The Power of a Decision

I recently attended a workshop on marriage taught by Ted Cunningham. He stated that there is power in making a decision. He was talking about unmarried couples who come into his office for counseling. He said they often tell him they never made a specific decision to live together. They just slid into it. They went on a few dates, then began to go back to one of their apartments after their dates. Before long, they began to have sex and for convenience sake, they began to spend the night occasionally. Then, they started bringing over a few things at a time. It happened more and more often until one had completely moved in. Next they bought a dog or had a baby and were in a relationship with joint ownership of a child or a pet with no commitment. These couples then come to see Ted when one feels convicted and wants to marry and one doesn't. He often asks them if they had purposefully made decisions along the way if they think they would still be together. Many of them say, "no."

As I was listening to him talk about the power of a decision, I realized how many areas of life we tend to slide through. When we do that we end up in situations that violate our consciences, which result in our sinning against God, which result in our doing things that are detrimental to our health,  or destroy our  relationships.

The first time I became aware of this concept was when one of our kids was hanging out with some friends whose parents' rules were stricter than ours. We had tried to convey to him to respect all parents' rules. One night I gave my son permission to go with his friends somewhere, not knowing the other parents told their kids, "no." They went, but when the kids dropped off our son, their parents were waiting in their car outside of our house. The next day I could tell our son was struggling and took him to lunch to ask about the night before. He said they went where they had permission to go and ended up through a series of little choices doing things the boys didn't have permission to do. He said they didn't overtly make the decision to disobey, that one thing led to another. He said he had felt convicted at one point and knew they shouldn't be there. He didn't encourage the boys to disobey, but did not say, "no" either. He apologized to the parents, but sadly, they believed our son betrayed their trust and didn't let him hang out with their kids anymore. All of them were great kids and usually responsible and respectful as a group. They just slid, not realizing they needed to be making decisions to do good and right on a daily, hourly, and moment by moment basis.

In my own life I identify "the sliding" in all sorts of areas. My husband and I can slide into laziness in our marriage. We can fail to be proactive about loving each other well and fail to nurture our marriage. We never decide to not express love, nor do we make a conscience decision to neglect our marriage; we just slide into patterns during busy seasons and don't regroup. When we do that we hurt each other and fail to love the way God wants us to love. We don't intentionally decide to neglect our marriage, we just skip doing those little things and big things that strengthen our marriage and make it one that reflects Christ's love for His church. We have to decide daily to be proactive, not just slide along. We must choose to love well, to pray for one another, to be fully committed to each other, to guard our hearts and our minds, and to seek counseling when we get stuck. Even more importantly, in the process of conflict resolution, we must continuously decide to not fight each other, but to passionately fight for our marriage.

I have also seen the sliding pattern in my struggle with a long term eating disorder. I never made the decision to have an eating disorder, it started in high school with a fad diet when I wanted to lose a few pounds. Then after a traumatic event, it slid slowly into unhealthy compulsions to over-exercise and not heed my body's signals of hunger. It grew worse as I found I could avoid emotional pain by focusing on the numbers on the scale or the numbers on a dress label. It continued for some time because I felt powerful and a false sense of being spiritual as I didn't "need" food and had such great self-control. Then periods of dieting followed by periods of binge eating, both of which became a way of coping were so automatic, that if I was making decisions, they were at a subconscious level. When I entered counseling, I had to work hard to relearn to make those daily, hourly, and even moment-by-moment choices to feel, to choose health over starving, compulsive eating, and exercise. I had to consciously acknowledge God by eating what He provided. I still choose to decide to guard my heart by not reading about diets and weight management and refuse to look at magazines with airbrushed photo's that trigger my unhealthy thinking. I decide to process feelings that trigger the desire to starve or binge. I decide to proactively take every thought captive to Christ's truth or this hot mess will be sliding back into self-contemptuous thoughts and self destructive behaviors.

It is also easy for us all to slide in our commitment to the church. Some slide into the habit of not attending church regularly. It begins with one Sunday and then it becomes a couple of weeks in a row and then before we know it, we haven't been in months. Then pride sometimes makes it difficult for us to go back. Some slide into the habit of not using their gifts to serve the body. It could be a busy season in life or just that they took a needed break and just never made the decision to plug back in. Some slide into holding grudges by not working quickly through conflicts that happen when believers rub shoulders. Maybe someone got angry and wanted to process it before they dealt with it and before they knew it, so much time passed, it seemed inappropriate to resolve it. Sometimes churches let overt sin slide, causing many to get wounded. Some slide into disconnected states in which they do not care for or receive care from others in the body. It can start with business. We may even think about calling someone and just let it slide. We may be disconnected because we are going through difficult times emotionally and just let it slide instead of resolving pain that keeps us from wanting to attend church.

I had five children in eight years and I look back and realize we often slid into business. In retrospect, had we not slid through much of life, we could have made conscious decisions that would have been better for my kids, us as a couple, and helped us to really use the gifts God gave us, rather than living a frantic pace to which God never called us. We slid into business to the point we didn't see and attend to some of the needs our growing family had. As a Christian woman, that business kept me from things I needed to be a healthy mom--things like building relationships with other moms who loved the Lord and desired to grow as believers, as wives, as moms, and as daughters trying to navigate complicated extended family relationships.

We can all slip into sinful patterns. Seldom do we choose to become addicted to porn, alcohol, and drugs. Seldom do we wake up first thing in the morning and plan to destroy another's heart with gossip. Seldom do we wake up and plan to destroy our family through adultery, through drug addictions, or through illegal activity. The list could go on and on.

