The Breakthrough: God's timing!

This is going to be a jumbled mumble of thoughts, ideas and occurrences from the last week. My life has changed drastically from even just 1 month ago, I dont even know where to begin. I guess I should start with a conversation I had with my sister. I told her there was absolutely no way that my marriage could ever be saved. True to my sister's character of wisdom and discernment, she reminded me that God can do anything and that my marriage could be reconciled if God grabbed ahold of Brian's heart. I kinda rolled my eyes to the fact (embarrassing to admit, but i promised to be transparent). I told her that that would be the ONLY way that I would even think about reconciling but that probably wasn't going to happen. It wasn't that I was doubting God because I know that He can do anything. I guess I just thought that I knew where my life was going and of course my plans were better, right? ugh. How ridiculous of a thought! The very next day I got the most wonderful news that changed everything and my heart rejoiced. How wonderful that Brian could share in my joy of salvation! How wonderful and what a blessing this was to be able to praise the Lord for the answer to my prayers! I prayed for Brian to open his life up to God for the longest time and finally he got it. He understood. How awesome is our God whose love and faithfulness never fails??

Then it hit me like a ton of bricks and a thousand questions flooded my brain. I recalled telling my sister "well that would be the ONLY way... only way... only way... only way" (Yes, I actually heard it echo like in a movie.) What did this mean? Was I supposed to reconcile? Did this make his decisions ok? Was I supposed to get a divorce? What does this MEAN!? I was really scared, anxious, stressed and overwhelmed at the same time of being thankful, releived and joyful. I asked for prayer from some friends and just decided to jump into the word. This whole process I have been searching the word and seeking God to heal, not to reconcile. This changed things. But God's timing is perfect. I truly believe that if I had not dove so deep into the word and at the feet of my precious Sustainer to heal, then I would have not been in a place to consider reconciliation as an option. After finding out the wonderful news of Brian's committment to Christ, I had a whole new flow of emotions to consider and get used to. I read more scripture on forgiveness and reconciliation and every topic that I thought was pertinent to my situation. I have been taking it day by day and really looking in the Bible for what direction to go in. There is a part of my heart that said that it would be so much easier to just go through with the divorce and move on than it would be to open and disect these wounds to let God heal them. Then another part of my heart always wants my family. But Jason says not to listen to the heart because "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?" (Jeremiah 17:9) So I knew that I had to seek God and get my guidance from His word and His guidance.

So I say all of this to preface last wednesday night.

So Wednesday night, Pastor Sonny speaks on listening to God in prayer. (I wrote my previous post about it if you are curious on my notes!) One of the things that he said was that we should pray scripture for others and our own lives. And that the Holy Spirit will guide you how to live and what to pray for through the Word. For that whole week I had been reading through 1 Corinthians during my morning Bible study. After wednesday night, I was on chapter 5. So the next couple days I read through 1 Corinthians chapters 5-8. I got stuck on chapter 7 for a couple days because it hit me like another ton of bricks. God was speaking to me. It is amazing how much more you realize that God speaks to you when you actually LISTEN.

1 Corinthians 7:10-11 "To the married I give this charge (not I, but the Lord): the wife should not separate from her husband (but if she does she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband), and the husband should not divorce his wife."

I had read in scripture about divorce and how the wife was absolved if certain criteria of the divorce were met (such as abadonement or infidelity). I had also read in verse 15 of the same chapter that if the partner who left was an unbeliever then to just let that person leave because how can we know if we were going to save the unbeliever or not. But now that that didn't apply to my situation it was loud and clear what I was to do. I am to be reconciled to my husband. What a scary thought?!?!? My heart is happy because I know that God can do anything. I know that if God is the center of my life, and my relationship, then my marriage can be 10 times better than it was before. Does this mean that all is fine and I should pretend like nothing happened? Absolutely not. But I know I am called to forgive. And I know I am called to respect my husband. Which brings me to the third part of this novel.

First I want to say I serve an awesome God. I serve a God of great power who wants to reveal Himself to me so that I can be obedient and glorify Him. So far, the flow of the last week has gone:
Conversation with sister including complete defiance
Change of plans with great rejoicing in new salvation
Discovering that reconciliation is my calling

So after God revealed to me that I needed to reconcile my marriage, how appropriate is it that the first message I hear is from a great man of God talking about how the christian wife should act. This is not just fate or coincidence, this is my Abba Father caring about my heart and drawing me closer to Him. So I kinda chuckled to myself as I read the title of the message and was excited. Actually excited. Excited that I get to start over with my idea of how a marriage should be and this time around put God at the head where He belongs. Soooooo, here are my notes/thoughts/ideas from Jason's teaching this morning on the Christian wife.

