Today is my 8-year wedding anniversary. Let me tell you, it has been a roller coaster. People look at us and think – “they are so happy together”. And we really are, now… There was a time when I was surrounding myself with bad influences who were encouraging me to look at all the negatives of our relationship. They were asking all the right questions at all the wrong times and making me really question our relationship. I was so frustrated, angry, saddened and confused. I was hurt because those were all the things that I was seeing. I wasn’t focusing on the real, I was focusing on the imagined. He doesn’t love me because I never get flowers. He doesn’t love me because I always have to say it first. He doesn’t love me because….
It was difficult. The people that I was surrounding myself with were encouraging me to do things for myself and to be true to myself. I didn’t know what “myself” was. I didn’t know where to turn. Well, I did, I just chose not to turn there. Finally I sat my husband down and insisted that we read that “5 Love Languages” book together. So we started reading and I started to put forth all this effort to show him that I loved him in his love language and I wasn’t getting anything in response. I hate that book! HAHAHA… sometimes relationship books have the best intentions at heart, but so many of them ask each part of the couple to do something and when one of the couple doesn’t see the problem, they don’t have motivation to change it.
I did the “Power of a Praying Wife” but I did it with the wrong intentions. I didn’t want to pray for him so that he would succeed and do well, my underlying intentions were so that he would change! You can’t change people! God only really can change people. GOD!!! Hello!!!! He may use you in the process, but you are not going to be the end all be all. So there I was getting really upset and frustrated and more upset and my husband had no clue because I had told him once and he thought he had done what I asked. I was at my wits end. Wanting him to put forward all the effort that I was putting forward, but then I started looking at things differently. THEN, and only then, when I was at my lowest, I turned to God. God had been part of all the other aspects of my life, I just hadn’t let him be part of my emotions.
Instead of getting angry and feeling useless and like I wasn’t good enough when I came home and he had cleaned the entire house, I was grateful. I realized that he wasn’t trying to tell me that I didn’t do a good enough job, he was trying to show me that I didn’t have to do it all the time and he loves me. Instead of getting upset when he chose to go out and mow the law AGAIN, it was him giving me pride in where I was living and showing he loves me. Now I still don’t get flowers, and I don’t get jewelry and I don’t get wined and dined as often as I would like to. But instead, I get a man who loves me and all my craziness and neurotic ness when I think he doesn’t. I get a man who steps it up and lets me sleep in and rest when I need it the most, he drives 10 hours in a small car with me to go see my family that I desperately miss and then becomes the non-stop babysitter.
I know that I have had it easy with my marriage, and I still was doubting. Sometimes it is easy to say – this isn’t what I wanted, or how I wanted it to be or to go. This isn’t what I planned for and now I am stuck in this “mess”. Even when it doesn’t relate to marriage, when it is just life in general. It is so easy to sit and give ourselves a pity party. I remember the vows that I took 8 years ago today “for better or worse, in richer or poor, in sickness, in health, until death separates us.” We stood in front of a lot of our friends, our family members and most importantly, our GOD and we made the commitment to love each other.
We made the “public profession” that we were married and through thick and thin we were going to stick it out. We became one. We invited our family and friends to celebrate in our joy. When we decide to become a Christian, there is a time that we are usually asked to make a public profession of faith. It might be coming forward to the front of the sanctuary, many times it is being baptized, but there is usually something public done so that others may celebrate. It doesn’t have to be right away, sometimes we know in our hearts that we are a Christian, we have asked the Lord our God into our hearts and have decided that is enough for us.
I love that the Bible though calls us to make that public profession of faith. It isn’t what saves us, it isn’t what makes us Christians, it is what shows that we are committed to Christ and to our lives with Him. Baptism is so cool. It is symbolic of so many things. 1) You are showing that you are buried with Christ, that he died, was buried and rose again and you now rise again a new creation. 2) The water washes and cleanses you, Jesus washes and cleanses your heart and makes it new again. 3) That you have to trust others to help you in this process just as you had to trust someone to dunk you backwards into the water and lift you out.
I think that we can look at baptism kind of like our marriage to Christ. I am no theologian, but lets look at it this way. Some of us made the decision as children, but it doesn’t make the commitment that we made any less. We stood in front of our friends and family and God and made the public profession that we were in love with God, that we wanted to live our lives with God and wanted to wake up every day with God. It isn’t always going to be easy but if we stick with Him “for better or worse, in richer or poor, in sickness, in health, until death reunites us,” how will that change our relationship that we have right now with God? How will it change the way that we live our day to day life?
I would never cheat on my husband, EVER, even on days that I don’t like him much, I don’t think about ever doing that. Therefore, I need to never cheat on my God – I never need to make anything more important than Him, I need to be sure that our communication is always there and always present. I need to wake up every morning excited to see Him, happy that I get to wake up with him as my God.
Some of us may have been hurt by relationships in the past. Might have been beaten and abused physically, mentally, emotionally. Maybe right now, you are not seeing God where you are- you are looking at all the negative and thinking – God doesn’t love me – how could He? Sometimes it takes a change in the way that we look at the relationship. Maybe God is showing us that he loves us and cares a different way than we want him to, but he is still doing it none-the-less. When we see someone get baptized, lets rejoice with them and remember our relationship with Christ. If you haven’t been baptized, really consider it. It is a public profession of your love for God and your relationship with Jesus.
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