I had a friend who was encouraging me to make a needed change and I was being very indecisive about it. The friend gently pointed out that no decision was in itself a decision and that there was more power in making an actual decision. I thought about it and realized they were right. Living with lots of indecision was a way that I could avoid taking responsibility for my choices. The avoidance came out of fear--fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of hurting others, the fear of disappointing someone, and the fear of God being unhappy with me. I have since learned a lot about living in grace and truth and am realizing that I can live life honoring God when I choose to make daily, hourly, and moment by moment decisions to honor Him. When I put on the armor of God daily and ask God to mold me and to live through me and trust Him to do so. When I make and own my choices, I know I sin less, manage the eating disorder better, have more joy, and give more attention to my relationships. My relationships are more godly when I consciously make decisions daily to honor Jesus, to live out of self respect, and love others well. Finally, powerlessness--that emotion that can so easily trip me up is minimized when I am proactively making decisions to honor God.

Cities of Refuge

Several years ago, my youngest son came home from school, asking if I would take him to see one of his friends. I didn't know the friend, so I asked him why he needed to go see him. I expected him to tell me they had a group project. But, he told me the boy's mom had come to pick her son up from school and had let him drive home. On the way home, an elderly woman who was walking her dog stepped off the curb when her dog dashed into the street. The student had the sun blaring in his eyes and didn't see her until it was too late. The lady passed away and the student had not returned to school and our son wanted to see if he was okay. I took him over to see his friend and as I dropped him off, I warned him that his friend was not going to be okay and that there would not be anything he could do or say to make him feel better. I encouraged him to just sit with his friend. 

I am sure my son thought I was being a "Debbie-Downer," but, I wasn't. When I was a sophomore in high school, I was sitting in the front seat of a car going down a country road late at night and saw lights to the side of the road. As I turned my attention back to the road I suddenly saw a woman laying in the road in the headlights. I couldn't respond in time to prevent the driver from running over her. There were different stories about how she had ended up in the road and I do realize that even if I could have screamed the driver would not have been able to stop in time. I worked through some of the trauma of that night in counseling and thought it was way behind me. 

Then, recently, one of my dearest friends asked me where God was in all the suffering of the hurricanes. Even though we were close in high school and I had anorexia, she had no idea of the amount of trauma, shame, and sorrow that I lived with when we were teenagers. So, I shared with her some of the hard things I had been through and how I believed God used those things to prepare me for the ministry I direct. I was trying to convey to her that, through the healing process, I had experienced great intimacy with God that I would never have experienced without having experienced trauma.

Within a week, a mutual friend posted an article written by Alice Gregory titled The Sorrow and the Shame of the Accidental Killer. In it, Gregory tells the story of Maryann Gray who was in an vehicular accident in which she hit a child, causing the death of the child. She described eloquently the feelings Gray experienced, the vows she made in the aftermath, and how she managed to live with the sorrow and the shame she experienced over the years. It remained pretty much a secret from most people until there was an accident in which an 86-year-old man plowed into several people, killing them. Many people she knew were angry at the man and she, believing it to be accidental, spoke up, sharing her own story and the compassion she felt for him. Out of her telling her story, others who had similar experiences began to tell theirs as well. 

I could relate to the shame she described and the vows she made. I remember sitting right behind the family of the deceased lady from the accident I had been in, during baccalaureate service as her son was graduating with my brother. I felt deep shame and wanted to hide. I hated witnessing the pain their family faced during graduation, having just lost their mom. I felt deep sorrow and suffered from flashbacks and nightmares for years. And, I still experience PTSD when I am riding in cars. Some of the people who were in accidents were treated with compassion and mercy in the aftermath, but our family didn't talk about things. So, it was no surprise that even my closest friends from that time didn't know I was in the car that night. 

Maryann, who is a secular Jew, shared with the author something she had come across in the Old Testament--Cities of Refuge. God had instructed Moses to set up six different cities that were to be cities of refuge for people who killed a person accidentally. When they entered the city, a tribunal would meet with them and determine whether he or she was eligible for sanctuary. Those who committed premeditated murder were turned away and those who truly had killed accidentally were allowed to stay and were protected from those who might want to avenge the death of a loved one.

When Maryann first learned of the concept she was overcome with gratitude and said, "The Torah was talking about me!" She became obsessed with the concept and researched it extensively. As she talked to Rabbis, she learned the purpose of the cities was also to allow individuals to share some of their pain with a community. Even the tribunal offered a place to tell their story. Maryann said she realized she could have moved, lived, and worked without so much shame in a welcoming refuge community who knew about her story and her pain. She said, "If I had been exiled to a city of refuge, I might not have needed exile from myself." She had longed "to live in the world with acceptance and with opportunity, but also with the acknowledgment that in running over this child something terrible happened and it deserves attention." 

When I read the article. and processed the concept of the cities of refuge I, too, was overwhelmed with gratitude for the sweetness of God who made provision for people who carried the great sorrow and shame of accidental killings. I realized how differently I might have navigated life had there been a safe haven, a place of support in the aftermath of our accident. Shame has a way of silencing us and isolating us from others. It also has a way of separating us from parts of ourselves that have to keep shameful secrets until God Himself brings them to light and provides safe people who are willing to hear the stories and sit in the sorrow with us. What I experienced so long ago did give me a compassion that runs deep and rises strong when I hear or read about others who were involved accidents of all kinds, resulting in killings--motor-vehicle accidents, falls, firearm mishaps, and accidental poisonings. I also feel strong feelings of compassion for those who like me, were not directly responsible, but were left wondering if there was something they could have done to prevent or stop an accidental death. I hope someday churches can offer safe havens for those struggling with this type of shame and pain so that shame and pain doesn't keep them separated physically or emotionally from others. Many churches do offer safe places for people to process trauma and grieve losses, and maybe some of those places are in the process of becoming “Cities of Refuge” to those who have accidently harmed another.    

No Longer Living Condemned

Our church is doing something new and different. We are studying the 8th chapter of Romans for eight weeks and I love it! When I was a young wife and a mom and had a house full of preschoolers, we were living in the south. We attended a little Southern Baptist church with a pastor who taught verse by verse through different books of the Bible. He would stay in a book as long as it took to get through that book thoroughly. He loved to teach the Word and welcomed any and all questions. This study has been bringing up a lot of memories because Romans was one of Nap's favorite books.  

