Perseverance

Last week I shared my story. A lot of people ask me how Fi and I did it - how did our marriage survive such difficult circumstances?

Somehow God gave me the patience I needed to get through.

"If you will let me, I will take care of this for you" was the word God gave me, but I still had to wait. He didn't take care of it in an instant - it was a process that carried on for years.

There's a verse in the Bible about this kind of patient waiting:

"What is faith? It is the confident assurance that what we hope for is going to happen. It is the evidence of things we cannot yet see" Hebrews 11:1

One of the problems of our society these days is instant everything - instant coffee, fast food, instant fixes. We get used to addressing problems and eliminating them NOW. But sometimes the best things in life don't happen NOW. Sometimes the best things in life take time.

What are the problems in your life right now? Are you looking for quick fixes? Or are you letting God take care of it for you, no matter what his time line might be?

That thing you can't see . . . keeping hoping. Keep believing God will take care of it for you. That's faith.

"I Will Take Care of This For You" (Part 2)

Those years were very challenging, to say the least. Knowing my wife was spending time with someone else and giving him the attention that I needed was very hard for me. I would love to tell you how patient I was and how easy it was, putting this whole situation into God’s hands. But that isn’t how it was.

I remember coming home from work one day to an empty house, as I did most days, and saying to God, “I have had it! I’m going to take a shower and if my wife isn’t home by the time I’m through, I’m going to pack my bags, go out that door, and never come back.”

My wife was never home by the time I was through showering, so I was really trying to give myself permission to leave. But that day, as I got into the shower, I heard a door close – you guessed it. My wife was home. And as the hot water ran down over me I heard that voice again:

“Mike, if you will let me, I will take care of this for you!”

For the next three years I had to learn to trust God and allow Him to do what He needed to do in order to take care of my problem.

The day finally came. December 3^rd, 1981. The truth became known. My pastor was having sexual relationships with several women in our church. My wife was one of those women. It’s strange how you can know something inside yourself and it affects you a certain way, but then when you know it for sure it becomes even more devastating.

For a week I felt like a walking dead man. I hurt much more than I ever dreamed possible. When my wife came to me and asked, “Can you ever forgive me?” I looked at her and said, “I already have.” The wedding vows I had said before man and God were just as real to me then as the day I said them. Nothing could or would change that. I loved my wife.

It has taken hard work and commitment on both of our parts. God was faithful to his word:

“If you will let me, I will take care of this for you.”

It has been many, many years since Fi told me what had been going on, and we are still together. We have been blessed over the years with two sons and a daughter-in-law, all who love and serve God. Recently we were blessed again – with a beautiful grandson. What more could parents ask for?

November 29^th, 2010 Fianna and I will have been married for 35 years: a testimony to His love, His grace and His faithfulness. God truly did take care of my situation – no one else could have done what He did!

He was true to His word.

“If You Let Me, I Will Take Care Of This For You”

As I walked across the field, my head was throbbing, my heart was breaking, and the words kept playing over and over in my mind, “I don’t want to be married to you anymore.”

Fianna, my wife of only six months, was ready to call it quits, end our marriage.

That was the beginning of 6 very long and very difficult years. But as I walked through that field, thinking about what she had just said, I was reminded of another sound track. Another phrase. This one had come to me when I was 10 years old.

As I watched my dad and two older brothers, drunk out of their mind, fighting and beating each other until blood poured out of them, I prayed to a God I wasn’t even sure existed.

“Please get me out of this mess,” I pleaded.

The words he had given me back then, when I was ten, replayed as I walked through that field:

“Mike, if you will let me, I will take care of this for you.”

You see, when I turned 16 I moved away from home and in with the family whose dairy farm I was working on. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was moving in with a Christian family. One year after I moved in with them I became a Christian, and suddenly realized that the prayer I had prayed when I was ten, that God would get me out of that mess, had been answered. He had taken care of it for me.

So when my wife said, “I don’t want to be married to you anymore,” that old promise of God’s came to me again. He would be faithful. He would help me through the pain I was feeling at the time.

For the next 6 years of our marriage, I would hear statements like:

“I wouldn’t blame you if you went and found another woman.”

“You should prepare yourself – one day you’ll come home and I’ll be gone.”

“Why do you stay?”

My answer to my wife was always the same: “I said my vows before God and man and I’m staying true to them.”

After a series of questions to my wife, and then also to the guy with whom I thought she was having an affair, I came to the conclusion that it was true. They were involved with each other. I remember sitting in my car, thinking about what I had just heard, and saying to God, “Now I know for sure. So what do I do?”

And God said, “Just let it go Mike, and remember, if you will let me, I will take care of this for you.”

Looking back, I know it wasn’t just her fault – I was an extremely negative person, and I did virtually nothing to fill her love tank. These days I wonder what I was thinking: how could she ever have been happy with me? An affair is rarely the problem in a marriage. Sure, it illustrates that there are problems, but those usually come before the affair ever happens. Of the many problems our relationship was facing, two huge ones were my negativity and the lack of effort I put into making sure my wife felt loved and appreciated.

But all of that melted away as I tried to do one thing: focus on the word God had given me. I had to let it go. I had to let him take care of it for me.

(to be continued next week)

Relationship Goals

I've heard it said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results.

This reminds me of some folks who have high goals for themselves relationally - maybe they want to make some close friends or find people with the same hobbies as themselves. Maybe they want to get married. Yet they just keep doing the same things over and over.

They hang out at the same places (often their own sofa).

They hang out with the same people (who aren't positive influences).

They don't take care of themselves.

We all fall into ruts from time to time. But if you want something about your life to change, you have to set goals. And once you've set some goals, normally a few life changes are required to reach them.

And if you're struggling to implement these changes yourself, give me a call! I'd love to help you set some goals, take baby steps to reach them, all the while getting closer to the extraordinary life you've been looking for.

Next week I'm going to begin sharing my own relationship story. My wife and I went through some extremely difficult years - maybe some of you know what I'm talking about. But there's always hope.

There's always hope.