I am truly thankful today, for the Lord is good! The last time I wrote I was truly in a desperate situation. The noose was tightening around my neck, and I thought for sure my marriage was coming to an end, but I am so happy to say that God is who He is for a reason! God came through for me and in the matter of a few weeks, God has turned everything around in my favor.
You're probably wondering what wonderful thing God did. I have a testimony, but I'm not going to testify about how God changed my husband or how He made everything perfect overnight. God didn't change my circumstance, but He changed me. Hallelujah.
During the past year, I faced challenges in my marriage and with my oldest child that would bring a person to their knees begging for mercy (yes, I did too!). I thought I was doing the right type of praying, making sure to ask God to fix me as well as my husband. I acknowledged my faults and asked God to help me get better. I prayed for my husband to get better and for my marriage to get better. My prayers seemed to fall on deaf ears, to the point where I truly began to question the existence of God.
It all came to a head the middle of September. It was my fourth wedding anniversary and my husband and I had been going at it. I had begun to spend more and more time by myself in the bedroom while he was in a separate part of the home because I was positive this was the only thing that would keep us from arguing. I was so down cast about the state of my marriage that I didn't even want to celebrate it. When my husband came home, he found me secluded in the room with no evidence that I even cared about the anniversary. Fittingly, he did not even say "Happy Anniversary" to me. That was it. It was the final straw.
I gathered all my belongings together and moved into the spare bedroom, leaving behind a scathing letter for him about how he ruined everything. There, I didn't even cry. I was too angry about what my husband didn't do. I spent the night in restless sleep thinking about how my life was going to change from that moment on. I fantasized about beginning a new life without him and how difficult it was going to be to find a new place. I had thought about those things in the past, but this time I knew we were truly through. As I spent the night tossing and turning, it started becoming very real to me that my marriage was really done, and things would never be the same.
In the morning my husband tried to talk to me. I was hostile and angry, and gladly listed, for perhaps the millionth time, all the things he did wrong and how he was ruining our marriage. I went to work without saying bye. When I returned home later that day, I found that my husband had moved all my items back into our shared room. A little light twinkled inside of me. I realized then how much my husband still loved me. He didn't say a word, but his action pumped a little life into me.
When I thought over the events of the day, I realized how his one action began to melt me on the inside and I began thinking about how important and critical that action was. I thought about how that one action made such a big difference on the inside of me. I then began to think about my own actions, and almost immediately God made it clear to me how my actions could affect my husband's day just as much as his could affect mine. I was always waiting for him to make the first move or to make things right, not comprehending that he was feeding off of my negative emotions just as much as I was feeding off of his. It was a vicious cycle, and we were each waiting for the other to initiate the healing.
There were things going on in my husband's life that began the downward spiral, but instead responding to what I perceived he was doing in a positive way, I responded with anger and negativity, but yet expected him to respond to me with love. Duh! I am not taking all the responsibility for where my marriage was headed, and in truth still feel my husbands issues contributed a lot to the trouble we landed in, but nonetheless I learned that it isn't a kid game of "who started it", because who started it is inconsequential.
When the poop hit the fan on my anniversary, I was at one of my lowest points. But then God told me the word: DETERMINATION. Previously, I was the type who was willing to wave the white flag as soon as things got a little difficult, but finally I understood what being determined meant. Satan would have loved nothing more than for me to walk out on a marriage that was salvageable.
So what happens when you get DETERMINED? When you get determined you make a decision to get what you need, no matter what it takes. I fasted. I stopped asking God to give me what I wanted and instead asked for joy no matter what the circumstances were. A miracle happened. My relationship that was on a downward spiral, improved in a matter of days, because I made a decision to maintain my joy no matter what the circumstances were. I made a decision to stop letting my emotions rule me. How can you be sane and levelheaded when you are allowing your emotions to control you? Exactly, you can't.
I am so excited about what God has done for me, and this is just the beginning. I just want to encourage you to hang on. Help is on the way. We might not have the same situation, but whatever your particular situation is, I know that God will come through for you the same way He has for me. God bless