If anyone had asked me when we moved to Mississippi if I was a believer I would have said yes without hesitation. But, in reality I lived in a great amount of fear. It began to surface right before we moved there when the church we attended started teaching out of the book of Revelation. At night I tossed and turned and had trouble going to sleep. And when I did fall asleep, I would often wake up crying from horrible nightmares. Not long after we had settled into our new church in the south, the pastor decided to teach out of Revelation. I quickly told him about my fears and said to him I just hoped I would be ready when Jesus came back. He looked puzzled and said something to me that day that I meditated on for years. He said, "Jesus paid the price for your sin. What more is there for you to do to be ready?" I didn't have an answer for him that day and we stayed at that church so I could face my fears of Revelation after agreeing to read and discuss Mark Cambron's book, "Come, Lord Jesus!" 

Later on, the pastor taught through the book of Romans. When he got to Romans 8:1, my heart did about 10 flip-flops and I wanted to stand up and shout. I began to understand that morning that because of what Jesus did on the cross, there was now no condemnation for me. My view of God radically began to change as I let that truth sink in. I no longer saw God as a distant far off deity sitting up in heaven, just waiting to condemn me when I made a mistake. I began to see Him as a ever-present Father, intimately involved in every part of my life. I became settled and assured of my Salvation during that time. 

Though I sat under that great teaching for 7 years, it took me many more years to realize how much I still lived under condemning thoughts. I faced them on a daily basis. Every time I made a mistake, big or small, I believed I deserved the worst punishment possible. Every mistake resulted in my thinking negative self-condemning thoughts--thoughts like, "Lord, how can you love me with all the wrong I do? How can you love me when I hurt people with my words? How can you love me when I am such a bad person, (wife, daughter, sister, mother or friend)? How can you love me when I am so angry? How can you love me when I am so needy? How can you love me when I can't love others like you do? How can you love me when I can't fix broken relationships? How can you love me when I am so imperfect? How can you love me?" And sadly, some of the condemning thoughts were not even for things I had done, but for things others had done to me. “How can you love me when I feel so dirty?”  

I know the Enemy originally planted those negative thoughts in my mind. But I had rehearsed them over and over until they became a part of my everyday thinking. And those thoughts--they stirred up negative feelings and caused a self-hatred that ran deep to the core.

I knew I was supposed to do spiritual warfare, but the thoughts were so pervasive they had become a stronghold in my thinking. I was so ashamed of the thoughts I kept them a secret. Even when I tried to take them captive, I couldn’t think of positive thoughts with which to replace the negative ones. The true things God said about me in His Word felt like lies, which meant the negative thoughts were too much to battle alone.

Those thoughts were there a long time. I even remember telling the pastor in Mississippi I was the worst sinner ever. He chuckled as he opened his Bible and showed me the verse in which Paul claimed that title as his. He tried to normalize sin and grace for me, but I needed to wrestle with those concepts for a while to make them my own. Over the years, I grasped the truth that there is no temptation that is not common to man. That means that sin itself levels the playing field for all of us. And through the book of Romans I learned that we all fall short and all need a savior. That includes those who are good, those who are bad, and those who are legalistic perfectionists. I came to believe it is okay to hate sin, but not the sinner, even when that sinner is me. 

One night during one of our high school discipleship groups a girl shared that she was struggling with believing and feeling her sin was forgiven when she confessed it. I prayed for wisdom before I answered, because I knew this had always been a stronghold for me and I was speaking to myself as much as to her. 

We looked at verses together. The first was Romans 8:1. "There is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus." We agreed because of the blood of Christ that there is no condemnation for those who believe in Him. We agreed that all sin was covered--past, present, and future and that if God didn't condemn us, we should not be condemning ourselves either. We agreed that our condemning thoughts had their source in the Enemy and discussed how different the conviction of the Holy Spirit felt than the condemnation of the Enemy. 

We also turned to 1 John 1:9 and reiterated that truth, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." We realized that it was God's job to cleanse us and that our self-condemnation had not been very fruitful. We also agreed when we are condemning ourselves, we are listening to the evil one, not believing God, and we don't trust God to be true to His Word. Lastly, I shared that from my own life I had learned that condemnation always kept me stuck and miserable. It was never a successful motivation for spiritual growth and change. I shared with the girls that God's goodness combined with godly sorrow over sin leads me to change, not hating and berating myself. We decided that night if Christ came and died in our place for sin and His death satisfied the Father, there was nothing more that we could add to it. Christ paid it all. It is amazing how confession of sin tends to humble us, but condemning ourselves reveals a sick pride that drives us to live with focus on self rather than a focus on Christ. 

I can't help but wonder how different the lives of other perfectionists would be if they grasped God's truth and were no longer living condemned by their perfectionism, but instead, were resting peacefully in His grace. 

The Death of Marriage

The marriage relationship is an interesting, but complicated relationship. It can be a source of both great joy and deep pain. My husband and I met in college, quickly fell in love, got engaged, and got married within eight months. The extent of our premarital counseling was a pastor telling me he knew we loved each other, but he didn't think I had a realistic picture of marriage. Because I was a compliant person, I nodded, smiled in agreement, but thought "We will always love each other!" 

After we got married and graduated from college, my husband went on to get two more degrees. During my third pregnancy, I woke up with a man in our bedroom touching me. My husband woke up and chased him out of the house. But that intruder kept on intruding through flashbacks. I developed PTSD and couldn't sleep. When I did sleep, I woke up screaming. When I was touched unexpectedly, I screamed blood curdling screams that scared all of us. We didn't realize the abuse I had experienced earlier in life and a car accident in which there was a death had set me up for what I was experiencing with this new trauma. 

