeling
like we were just roommates living together and the only part of lives we
regularly shared was that of being parent to our children. I don’t think either of us was at the point
that we were considering divorce, but we definitely were not thriving in our
marriage.
That dreaded Thursday night in
November brought some really hard things to light for both of us. No matter what label we put on it and no
matter how we try to make the other one “to blame” the reality was we were both
responsible for where we were. I had
prayed many times over the years for things to change in our relationship. At some point (I’m not sure when) I gave up
hope and quit praying and when I look back just gave in to that was how my
marriage was going to be. My prayers turned
from change me, change us, to help me to learn to live and except the way
things are. The problem is I don’t
believe for one minute that God wants his children to “settle”. The Bible says over and over that God wants
the best for His children the problem is I think often times we don’t want it
bad enough and we have to want it and be willing to fight for it. The question was, “were we willing to Fight
for it?”
Friday after that dreaded
conversation, I asked Shawn if was willing to go to marriage counseling? I fully expected his answer to be NO, I had
asked before and he was extremely against it.
He said yes and before he could change is mind I called to make an
appointment with someone. That Sunday we
went to church and I stood next to a man who I loved, but honestly didn’t know
if I would ever be able to be close to again.
We were so far from one another and had shut each other out on so many
levels it was going to take a miracle to fix this!
Well, thank God we serve a God who
still does miracles!!! That Sunday, the
sermon was about Daniel. I don’t
remember the whole sermon, but I do remember what I walked away with. Pastor posed the question that Daniel was
persistent in his prayers, and what would have happened if he quit praying on
day 21 and 23 hours. If he had not
persisted he would have missed God’s answer.
WOW…. immediately I began to cry as God spoke to me about how I had
given up, I had quit praying, I had quit asking for change things. That was my revelation. That morning after church Shawn disappeared
for a while after church. When we came
back in the kitchen he shared that at the end of church when he was praying and
asking God how that sermon was supposed to relate to him, and how he was to
apply it to his life, God only spoke the words “STEPS” to him. When he got home he was trying to figure out
what that meant and prayed a little more.
Ironically God really does see all things and know all things. Guess how may steps there are in our house
from our basement to our bedroom? Yep,
you guessed it…21!!! Shawn explained
that he was going to begin praying daily and he would like me to join him. So that night it began…..
Day 1 we began in the basement both
literally and metaphorically. We keened
together for the first time in a really long time at the basement of our
house. We poured out our heart to each
other, repented to each other of all the junk in our lives and our marriage and
asked to forgiveness both from each other and from God. After we were done, we were both numb from
the waist down and not only did we pray together we were forced by our
inability to move to sit and really talk for the first time in a long
time. That night while talking to each
other Shawn said that he wasn’t sure where we were supposed to go with our
prayers after that night, but as God already sees he was showing me while we
were praying God gave me the verses from 1 Corinthians 13:4-8. Again as God doesn’t lead any detail
untouched, it just so happens that when you take each part of this verse apart
you have 16 more things to pray about.
That would bring us to day 17 which was exactly 4 days away from 21 and
enough days to spend one night each pray for the other, one night praying for
us as a couple and the final night we planned to pray a prayer of renew to each
other and to God!
Love
is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it
is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking,
it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8 Love never fails.
~1
Corinthians 13:4-8
Over
the next 21 days Shawn and I spent every night in prayer together and many
nights we’d find ourselves talking afterwards in a way we’d never talked
before. Those 21 days were not easy, we
had to work though some tough issues. We
did go to see the marriage counselor and together we had to face some things
that had been underlying issues for the majority of our marriage.
As
deep as our problems seemed, and as much as in the beginning I felt hopeless,
God never gives up on us. I thank God
for all the amazing friends we had that lifted us up in prayer and supported us
while we were on this journey. By the
time we hit the top stair in front of our bedroom we both felt a new sense of love
that I am sure I had not felt since early in our marriage. Through persistence, and God’s amazing love
we were able to experience a miracle in our marriage.
At
Christmas things were so different between us it was hard to imagine that only
a month prior we hardly wanted to be the same room together. Shawn gave me a print of 1 Corinthians 13:4-8
for Christmas and it is a reminder to me of the love we share, the commitment
we made to one another, and the 21 days that changed our life.
We
have continued to spend each night in prayer and devotions. We honestly believe that praying, spending
time in in God’s word and making time to talk, I mean really talk to your
spouse is the glue that holds it all together.
The way in which this has changed my life, and our marriage is nothing
short of a miracle. I don’t think we
could ever have really fixed what was wrong with our marriage or ourselves
without letting God do a work in us.
People spend their whole lives working to be better, but there is a
better way. Seek God, let Him carry your
burdens, let him change your heart to be more like His and the things you
struggle with will not be so hard to handle any more.