Taking Aim at the Family: The Christian Wife
Ephesians 5:22-33

1. Submission is a voluntary act by woman.
This submission in verse 22 is a commandement for wives to submit to their husbands, not women to all men. You are only obligated to submit to your husband. This made me think about how big of a decision marriage is. This is not just a "do I love him?" decision but a conscious voluntary commitment to be submissive to this man for the rest of your life.

2. Submission to the husband is as unto Christ.
I wrote down in my notes "The fruit the parents sow, the children will bear" Jason was talking about how if he yells at his kids and his wife all the time then his credibility outside of the church will be shot. And not only that, but whatever example he gives will show in his children. The same with his wife. If Alli is constantly unhappy or whining or nagging or quarrelsome (to use the proverbial term) then that will show in her children. Maybe thats why Drew is so smart and Blaise is so happy!!! :) Love you two people and am so blessed by you! (Ok, my love shout out is done, back to the notes.)
The Bible never commands the woman to love her husband because woman just automatically love their husbands. It is how we were made. The same with the husbands too. The husband is never commanded in the Bible to respect his wife. It is because this is how God designed us to be. Woman automatically love their husbands and men automatically respect their wives. Respect comes naturally to men and love comes naturally to woman. This does not mean that all women are experts at love but it is just in our character to love and nurture. This is why wives are commanded to respect. It doesn't come naturally to woman, but is necessary for the survival of the marriage and the family unit as a whole. This is why men are cocmmanded to love their wives. Men need respect and women need love. If we obey these commandments the family will be unified.

3. Submission to her husband is because of God, not because of the excellence of her husband.
Wives are supposed to submit regardless of the level of worthiness.
If he is loving, kind, thoughtful, caring, says the right things, does the right things - SUBMIT
If he is unkind, neglectful, lazy, doesn't say or do the right things - SUBMIT
(Again, goes back to making sure you are CAREFUL in your decision making, you single people!!!)
The example that I thought spelled it right out for me was this: You never question the authority of a cop, you automatically respect his position because of the uniform, car, badge and possibly the fact that he is holding your clean driving record as hostage. This should be the same attitude wives have toward their husbands. Respect is given because it is commanded to be given...regardless if he is like Channing Tatum in The Vow (awwwwwwwwwwwww) or Scrooge.

4. Submission is based on divine order.
The trinity - God, Holy Spirit, Jesus all equal and yet all diverse.
Submission doesn't mean that the wife is less valuable, it is just the order that God designed.
The MAJOR point here is that the wife is submissive to the husband because the husband is LEADING by LISTENING to God. So we are all being subnmissive to God.

5. Submissive in EVERYTHING.
In this is included a clause to exclude anything that is blatant sin. If your husband tells/asks you to do something that is blatantly sinful, then our direction is to obey God, but in EVERYTHING else, we are to be submissive.
Everything is a hard term to understand, but everything is what we are called to do.
Submissive in... Finances, raising children, where to live, in the bedroom, EVERYTHING which means EVERYTHING.
Again for me this goes back to my previous thought, the correct order is that wives are submissive to their husbands in everything because the husband is getting their direction from God. That is not how is always works because of human error, but that is how it should work. One thing here that Jason said is that husbands should be working to be worthy to respect so that it doesn't make it hard on the wife. Just like, woman should be modest so not to make their brothers sin, husbands should work hard to be worthy of respect so that it is not hard for the wife to be submissive and respect them....espeically since respect doesn't come naturally to woman...understand my thoughts here?

So again, I just want to say that I serve an awesome God who is sustaining every moment and every situation with just the word of his breath. This past week has been an awesome declaration of God's love for me that He would draw me to Him and reveal Himself to me so that I might glorify Him. From crazy turn of events to God's Word being spoken as truth and revelation in my life, I can truly say that I am blessed.

Now, I still don't know what this looks like. I know now in what direction I am supposed to go, but the ins and outs of reconciliation seem so overwhelming for me. But I know that God is in control and He has everything in His perfect timing so that He will receive the glory. So I will pray, seek Him, read His word, wait for the next step and strive to "...be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God." (Eph 5:1-2)