I didn't know the man I had married had been raised by a mother who suffered with mental illness and had at some point vowed that he wouldn’t marry "crazy." And screaming at a man who was no longer there, and screaming at little children who looked to me for safety looked “crazy” to him. What I needed most in that scary irrational time was to be taken in his arms and hugged and comforted, but I was met with his tendency to withdraw and anger—an anger that covered his big fear that I might end up just like her. He needed reassurance that I was okay and would not end up in a mental hospital like his mom, but neither of us could give the other what was needed. During that time, we both grieved the loss of the marriage we thought we would always have.

Recently, our pastors preached a sermon series on marriage. During one of the sermons I was triggered and I felt volcano type anger rising. Everything the pastor said, I agreed with. He and I have even talked about collaborating on a marriage book. Yet, I was seething inside. I realized later that the anger came from remembering a time I had gone through a conflict at church and had been encouraged by leaders not to use my voice. Being told to take personal responsibility instead of blaming in marriage felt like that time to me. It was also triggering because it resurfaced the frustration I felt early in marriage of wanting to have a marriage that reflected Christ and in our brokenness feeling stuck and unable to get there. We were stuck because we had many misconceptions about the role of submission and leadership, and I felt I lost my voice and ceased to be the person God created me to be to be a “good wife.” 

It also came from the baggage we both brought to our marriage—baggage that we were afraid and/or unwilling to unpack. The sermon was on personal responsibility and I had tried so hard to take responsibility in our marriage, but that in and of itself didn't take away the pain we both experienced and didn’t fix the dysfunctions with which we were struggling. That took a lot of time in Christian therapists’ offices after which we began to move forward slowly--so slowly. I began to find out who Christ created me to be and to heal from the wounds with which I had come to our marriage. Dysfunction is still something with which we struggle because those patterns were deeply entrenched. Yet, we just celebrated our 43rd anniversary--43 years of really, really good and 43 years of really, really hard. Forty-three years I wouldn't change for the world.

As I listened to the sermon, I prayed about the anger I was feeling and a picture popped into my head. It was a picture of an old wooden coffin. On the front of the coffin was a sign with the word Marriage calligraphed on it. The lid was on the coffin and there were some large railroad nails already pounded into it and there were other nails laying on top with a hammer, just waiting to be hammered in. I could see words etched into nails and I realized those were the things killing our marriages.

One nail had the words "marriage redefined" on it. When God designed marriage, it was to reflect His covenant with His people and that covenant was born of love and demonstrated through the sacrifice of Jesus. Marriage is to be a covenant relationship in which agape love drives each to give fully and sacrificially, sealing the covenant with a sexual union. Our culture has redefined marriage into a contract relationship. The difference is that a contract says, “You give me what I want, when I want it and I will love you” and vise versa. This creates a strong fear of the possibility of abandonment and a flurry of activity driven by fear, which gets expressed in anger, frustration, control, depression, and withdrawing. The contract kills trust, transparency, and grace and has contributed to serial monogamy that has become rampant in our culture and churches.  

What many don't understand is that God designed marriage not just to reflect His covenant, but to also provide a proving ground for sanctification. It is the place where sin can’t go undetected, for even dark, sinful secrets have symptoms. It is the place where selfishness, self-absorption, pride, uncontrolled anger, defense mechanisms, and self-protective actions get exposed. As we work through issues and confront one another those these things usually get resolved and changed over time. If we divorce, those things remain and can become the nails in the next marriage as well. Sometimes those things nail shut the coffin on not just one marriage, but two, three, four, five, or more. 

Another nail that goes along with this is a lack of commitment. Both our families had several divorces and we soon realized we had to take the "D" word out of our vocabulary because it was an extreme trigger for both of us. When people live under that threat, there is no safety in the relationship and people become fearful of being real, of asking each other for prayer, and of confessing their faults to one another. It makes them feel like they have to be perfect and they aren’t so they either were a mask to cover imperfections or they just give up and withdraw, refusing to change. 

There were several other nails clumped together. Those nails were premarital sex, extramarital sex, pornography, perverted sex, sex for hire, and masturbation. Sex was designed by God to seal the covenant of marriage. He designed it in such a way that chemicals are released in the body during orgasm that help a couple bond emotionally to one another. Every time a couple has sex, they are renewing their vows and creating a stronger bond. When those nails get hammered into a marriage, it destroys that process. Sex outside of marriage causes guilt and shame, which kills love. When people have multiple partners, use porn, or masturbation they move away each other and from loving and serving each other to self-serving gratification, killing the physiological process of bonding.  

There were other nails on that coffin--nails that included domestic violence, overt control, power-over relationships, toxic shame, contempt, addictions, untreated mental illness, physical illnesses, impatience, and ungodly speech. Many of which come out of unresolved pain and anger, sin-filled hearts, and a misunderstanding of God's design for marriage. For sake of space, I will only address words. Only 7 percent of communications is conveyed through words. The rest is through facial expressions, body language, and tone of voice. We can wound each other through all of those avenues. We have all heard the expression, "If looks could kill, I would be dead!" Who wants to move toward someone who gives dirty looks and eye rolls? Those looks on a repeated basis are unnerving. They break trust, hammering away at the heart of the other. And when one balls a fist and hits the other hand while speaking, or stands over them as they verbally assault them or call them horrible names, or come up behind them and whispers threats in the ear only they can hear—it strikes fear in the heart, breaks trust, destroys bonds, and kills the soul. And the words themselves they can be hateful and biting, literally tearing a heart to shreds. When is isolated and only hears that they are ugly, stupid, ignorant, too much, not good enough, crazy, and they will begin to believe it.  

We may not realize the absence of words can also kill a marriage. That takes place when someone arrogantly refuses to say anything kind, loving, and gracious, exhibiting anger through passive aggression. We are told that we are to encourage each other and build each other up. We have been instructed to love one another. Husbands have been instructed to treat wives with honor and wives to treat their husbands with respect. Overtime the lack of honoring, respect, and love can starves a marriage to death. This is because it starves hearts of the love they were designed to give and receive. Some of the word nails might seem insignificant, but we can destroy marriage one word at a time. 

