Disposable People - Part 2 - Advantages of Staying Married

There are many advantages to staying together with our first love. The main benefit is for our children. The continuity of the family is a basic human need.

Children are encouraged that their own marriage will make it through the tough times, just like their parents did. Otherwise, they will develop a disposable mentality as well.

Staying married contributes to overall emotional, mental, spiritual, financial and physical health. It reduces the stress of starting over and the effects of grief, which divorce adds to our life.

Dating new people, while fun in some cases, is risky because everyone has baggage of some sort, visible and invisible. In a second marriage, we often spend more time with our spouse's children than our own.

Therefore, do not get careless in your marriage; relax, but look, speak and act attractively for one another. Continue dating each other, even when the children come along. Enjoy your mate's company.

When we and our spouse disagree, we can find a third alternative, on which we can both agree. If there is a seemingly unsolvable issue, get counseling to find an agreeable path.

We may need to take a break, to put a brief time or distance between each other in order to gain a new perspective on our relationship.

A separation for the purpose of reconciliation gives us a chance to talk about our disagreements with the freedom of having a safe place to go if tempers flare or we feel frustrated or unsafe.

We may find that we miss our spouse, the security they give to our life and little joys they bring to our everyday experiences, their laughter and support.

We can both agree to change habits which cause friction in our relationship. We can gain a better understanding of our spouse by talking intimately about each other's honest feelings, needs and desires.

Forgiveness helps us to rekindle the love we once felt for each other. We will grow to admire, encourage, appreciate, cherish and serve one another all the days of our life, and we will stay together until death parts us.

Prayer:

Father God, remind us that our marriage vows were made to You as well as to our spouse. Prompt us to pray with our spouse, because You help us to resolve our issues. If we take turns praying, each partner praying one sentence at a time, this prevents much of the frustration of praying together. Teach us to pause and listen to You speak to us as we pray too.

Help us to bear one another's burdens, to be long suffering with each other's shortcomings, to encourage and build each other up and to enjoy one another's company. Remind us why we fell in love in the first place and help us to keep the eternal flame of agape love burning.

Thought for the Day:

Love each other deeply, because love covers a multitude of sins. - 1 Peter 4:8

Healing Relationships - Part 2

 

Due to the insecurity and fear in life, many of us attempt to control people and events in order to maintain a safe and secure existence. Unfortunately, life never cooperates.

People who are wounded in their soul form relationships with other wounded people. In fact, we are all wounded to some extent or another due to our life experiences.

When we are wounded, we often choose untrustworthy people to trust, unreliable people to rely upon, and emotionally unavailable people from which we attempt to receive love. We end up more wounded than ever before.

If we are already in such a marriage relationship, God does not want us to divorce (Malachi 2:16). He will change us, which will also help to change our mate. The transition is gradual and it will take patience and time.

If you are not already married, then practice spiritual discernment and seek only God’s will for your future mate (Psalm 37:34).

Trust God to lead you to His selection for your mate. Walk in serenity and realize that when God wants you to be married, He will supply a mate.

As we learned from the Serenity prayer in Part 1 of Healing Relationships, we can only find fulfillment as we focus on eternal aspects of life and walk in God’s Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23).

This changes our belief system, our choices and our pattern of behavior.

Prayer:

Father God, thank You for healing the wounds of our past as You sanctify our soul and make us whole. Help us to focus on eternal matters in life and to put the matters of our soul in Your capable hands.

You will bring us everything that we need in life when we need it. If we do not have what we want, we can be assured that it is not Your time for us to have it.

If it is not Your will for us to have the desires of our heart, then you will change our desires to line up according to Your Will. Help us to wait patiently on You (Psalm 37:7, 40:11).

Thought for the Day:

Securing counseling as a couple will teach each partner how to live in a healthy, interdependent relationship; this way, you will grow together instead of apart.

*For healing the wounds of our past, start by reading my post:  http://fulfilledchristianlife.blogspot.com/2012/08/part-1-healing-emotional-wounds.html  

Reacting to Life

When we are attacked for our choices and feelings, we must fight with spiritual weapons, not carnal, human ones. Our warfare is not against a person, but against the spiritual powers, which operate behind the scenes and through people. Realizing who the real enemy is enables us to fight with the spiritual weapons the Lord gives us (2 Corinthians 10:4).

My father reacted to life as a bipolar, rage-aholic. In my younger years, I compliantly did as I was told; but with age, I learned his behavior and I stood up for myself. I used anger to protect my interests when anyone made a decision that affected me, or when they did not listen to my feelings or my needs, discounted or ignored me, or did not take me seriously.

After I surrendered my life to Christ, I still used anger to make people take me seriously. What I did not realize is that anger is not God's way (James 1:20). Anger manipulated me into acting as a tool of the devil. He discouraged and wounded people through my outbursts of anger. The root of any issue goes deeper than human decisions, personalities, schedules and life choices.

