Re-Engage Part Two

Yesterday I began posting about the challenges my husband and I have faced throughout our marriage. You can read that post here. I wrote about some negative feelings I was having but didn’t know how to turn those feelings into positive feelings without my husband’s help. For me, the first step in solving that problem was him using words and a tone of voice that showed me he cared I was hurting. On the flip side, I had to be able to let his love in. I had to allow him to love me.

After years of hurt, it was pretty hard to do. I wanted to keep my guard up and not trust his efforts were going to stick. I wanted to protect my heart from future hurt. But I knew that line of thinking would not help my marriage. In fact, that line of thinking was more likely to set my husband up for failure. I wanted him to succeed in his efforts.

It was my job to set him up for success. As long as he was willing to put forth an effort, his success was partially dependent on whether or not I was going to allow allow him to succeed. The only thing that would make my marriage grow was to allow his efforts to heal my pain. All while knowing in my heart that things he had been saying to cause the hurt, was most likely going to happen again.

It wasn’t easy at first. But the more I allowed him to heal my pain, the easier it became. Not only that, but the more I allowed him to to heal my pain, the easier it was for him to put forth the effort.

Did those things that caused the hurt happen again. Yes, they did. But things were beginning to change.

Accusations turned into ownership. Instead of saying, “You are out of control!” We said, “I am reaching my boiling point so I’m going to step away from this situation until I am in a better place to have this conversation.” 

As weeks turned into months, the things that happened to cause the hurt were still happening, but not as often as they had happened before. When they did happen, we’d spend time reflecting together afterwards. He’d ask me at what point in the conversation did I think things got out of control and why I felt it was out of control. He would share with me when he felt things were out of control. It helped us learn about each other’s boiling points. Knowing each other’s boiling points has helped us both keep difficult conversations under control.

Turns out I view stress differently than he does. What does that mean in conflict resolution? This next part might be confusing if you haven’t experienced it. For us, it meant I thought he had reached his boiling point before he was really there. Once I believed he had reached that point, it caused me to react. I thought I was reacting to his stress. It wasn’t his stress I was reacting to. I was reacting to my own fears from past hurt. Of course, that caused my husband to also react to my fears. And that made things escalate at a quick pace. 

Confusing as mud?

Re-Engage

My husband and I started attending a weekly program at our church called Re-Engage. We’ve only gone to three sessions and it looks like it will take about 6 months to complete the course. It’s a program designed to help your marriage grow. We’ve heard lots of good things from the program so we’ve been looking forward to getting started.

My husband has also been blogging about his experiences in our marriage. Between his blogging and joining this course, I’ve been thinking a lot about our marriage, what it was and where it is going. A little over two years ago, our marriage was pretty much over. I was dealing with a lot of negative feelings that I didn’t know how to fix on my own. I no longer felt like the love in our marriage was real. It didn’t feel like I was in love with my husband. I didn’t feel he was in love with me. To me, it felt like we were two people that just happened to live under the same roof and were raising the same children. There were times where my husband would be home, but to me, it felt like he wasn’t there. It was as if he was part of the decoration. To me, our home felt the same whether he was there or not. That wasn’t the kind of marriage I wanted to be in.

I talked to my husband about it. We had been attending counseling sessions at our church and communication was one thing we trying to improve at the time. I remember one night we got into a really big fight that ended with me driving off, not knowing what I was going to do next. I think I drove around for about an hour. I remember coming home and saying these words to my husband:

“I know you might not know how to fix the problem, but the least you could do is use your words to show me you care that I’m hurting, instead of using words to cause more hurt.”

I don’t remember if I worded it exactly like that, but you get the gist. The past two and a half years have been pretty amazing. We still have work that needs to be done. But it isn’t like it used to be. I’m so thankful for our church. I can honestly say I don’t know if we’d still be married today if it we had never stepped through those doors. We still struggle in some areas, but the negative feelings are no longer there and the hurtful words that were once in our relationship are getting to a point where they are almost non-existent.

Autism

Today I am participating in a blog hop. Kelly’s Korner is hosting a blog hop specifically for parents of special needs children. As parents with special needs children, it can be difficult to connect with other parents who understand what we are going through. Kelly’s hope is to connect parents of children with special needs with other parents who have similar challenges. I have met a lot of great people online who have helped me in one way or another with the different challenges that come with raising a child on the spectrum. Hopefully I will continue to meet people or my story will help someone else going through similar issues.
Christopher is 10 years old. He has severe autism. He is non-verbal. I started to notice a difference in his behavior right before he turned two. When I say difference in behavior, I mean I noticed he was different from most children his age. He was always delayed with milestones and he had a lot of unusual quirky behavior for a child of his age. I know when I just say it like that it doesn’t sound like a big deal, but if you saw the things he was doing and how obsessed he was with doing those things….