We are created with a great big God-shaped hole in our hearts and we often come to marriage, trying to get the other to fill the hole only God can fill. But as the body of Christ, could it not be that God may use a spouse to fill a part of that hole? And if that is so, why would we not want to bless the person God has called us to love. We are instructed to have covenant marriages and instructed on how to love inside that covenant, why would we refuse to love well and refuse to deal with the sin in our lives? When we refuse to do so, do we not perpetrate the worst kind of abuse--spiritual abuse? I know I don't want to abuse the covenant God designed and I don’t want to take advantage of God's grace by making my spouse feel unloved and stuck in a miserable marriage. I want to do my best to love well.

I do know there are marriages in which spouses are committed to stay true to the covenant of marriage and they are married to a person not willing or able to take their responsibility seriously. The committed spouse will live in a state of grief because they desire the marriage to reflect God's glory and they know it doesn’t. There are some that are grieving because they know or sense their marriage bed is defiled by others or by pornographic images burned in the mind of a spouse. They will have to battle lies the enemy speaks over their pain either through their own mind or through others who don’t understand the nature of porn and sex addiction and tell them they just need to try harder so their spouse will behave. Please don't just try to suck it up. Get help. You don’t have to suffer in silence or wear a mask that belies pain you feel. God wants each one of us to fight for marriage! I long for churches to get educated about these things and then get involved by confronting the porn epidemic along with a lack of people committed to working on themselves and their marriages.  

I have found a lot of marriage books through the years that helped me hold on to hope in our rough patches. Bill and Pam Farrell have several that are fun to read—Men are like Waffles, Women are like Spaghetti and Marriage Whirlwind for starters. Other authors that write on a more serious note Ed Wheat—Love Life for Every Married Couple, Timothy Keller—The Meaning of Marriage, and Christopher and Rachel McClusky—When Two become One. Gary Thomas' book, Sacred Marriage. 

We want to be humble and learn to love well and to relate to each other in ways that create safety so we can grow. God never intended us to just survive marriage, He wants us to flourish in both the good and the hard so we become all He created us to be and enjoy true intimacy. I am a better person for having married my husband. I came to our marriage, making it all about me and God has used our rough spots to build my faith in Him, to expose my sin and selfishness, and to expose the wounds I needed to have healed. He showed me my own tendency to wound another and that was not easy. I will continue working on that until the day I die. 

Marriage isn't a short-term commitment or a curse to be endured. It is a beautiful covenant designed by an infinitely wise God who desires to fulfill His glory in His people to show the world what His love is like--committed, sacrificial, constant, edifying, and, yes, at times even confrontational. Marriage done His way satisfies the human heart’s desire.

As I drove home the day I saw the picture of the coffin in my head, I realized the source of those nails was the Enemy who wants to destroy God's image in us and in our marriages. It occurred to me we have to decide daily to refuse to hammer those nails in. Instead of fighting each other, we can choose to fight the one seeking to destroy us. Instead of hammering those nails in the coffin, why don't we put on humility and begin to take out the nails we already hammered. God can resurrect our marriages to be all He wants them to be. We don’t have to change partners to change our marriage when we choose to act out of who God says we are and choose to love and honor as Jesus does.

Those Detrimental Labels

The Bible makes it clear that mankind was created in the image of God. Each of us is created individually to reflect His glory in unique ways. We are created to fulfill purposes He designed us to specifically fulfill. Yet, we live in a fallen world and as a result most of us (if not all) have negative core beliefs so deeply entrenched that we don't even realize they are there. These beliefs tell us things that are contrary to God's truth. These beliefs drive our thoughts, attitudes, decisions, and actions. They govern how we feel about ourselves and others, how we interpret life, and how we view our circumstances, events, and others' actions. They even govern how we treat ourselves and how we treat and respond to others.

I believe core beliefs begin as labels. Some of those labels begin in childhood when we don't know how to correctly interpret life, relationships and experiences. When we misinterpret words, events, and others' actions we often end up applying shame-based labels to ourselves. Think of children who grew up neglected and abandoned. They often faulted themselves, assuming the labels of not good enough, too stupid, too ugly--and any other too they believed kept them from getting their needs of love and nurturing met. Think of the children who have been abandoned either physically or emotionally by parents' who are incapable of loving well, drowning in addictions that caused role reversals, or simply leaving to start another family somewhere else. They label themselves as defective, unloved, unneeded, unwanted, and not enough.

Think of the children who were being sexually abused or exploited. They labeled themselves as dirty, disgusting, trashed, used, vile and ruined. In addition, when no one noticed the pain they were in or responded to their cries for help. they added other labels like invisible, not worth saving, shameful. Think of the children who grew up with others labeling them with ugly names, harsh words and racial slurs. Words like Ugly. Fat. Chunky. Stupid. Different. Slut. Worthless shaped their view of themselves. Think of the messages given by others that turned into labels given. Useless, Insignificant, Unneeded, Ugly, Stinky, Dumb. Crazy. Ridiculous. You are....You fill in the blank with what you heard. It could be the source of a label you wear.
 
Think of teens dating, who are giving gave away their hearts, their bodies, and their souls outside of God's plan and then having their hearts trampled and tossed away like the evening garbage. Think of those whose "No's" were disregarded or silenced with threats of violence or shame. Think of those who were given labels by bullies, indicating they didn't even have a right to take up space, breath air, or live.

Think of women who are living in a media-driven culture that defines beauty as size two, flat stomach, space between thighs, and certain skin tones whose are not genetically designed for that. Think of women whose husbands define beauty by the air brushed porn they view--pictures burned in their brains--pictures that don't age over time, don't shift with child birth, or don't experience the pain of arthritis and other debilitating diseases. Or the men who were labeled worthless, stupid, or dumb by frustrated parents, thoughtless teachers, angry wives, hateful bosses, or resentful co-workers.

