I ended last night's entry discussing how one of the greatest things revealed in the "Secrets" bible study was how this life is not about me. This is a total contradiction to what the world says. I know you have heard people say "you have to take care of yourself, no one else will" What a LIE! You see the day that I began walking with God, I was supposed to die to my self, when I married I was to do the same thing for Derek....etc. God calls us to serve him and others. He mentions this many times in the Word. We should not live to serve ourselves. It really is not about us! I lived a good part of our marriage with Derek in mind, but, ultimately I focused on what "I" wanted, needed, had to do, etc. I did not take the focus of what I could do for Derek, do for others and most importantly what I was to do for God. So while it seems simple to die to self, it proved to be very difficult for me and I am still working on it.
Now I will share what really had a huge impact and may sound a little contradictory to what I just said above. I found that in order for me to see the change in Derek and overall in my life, I had to focus on me! WOW! That sounds silly, right? Well I had to focus on my relationship with God & how I could be a better wife. Seeking what I had to change in order for our marriage to improve. I spent a lot of time and I mean A LOT of time concerned with him and what he was not doing, what I wanted him to do & be. Most of what I thought he should do & be were not realistic. You see I married him for who he was, not who I wanted him to be. The very first chapter in the book talked about having unrealistic expectations of your spouse and boy did I have them. God sent Derek to me as he was & I needed to accept that. I needed to seek further to understand him(Derek) and how he ticked. I needed to continually pray for him and lift him up. So that he would be all that GOD wanted him to be and not what I wanted him to be.
You see the secret to finding true fulfillment cannot be discovered until we/I experience a closeness to God. God wants to meet all our needs, if we grab a hold & seek God to fill our needs, it will allow our husbands to be free of "God-sized" responsibilities.(Gary Smalley) I think that I was always expecting Derek to solve our financial problems, instead of God. Of course, we tithed and prayed for God to make a way.....but, deep down I had it in my head that God would have Derek be the one to handle it(since we know he is the head of the household). For many years I have managed our finances, each time we would go in the red I had this huge burden and felt alone battling how to make a way.....mainly because Derek did not see the day to day challenges! I took them on and eventually I got burnt out. I began to resent him that he was not stepping up, that he did not offer to take over managing the money, etc. What I have realized is that it really is not a matter of who takes care of the checkbook & pays the bills.....it is about focusing on how God will meet our needs in regards to our finances. We are a team.....when I started changing my way of thinking, it caused Derek to respond differently. For the first time in almost 9 yrs of marriage, just a few weeks ago, Derek told me that we were a team. He may have always thought it, but never said it. Wow! That meant more to me than I can express in words. Suddenly, as I began thinking differently, he responded differently....then I started feeling a sense of freedom from this huge burden I have carried for the past almost 3 yrs. I really feel like a new women. The neatest thing about all of this is that a simple shift in my attitude and response to Derek made a dramatic change in our marriage and will last forever.
Closing out for tonight. There is so much to share and I hope even just one part of this might change your life like it has mine! God gets all the glory!
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