Make over Your Marriage- Marriage in Crises

Crises | Define Crises at Dictionary.com

Exodus 14:14

¹⁴ The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace.”

If I could give a word of encouragement to someone going through a rough spot in their marriage I would give some pretty basic advice. This is based on what God counseled me to do when I ran to Him in prayer in my own crisis. I call it:

Make Over Your Marriage

1. Hear God’s Now Word. -This is what He’s saying to you right now. “Whatsoever He says to do…do it!” (What Mary told the servants where Jesus turned the water into wine.)
2. If He says it’s going to be ok… it is, as long as you listen and obey His full counsel. If He tells you to stay… STAY. Hear and obey, there is no other way.
3. Don’t be controlled by your emotions. They are part of you, but they don’t have to control how you feel and live.
4. Encourage Yourself in the Lord. Pray in the Spirit and stir yourself up in your most holy faith. Listen to worship, and faith filled music, not sad love songs or depressing friends or relatives. (Staying encouraged may mean you stop talking about the problems all the time. Speak life and faith, not fear, bitterness, anger and grief.)
5. Commit yourself wholly to God and you’ll find the strength to stay committed to your marriage, your spouse and your family.

I base this advice on my own experience in dealing with a spouse that has already made up their mind that they want a divorce and are no longer interested in working things out.  Can you imagine God telling me “it’s going to be ok” during those circumstances? God also counseled me to stay on board in my trial. Not to “bail out”. He used the scripture where Paul is a prisoner and is being shipwrecked with the crew. In that scripture Paul tells everyone on board that as long as they stick together on the ship everyone would be saved alive. I somehow knew God was telling me not to leave and go stay with my parents. I wanted to so bad. My husband seemed to hate my very presence, and avoided me. It was so hard to stay. My husband even tried to lock me out of the house once. Ha, what a stubborn woman I was.

I really struggled to keep emotions under control. It’s hard when someone you are trying to love is purposely despising you, and will even say they don’t love you anymore. I would leave my bed at night, where my husband would give me the coldest shoulder ever, and go cry in the bathroom. This is where God asked me if I was going to be ruled by my emotions. I wasn’t pleased with Him telling me that. I reminded Him that He’s the one that gave me the emotions. It’s part of me. He didn’t say any more about it that night, so I knew He wasn’t going to cut me any slack there. It’s so hard to control your emotions when someone is stoking the flames of resentment, anger, hatred, unforgiveness…I could go on…but I won’t.

I look back now and it feels like it almost didn’t happen to me personally. Like it was so long ago. It’s strange to me how emotionally detached from the situation I feel. The only thing I feel now is gratefulness that I made it through. I’m soooooo glad I didn’t leave! I’m so thankful my husband came around just like God said he would.  I remember the day he got down on his knees and apologized. We had just watched a Documentary called “Finger of God”. And it must have touched something deep inside him. I was totally surprised and slightly bewildered. But it was definitely a “Wow, God. You’re Awesome.” -moment.