The source of all negative labels originates with the enemy of our souls--even the ones spoken by people, implied by the actions of others, or assumed by us due to our experiences. I know this because he is source of every lie that goes against God's truth. I was given permission to share the link to an amazing video. https://youtu.be/V2hc_LIdEmc In this video Isabelle sings about labels. In it there is a scene in which she portrays a model being squeezed into clothing too small as her beautiful face is being painted with harsh black makeup designed to hardens her gentle sweet beauty. She finally gets up and walks out of the photo shoot, stripping off the corset type clothing and washes off the makeup, showing her refusal to be made into something she isn't. That is powerful!

I was sharing with my husband today about the video and all the different ugly and painful labels with which I  used to struggle and a few that still remain a constant battle. I told him it was in my Christian counselor's office I had that moment Isabelle had that caused her to walk off the set. It was there that I first identified and opened up about all the hateful, ugly labels I had heard, I had assumed, and that I continuously reiterated in my negative thinking until they had sunk so deep they ran through my mind of their own accord, causing self-hatred to run hot through my veins. It was sitting in that office over a period of time with her reminding me of truth that helped me see those labels were lies of the enemy. It was there that I began to recognize the power I had to refuse to let the media, our culture, the abuses I had experienced, the hurtful words that had been spoken over me, the hateful actions of others towards me, the false accusations being hurled at me, and harsh judgments being spoken about me label me as defective, dirty, unloved, too fat, too ugly, too stupid, invisible, unworthy, too unloved, too much, not enough, and inadequate. Those things had become so deeply entrenched I had to choose the truth of what God says about me over and over--truths like I am fearfully and wonderfully made, I am beloved, I am beautiful, I am saved, I am sanctified, I am chosen, I am cherished, I am whole, I am of sound mind, I am seen, I am heard, and and I am clean. I have had to let the love of God and His truth continually wash over me to get rid of the labels and let Him be my source of worth. When I understood how I had let those labels define me and how they were destroying me, I became passionate about fighting the lies and helping others fight their lies and help them absorb what God says about them and worked it into our Passionate Heart Ministry.

Understanding labels helped me understand the power of words whether spoken or withheld. If we tell a child over and over and over he is lazy, he will be lazy. If we tell children they are worthless they will begin to believe it and act out of that belief. If we tell a girl she is a slut repeatedly, she will fulfill the label with her life. If we refuse to speak kindness or love into someones heart, they will begin to believe they are unloveable. If people refuse to make eye contact with a homeless person, he will begin to believe he is invisible.

I wish we all understood the labels with which we all struggle. Those labels keep people from being all God created them to be. When we don't understand our own negative labels, we will end up labeling others in detrimental ways. If we let the truth of God and His love wash over us, our negative labels will be replaced by His Truth, enabling us to become more than we ever dreamed we could be. Then we will be in a place to help others remove the labels etched into their souls by repeatedly encouraging them with the truth of who they were created to be. And our God who only creates beauty and He ascribed worth to each of us with his own blood.

Jesus is not a White Supremacist

Hatred has been growing in this world for some time. It first reared its ugly head after the fall, ultimately being responsible for the murder of Cain. It drove Joseph's brothers to both plot his death and then to settle for selling him into slavery. It drove the Egyptians to slaughter babies born to the Jews. It drove Haman to plot the destruction of the Israelites who were being held captive in Persia. It showed its ugliness in Israel's treatment of the Gentiles, the Gentiles’ treatment of Israel, and the treatment of both toward the people groups who were the products of mixed marriages between Jews and Gentiles. It was displayed when women were mistreated in marriages and discarded by arrogant husbands who used them and tossed them out like the evening garbage. It was displayed in the way the Old Testament society viewed women as second-class citizens. It even showed its ugly head when fathers desired sons and mourned the births of the precious daughters God gave. It showed its ugly head in the legal system of that day that often failed to serve justice on their behalf. 

Today, it continues to grow rampant in all sorts of ways as we see on the news. Hatred has roots running deep in human hearts. It is sometimes birthed when fear becomes so intolerable that the power of hatred feels safer. It is sometimes birthed in hearts filled with insecurities when hatred becomes a way of calming anxious hearts that long to feel secure. It can be birthed by deep longings--the longing of acceptance, of notoriety, of supremacy, of prestige, and of significance--when one mistakenly believes hatred somehow ensures one can get or keep those things longed for. It can also be born in a pride-filled heart as one seeks to elevates oneself over others. It can be born out of a heart deeply wounded by victimization, providing a destructive hot protection that sadly kills loving relationships. It can be born out of a heart given over to evil when one's conscience has become seared by one hateful choice after another.  

Hatred can also take root when distorted thinking rules our hearts. When we exaggerate, or minimize the importance of events, experiences, and mistakes we can breed hatred. When we employ catastrophic thinking, we see only the worst possible outcomes, keeping us from seeing possible life lessons, possibilities, and the call to grow love at deeper levels. And fear caused by catastrophic thinking breeds self-protective, self-destructive hatred. When we are given to making broad generalizations, we can develop hate-filled viewpoints. If we were abused by a man, we can grow to hate all men. If we were ridiculed by a teacher, we could grow to hate all teachers. If we were assaulted by someone of another race we could come to despise all people from that race. We see this in all the different movements that have come out in the last couple of years. One Christian votes for Hilary, so all Christians are scum, murder-loving hypocrites. One Christian speaks in favor of Trump and we are labeled as racists and hate-mongers. One experiences racism at the hands of whites, then all white people are labeled racists. Because of the black lives movement some white people label all black people as violent, anti-whites. Then there are all the other races and the other prejudices to consider such as, Hispanic, Asian, American Indian, Middle Eastern, different economic levels, different cultures, and different levels of education.

What is worse is some people wear crosses while they take videos of themselves spewing hateful tirades on you tube. And there are white supremacists wearing crosses claiming they are Christians, and now all Christians are now being blamed and lumped into that small hate-filled group. It sickens my heart! Even people who know us and know we aren’t like them assume we are.  