At his 18 month check up, his doctor asked me if I was concerned about his development. I knew he was behind, but I wasn’t too concerned about it at that point. Somewhere between that check up and his 2 year check up, I started to get concerned. He wasn’t responding to people very much at all. He wasn’t trying to develop his communication skills when  he needed something. Most kids by age 2 would try to verbalize their needs using words, but Chris still got our attention by crying the way an infant does.
I Googled some of the symptoms that concerned me and found an article that listed 9 characteristics of autism. At the age of 2, Chris had 7 of the traits on the list. I printed that article and brought it with me to his 2 year check up. The pediatrician spent a great deal of time with us. She preformed a hearing test. She gave us further instructions on where to go to get additional testing done. She suggested the possibility of autism, but wanted a neurologist to give us the final diagnosis. We had several tests done and like most autism cases, the tests all came back normal.  The neurologist confirmed our pediatrician’s fears and my fears as well. Chris had autism.
We started speech therapy and occupational therapy right away. The therapists came to our house for almost a year. My husband’s job transferred us to another state. He started getting services from the school district when we moved. We were seeing some results, but nothing over the top extraordinary. About the time he got his 4 year shots, he got a new teacher. There was a lot of regression during that time. I started to notice that anytime there was change, he would regress. He also seemed to have the attitude that once he knew how to do something, there was no need to do it anymore.
Today he is 10 years old. It has been a while since we have seen significant progress in Chris. The good news is he is mostly happy. He is beginning to develop some aggression issues at school and we are trying to figure out how to deal with that. Hopefully that will stop now that it is summer vacation. He will attend the extended school year program which begins in July.
I’d love to hear from anyone who has a special needs child. Even if you aren’t dealing with autism, I’ve found we may not be dealing with the same diagnosis, but there are still some things that might be similar. Thanks for stopping by!
Jennifer

Mom’s Night Out

For Mother’s day, my daughter wanted to take me to see the movie Mom’s Night Out. I loved this movie. It’s about a mom who is at her whit’s end. She has the life she always dreamed of, but for some reason, is not happy. Most of us moms have been there at some point. Before I had children, I had a list of things I couldn’t wait to do with my kids as a family. That dream was crushed when my son was diagnosed with autism. Only, I didn’t realize it right away.
Doctors, therapists, social workers, family members and friends all told me early intervention was the key. “Do the intervention and everything will be fine.” they said. But so far, that has not been our reality. After his diagnosis, I focused on his therapy sessions. I believed if I focused on his therapy, one day, everything would be fine and I’d have the family I had always dreamed of.  
I reached my breaking point shortly after we moved out of our home state. For a while after we moved there, most people didn’t know my name. They’d call me Desiree’s mom or Chris’ mom, or they’d call me by my last name. I woke up one day and I didn’t know who I was anymore. Everything I liked was because one of my kids liked it. Everything I did was because my kids wanted to do it. I couldn’t think of anything I liked that was just mine and no one else’s. I began to feel like I didn’t have any identity other than that of “mom” and “wife.”
I knew that because I had a special needs child I wasn’t going to be able to do the things I had always dreamed of doing with my family. I also knew I couldn’t go on feeling the way I was feeling. I had to re-define myself and my ideas of how a family spends time together. I had to find new interests. Most importantly, I had to find interests that included children with special needs.
I looked up different events going on around town and attended the ones we could. I attended more events at our church. I did some volunteer work at my kids’ school. I volunteered at the local animal shelter. Shortly after the birth of my 3rd child, I joined a mom’s group. That was probably the best thing I did for myself, because there were always new members looking for new friends. I started attending mom’s night out events. It felt fabulous to get away and have my own identity even if it was for a short time. I was trying to re-invent myself and had no idea what my likes and dis-likes were. I did as much as I could in an effort to figure out who the “new me” was.
Back to the movie. The mom was spending so much time beating herself up because she couldn’t keep up with the world around her, she was making herself miserable. The mom in the movie hadn’t gone out in ages because she felt so guilty about leaving her kids. She felt so bad that her house wasn’t clean all the time. She sacrifice her sleep to clean the house before the kids woke up. Why do us moms do that to ourselves? Even in an air plane they tell you in an emergency, put the oxygen mask on yourself first THEN put the oxygen mask on your child. You can’t safe your child’s life if you are dead because you didn’t take the time to put your own mask on first. It’s so important that us moms learn to give ourselves the time to take care of ourselves without feeling guilty. It’s so important we put our oxygen masks on first.

