Are We Content?

Today my calendar read: “You’re loved in this moment, just the way you are-and you’re on your way to becoming all God created you to be.”(God in Every Moment – Bonnie Rickner Jensen)

I love where it says I am on my way to becoming what God has created me for. I am not there, I have not attained and in all reality, completion will not be until I am home, my real home, not my passing thru dwelling….but home…. Heaven. When it says I am loved, JUST THE WAY I AM…..wow, that is hard to comprehend. Does anyone love me/you just the way I/we are?

The closest comparison I have in knowing this type of love is my husband Dan who now lives in Heaven. I had been married before Dan and walked into this marriage only by the Lord’s instructions. When the Lord said marry him, I said No Lord, I have learned to be content where I am. I am a single mom, working, raising my children, serving in my local church – content. He would say it once again…. okay, this is Your will for my life. Walking into this marriage, yes, I loved Dan, but this time was far different. This time it was a commitment to the Lord, a contract. Throughout much of our marriage I would question why? Why did you put me with this man? Dan had told me before our marriage of his drug addictions earlier in life. Eventually what was past, became present and most of our future. I watched him struggle, I knew he loved the Lord, His actions, my reactions, my actions, his reactions caused much heartache in our household. Both of us Christians and at times both of us, not listening to the Lord.

I often fell back to the contract, the commitment I had made to the Lord. Did I still love Dan? Yes, but many times I did not like him….and if he was here now, he could say the same about me. Two imperfect people coming together to become one, this is not an easy task. There came a day, Praise the Lord, when the drugs became past and stayed in the past. I still remember the day when I heard something far different, I had never seen before. He had finished his 4th rehab, and we had separated months before that. Coming out of the rehab he had no place to go. He asks can I come and stay with you? I said yes, but not as husband and wife, you can stay in the spare bedroom as a renter. To some that may sound harsh. I still loved him with all my heart, but I no longer trusted him, he had broken that trust over and over. If you caught it, this was his 4th rehab. I had already experienced the after math of rehab…. Great for a while, then back to the cycle of addiction. I did not see how this time would be any different until the day Dan shared this. Seek God, Seek His Presence, Not His Hand, Not His Provision.

All the other rehabs, Dan’s focus was on him and me, staying in the marriage, this time was different. Dan said, I love you, I will always love you and I want us to stay together, but if we don’t, no matter what I do, I have to follow the Lord. That statement had never come out of Dan’s mouth. What followed was the lesson above and with that lesson, Dan taught me. God used that last rehab, that lesson, that truth for restoration on so many levels. Dan saw me at my worst, he saw me at my best. I saw Dan at his worst, and I saw him at his best. As we learned this lesson, it took work, lots of talking, so much talking at times I was sick of talking…. which for those who really know me, know I can talk. However, the talking AND listening to one another with Christ as our foundation brought us to the sweetest part of our marriage. Even in that time frame I remember a discussion we had, and a decision needed to be made, I really didn’t agree with the decision, the way Dan was leading, however I believed I needed to submit to Dan’s leadership. I knew he was walking with the Lord, striving to lead our family in the right path. However, after Dan’s and my conversation I went to the Lord in prayer: Lord, did you just hear what he said? I don’t get it; I don’t see it. I think one of us needs to change here. If it’s me than open my eyes to it, if it is him, then open his eyes. I know you have given this man to me as my husband, but in this moment, I am trusting you…… that you are in charge, and you will do in our hearts what needs to be done.

What I share, is my experience, not saying it is right or wrong, it is what we/I lived. What I can say is, I have spoken to other wives who had/have Godly husbands and they were not in agreement, they submitted, they prayed, and God changed their husbands’ hearts. I will also say, this is not easy, it goes against my flesh to submit. As a sidenote for clarification, submitting is not to abuse, that is in no ways God’s plan. The husband is to love the wife as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it.

Back to love. Dan came out of his 4th rehab, and we had 21 months where the Lord restored and blessed our marriage, 21 months before cancer. After the cancer diagnosis we were given an additional 21 months together. I am so very grateful for that time. Those 42 months were the sweetest time of our marriage. This was when God took my brokenness, all the marriage hurts, anger, frustration and knit my heart to become one with my husband. Our love grew, once again to a very sweet place, still with some frustration, but more at that time with the grueling demands of cancer than with my husband.

Now, here I sit in Ukraine, no husband. Am I loved? Just as I am today? Yes! I have my Abba…..I can’t understand how He knows me, my actions, my very thoughts and yet He still loves me, has before the foundation of the world, and will continue through the rest of eternity. He is patient as I continue to grow, continue to follow, continue to submit, even when I get cockeyed in spirit, He stills love me. I can’t do one thing to change His love for me, nor can you. Today, I rest in his love, today I am content. Tomorrow could be different on my part, but not His. Jeremiah 31:3 The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.

Look Up, Keep Serving Jesus, He is Worthy!