Hatred can also grow when we take everything we see and hear personally. I even find myself doing this. If I allow myself to read the comments posted under the articles I read on Facebook or News sites, I find myself taking the hateful comments personally and they are written by people who don't know me, don’t know I am reading the article, and don’t know what I believe. Before long I find myself feeling defensive and my defensiveness gives way to seething anger and my seething anger gives way to hatred, and I find the thoughts forming in my head are every bit as hateful as the hate speech which offended me. I can’t allow myself to take things personally and focus on that stuff or I begin to sound like those I don’t want to be like. I notice that people who don’t like Trump are beginning to sound just like him. Those who are taking a stand against racism sometimes come across like racists. I wish we would all pause and take a step back so we can emotionally decompress. Hate is never going to be changed by more hate; it is changed by love, humility, grace, and forgiveness. It is changed by trying to know the hurting heart behind the anger.  

And, jumping to conclusions and mind reading causes so many misunderstandings and fights and hateful responses. I went through long rough patch with someone I cared deeply about. She had seen a cross stitched picture hanging in my home that someone had given me and she assumed I stitched it and assume I believed something I didn't. I lost thirteen years of relationship with her because she jumped to conclusions and thought she could read my mind. She chose not to clarify her perceptions and chose to be offended by something she imagined. After thirteen long years, she told me she had been offended by the Bible verse on the picture and allowed me to tell her the story behind the picture. Her anger dissipated as she realized the picture had nothing to do with her and I grieved. I grieved that she had experienced so much needless pain, and I grieved the lost years of close relationship we had once had. It is often in the replaying in the mind of such imagined offences that hatred grows.

Fortune telling also stops grace giving and stops us from reflecting our God who really is a God of a million chances--our lives prove that! Sometimes we see only the negative aspects of situations or people, but all people are made up of both strengths and weaknesses. And if people are made that way, groups of people are too. All races, all genders, all cultures, all social groups—all have strengths and weaknesses. All can contribute good and all are in need of grace. When our thoughts are filled with "should have’s" we've placed on others, hate can be the result as it covers disappointment we feel when others don't fulfill our expectations and demands that would not be there if we replaced a “should” with a desire. All or nothing thinking keeps us from seeing the good in people and the sin in us--even more fodder for hate. 

This latest event in Charlottesville initially left me with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. It was soon followed by a deep grief that we people get it so wrong so often, and fear that we humans will never learn to love better. It was also followed by a righteous anger that has been burning hot. When white supremacists claim to be Christians, I get angry because Christians are supposed to be in the process of becoming more like Jesus and supremacists do not reflect the Jesus of the Bible. Ephesians 2:14-21 makes this so clear. For He Himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in His flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of the commandments express in ordinances that He might create in Himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through Him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone, in who the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a Holy Temple in the Lord. 

Jesus, the Jesus talked about in Scripture, was a Jew born in the Middle East. He wasn't even someone white supremacists would follow. He broke through economic barriers. He left heaven and was born to a poor carpenter. He turned over the tables of money changers that were making it difficult for the poor to worship. He broke down cultural boundaries when He rubbed shoulders with the blind, crippled, deaf, mute, lepers, and a woman unclean because of constant bleeding. He changed the religious culture by allowing all sorts of people to sit under his teaching--from boisterous fishermen, doctors, tax collectors, business women, homemakers, and prostitutes. He even allowed children to come into His presence, which was unheard of in that day. He laid His hands on them and blessed them and called people to have the faith they had. He cast out demons who were destroying people. He gave the gospel to the Samaritan women who was of the mixed race and then remained to teach those living in her town. He was a bridge builder, not a divider! He was bridging the hostility between the Jews and the Gentiles and the Gentiles are all the other races that exist. He was humble. He was loving. He was servant who washed His disciples’ feet, rather than pridefully setting Himself up as a judge! White Supremacists are driven by the Enemy who is trying to convince people Jesus is something He isn’t. As they claim to belong to Him and to be His representatives, they are being used by the enemy to distort God's image and to stir up the hostility that Jesus came to destroy. That seems like pretty serious sin to me.

So, what do we do in light of growing hatred? We spend time with the One who loves and came to kill the wall of hostility. We continue build a church comprised of all nations and all races. We build a church full of people who are reconciled to God, unified in Jesus, being led by the Holy Spirit to do the ministry of reconciliation. Our Jesus preached peace. Our Jesus reconciled people to the Father and granted people citizenship with the Saints! We would be wise to examine ourselves and clean out any residual of bigotry and racism and Pharisaical judgment we might possess as individuals and as churches because those things destroy His peace, divide the body, and keep others from knowing God.

I must guard my heart so in my passion I don't take on the very hatred God hates. My anger and my hatred can never bring about repentance. Only God's goodness can! I don't want to spend hours stewing over recent ugly events, because I know God is just and His Name and character can’t be changed by those who hate. I praise God that His very nature is love and He sent Jesus to kill hostility. I pray my heart will be sensitive to His work so my heart and life are a true reflection of Him who died in my place, satisfying God’s wrath for my sin. I praise God that His Son was not, is not, and never will be a White Supremacist. He was a Jewish baby born in humble conditions, who in an act of supreme humility lay down His life, breaking the barriers of hostility between me and God and me and all other people—barriers that stood in the way of people getting to know Him. These horrific events have painted an ugly backdrop that allows our love to shine even brighter. We want to make sure we stay deeply connected to the God whose nature is love and that love is what will melt hatred. 

The Conqueror

Last week a song-writing friend asked her friends to fill in a blank describing God, "He is the___________," She got a lot of awesome responses from her friends, however, one response really grabbed my attention. It was written by Betty Noyes Smith. "'Conqueror' is the word that comes to mind. The Love that conquers hate, the Light that conquers darkness, the Life that Conquers death, the Truth that conquers falsehood...you get the idea." I loved Betty's answer because as I read it, my mind went directly to God's attributes and His power. I also liked it because I was convicted by its truth and began to wonder if my thoughts, words, attitudes, actions, and life reflect someone who believes in God as Conqueror. 