With time, I learned to gain the person's undivided attention and to express very firmly that my needs are either not negotiable, or that an alternate decision needs to be made that I am comfortable with. This is an effective method if the other person is spirit-led and listens to my needs, does not discount or ignore me, and takes me seriously.

Otherwise, I make it very clear, without anger, that I am upset about the decision being made; and I will make alternative decisions, which will provide for my needs. Divorce is never an option, and quitting a job before securing another one is not advisable. However, we can protect our self from another person's upsetting decisions and behavior, by getting counseling and by using a time of separation to work out the opposing issues needing reconciliation.

Prayer,

Father God, remind us that we are all living in spiritual warfare (1 Peter 5:8). If Satan can use some decision to split a relationship, he will do it. Your Word tells us to turn the other cheek and to go the extra mile (Mt. 5:39); but after we do this, we often need to take a stand. Help us to journal our feelings, to pray about the situation, to ask You to intervene on our behalf and then to try to communicate our needs once again. Remind us that a period of separation for the purpose of reconciliation allows both parties to live apart for a time, to get counseling and to find a way to resolve the issue, which is causing them grief.

Thought for the Day:

Put the devil to flight and preserve your marriage and other relationships by preferring one another, never insisting on your own way, laying down both sets of preferences and finding a third alternative with which you can both live happily. - James 4:7

Living in God's Peace

 

We often spend hours of our life thinking of the worse case scenarios and how we will deal with them, yet most never happen. This causes negative emotions, which will kill us. We sense a dread of immanent danger and we use negative emotions and behaviors to make us feel better. These negative emotions suppress our immune system and cause digestive disorders, muscle tension, short-term memory loss, the inability to concentrate, disabilities, anxiety disorders, premature coronary artery disease, heart attack, difficulty swallowing, dizziness, fatigue, headaches, breathing issues and nervous twitching and/or suicidal thoughts.

These fatal emotions alter our relationships, work performance, lifestyle, appetite and sleep patterns. We compensate by using alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, sleeping too much and overeating to soothe the stress and to hide from or to desensitize our self from the overwhelming feelings. Satan deceives us into thinking that we can use these negative emotions to protect us from harm. We think that we can hide behind anger, or worry enough to change our circumstances or prevent some disaster, or hate enough to punish the one who hurt or offended us, or to yell loud enough to change another person’s behavior or thinking.

Reading it in black and white makes this all sound ridiculous, doesn’t it? God gave us the reaction of flight or fight to protect us from real and imminent danger; however, in our modern society, we even allow an uncooperative spouse, child or co-worker; long lines; rude customers or a crying baby to throw us into the grasp of negative emotions. We nurse these feelings and build the situation up in our mind until it consumes us. Then, Satan has us right where he wants us. We take our mind off the eternal aspects of life and the Kingdom of God and allow Satan’s sidetrack to monopolize and consume our attention.

If our negative emotions are out of control, counseling or medication can help us to deal with the intensity of them. A great way to deal with these negative emotions is to keep a journal of how we are feeling. We can write out our feelings in the form of a prayer to God like the Psalmists did. Once they are out of our mind and down on the paper, we can leave them in God’s capable hands to deal with in His way and timing. If we are tempted to think of them again, we can remind our self that this concern is in “the heart of God”, and He is able to make us abound in every area of our life (2 Corinthians 9:8).

Whenever you feel your joy and peace disturbed in any way for any reason, take it to the Lord immediately. Allow His peace to rule your heart and mind (Colossians 3:15; Philippians 4:7). Refrain from depending on your human reasoning, but trust in the Lord with all of your heart (Proverbs 3:5-6). Then watch Him work them all out for your good (Romans 8:28). Do not allow negative emotions to rob you of your health, joy and peace in life. Nothing is too hard for God to handle (Jeremiah 32:17,27). He may not wave a magic wand and cause the situation to change overnight, but He will use the issues to perfect you and then He will change them when they have done their perfect work in you (James 1:2-4).

Prayer:

Lord Jesus, You dwell within us and want to live through us, but we so often push You aside and insist on facing life in our own strength and through our own human effort. This prolongs the issues in our life and thwarts the results of their outcome. Teach us to walk in the Spirit moment by moment and to relinquish everything to You. Help us to put on Your mind (Romans 12:2; 1 Corinthians 2:16; Philippians 2:1-11, 4:7), and to resist the urges Satan sends our way to allow negative emotions to ruin our witness for You and our reliance upon You for our health and success in this life.

Thought for the Day:

Trust God for one moment of your life today. Before you know it, you will trust Him in every moment.
 

 

You can buy a heart-shaped box and put little notes in the “heart of God” as prayers about your negative feelings.

Here are directions for making a heart-shaped notebook:

http://www.babycenter.com/210_heart-shaped-notebook_6042.bc

Or buy them already made and write your concerns on the back:

http://www.christianbook.com/heart-shaped-notepad-pen-someone-special/pd/680548 blue-white-200285