I think back on Israel's history. As they left Egypt, they had the privilege of seeing God conquer Pharaoh's hard heart through the plagues He brought about. They got to see God conquer the Egyptian armies when He split the Red Sea, giving Israel time to walk through it on dry land. God had caused confusion in the Egyptian armies. He caused their chariot wheels to become unstable and He caused the Red Sea water to flow back into place drowning Pharaoh's army. Yet, it wasn't long before they began to complain and to doubt God's goodness, love, and plans for them. It wasn't long before they openly rebelled against His instructions, delaying their entrance into the Promised Land. Years later, they learned as they walked in trust and obedience, God defeated armies in miraculous ways on their behalf and blessed them with abundance of goods and peace. Yet, Israel continued to spend years fluctuating between absolute trust and mistrust and between obedience and disobedience to Jehovah God! 

When Jesus came, Israel had been without a prophet and they were looking for the Messiah to rise up and defeat the Romans who were occupying their land because of their disobedience. They were so limited in their view of God that they failed to see that Jesus came to conquer so much more than just a human army. During the time He physically lived on earth, Jesus conquered all that ravaged human bodies. He healed diseases, eyes that were blind, ears that were deaf, and limbs that were crippled. He showed that He could conquer by raising dead people from the grave. He also conquered demons that were dwelling in the souls of men, as they sought to destroy people through their sin and self-destructive behaviors.

He conquered when He dissolved gender barriers, saving both men and women, calling both to ministry. He conquered when He dissolved the social and cultural barriers by sharing truth and offering salvation to the Samaritans and other Gentiles as well as to the Jews. He conquered by tearing down economic barriers as He ministered to both the wealthy and the poor. He conquered when He gave freedom to the poor to worship by chasing money hungry vendors from the Temple. He destroyed the false religion that had been created by legalistic Pharisees that had left people either living in terror or so filled with pride that they could no longer see their need of a Savior. 

In His death and Resurrection, Jesus conquered spiritual death for us when He faced God's wrath for our sin. In His Ascension and gifting of the Holy Spirit Jesus conquered the power that sin has over us. That is where many of us tend to forget that Jesus is a conqueror.  I say “us” because “US” is the alcoholic trying so hard not to give in to the craving for just one more drink, finding it hard to remember to call on God who is a conqueror over his addiction. “Us” is the drug addict who is trying hard to stay clean who finds herself driven by her compulsive need for a pleasurable high, forgetting that God is the conqueror over that self-destructive drive. “Us” is the compulsive eater trying hard not to binge again, the compulsive shopper trying hard not to blow her budget this month, and the compulsive talker trying hard to control her tongue; all forgetting in the battle with the flesh that Jesus is the conqueror when their compulsions grow strong. “Us” is also the individual committed to forming healthier relationships who struggles to remember God, with His everlasting love, is the Conqueror when something triggers his or her fear of abandonment. “Us” is the woman committed to developing godlier speech patterns who feels the ugly, angry words rising up in her in the middle of a heated conflict, forgetting in the moment that Jesus is the Conqueror over her tongue, her anger, and her pride that is the root behind the rage she spews. “Us” is the porn addict who promised his partner that he would not look at porn again but finds himself literally shaking with the craving that comes when his stress levels rise, forgetting that God is the conqueror over the fleshly desire. Any of “US” caught up in that battle between the flesh and the spirit tend to forget that God is the conqueror and in Him we are more than conquerors (Romans 8:37). We would do well to surround ourselves with humble, gracious, and truthful people who will help us remember God in the middle of the battles in which we find ourselves.

Several years ago, I was in counseling for an eating disorder with roots that ran deep. One night I had had a very long, hard struggle with the desire to use ugly behaviors, that I despised, but I eventually gave into them. The next morning, I went for my walk and was listening to praise music and praying about the struggle I had experienced the night before. I was so full of remorse and frustration and was so focused on the music and praying I didn't even realize I had passed a lady. She hollered at me, and I turned around. She came toward me and placed her hand on my shoulder as I took my ear buds out. She looked at me, square in the eyes, and said to me, "In Jesus the victory is already yours! Believe it and take a hold of it!" Then she turned on her heel and walked away. To this day, I’ve never seen her in my neighborhood again. She saw my struggle and had the courage to remind me that in Christ I was already a conqueror. I just needed to believe it and act on it.       

When I looked up the word conqueror I was excited to find that Revelation had a lot to say about us being conquerors in Christ. We conquer the evil one by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimonies! As we speak aloud we defeat the lies, the doubts, the fears, and the enemy behind them because we are living protected by the blood of Jesus. God will feed us from the tree of life, not allowing us to be hurt by the second death. He will feed us with His manna and give us a new name written on stone that no one knows except the receiver. To me, that indicates an intimacy that we have - a name, only He will call us. Maybe that name will be indicative of all that He created us to be. He will give us authority over nations and confess our names before his Father and his angels. He is our defender when the Enemy hurls his ugly accusations of not being good enough, not being worthy, not being obedient enough. He will refuse to blot our names from the book of life when the Enemy accuses us.

What hope we have when we worship the One who is the Conqueror. He has conquered sin with His righteousness, death with Life, darkness with Light, anxiousness with Peace, weakness with Strength, depression with Joy, despair with Hope. If we keep our eyes on Christ we can live the victorious lives to which we have been freed to live. He conquered the enemy at the cross and we strip the enemy of his power with God's truth and with our testimonies. When my old friend ED (eating disorder) comes knocking, I can have victory by defeating the enemy, attempting to entice me, by remembering the cross, by speaking Gods truth, and by giving testimony to what God has done for me. It doesn't matter what the besetting sin is, WE each can be conquerors in Christ by remembering, speaking, and testifying.