Making Changes

In the beginning, I wasn’t looking for God. I started going to church because my daughter wanted to go and I wanted to raise her with good morals and strong values. I believed raising her in church would accomplish that goal. I researched different churches, trying to find one suitable for our family. It was really important to me that the church catered to children. It was my daughter who wanted to go and I was determined to make sure her experience was a good one.
We found a church that seemed to suit our needs. There were some things about that church I didn’t like, but there was more positives than negatives so we stayed at that church. Besides, my daughter loved it. We didn’t always make it a point to go every Sunday. It seemed to be if we were all awake and dressed, then we’d go.
I didn’t particularly care to learn about God at the time, but I was hearing things that made me think about myself and what kind of person I was and what kind of person I wanted to be. I was developing a better understanding of the roles God had intended for us as a family unit.
I realize I am probably going to get some negative feedback on what I am about to say. I hope you can read the next few sentences and accept that this is working for me in my marriage and regardless of what anyone thinks or says, I am going to continue doing what works for my marriage.
I started to understand what it really means when a wife submits to her husband. I don’t know how to explain the true meaning to someone else. But I think it only works if you are with the right person.  It was hard, so very hard, but I started to try to allow my husband to take on more of a leadership role in our home. I tried to take on more of a care taker role in our household. It took a long time for me to feel comfortable to this change. I spent a lot of time in the beginning reminding myself that I chose to marry this man. I should be able to trust him to make decisions for us. It took a while, but as it became more natural to me, I could see the improvement in my marriage.
I became inspired, I started thinking, since this worked, I’m going to try other things I learn in church to see what changes happen in my life. Every time I did something the way the church said; the way God intended it to be, my life changed for the better. Years went by and I still wasn’t really looking for God, I was looking to have a happier family and make myself a better person. The changes didn’t happen over night. It was a long, slow process. Sometimes, I would fail, so I’d try harder next time. I continued making changes in myself and the way I viewed things. I’d stick with one area of my life to avoid getting overwhelmed. Somewhere along the way, I happened to find God. Now it’s getting easier for me to make the choices to live a life the way God intended. From my own experience, there are definitely benefits. 

Random Acts of Kindness

Each and every one of us has a different perspective on life. One thing I have learned is that people are going to believe whatever they want to believe. Our brains can come up with the most outrageous version of what we think the truth is and we can find ways to justify our thoughts. Why is one person’s perception so different from someone else’s? I think people believe what they need to believe in order to justify their own actions.
There once was a time where my mind was trying to tell me the story and I was not focused on reality. I regret that I listened to my mind and not what was real. I knew my mind could have been wrong, so I chose to proceed with caution. I didn’t want to miss out on a great opportunity if my mind was going to be wrong.
It was earlier this school year. My middle son, C.J., is 10 years old. He is severely autistic and is non-verbal. The other 10 year olds at his school were going on a field trip. They were going to go camping for 4 days. The school staff and the staff at the camping site really wanted Chris to go. They offered to cover the cost of the field trip so my family would not have to endure any of the expenses.
While we were on the field trip, we did a lot of hiking. Several times during the hike, we’d stop, gather in a group, and the tour guide would teach the kids some relative information about the things that surrounded us. C.J. did not want to sit still for very long and he let his opinion be known to all of us. I’d let him get up and walk around so he wasn’t much of a distraction to the other kids who were trying to learn.
During one of the hikes, they taught the kids to build a fire using sticks and rocks. They split the kids into groups and each group of kids worked together to make their own fire using the sticks and rocks. Of course, each group had an adult helping them too. One of the dad’s came over to my son and me and said he wanted C.J. to have the full experience of the camp, even if it appeared he wasn’t paying any attention. This man sat down with C.J. gathered some sticks, mulch and a few other things and started to make a site for a small fire. He spent time trying to keep C.J. focused on what he was doing. After so much effort, he got the fire going. C.J., being autistic, didn’t have much of a reaction to the flame. He briefly enjoyed the heat, and the color of the fire, but that was about it.
After that, we continued to hike down the trail. We stopped again and the tour guide talked about how cavemen made shelter using logs. There were logs all around us and they asked the kids to make a small shelter using the logs. Again this man helped my son and me. My son lost interest in this activity pretty quickly. He wasn’t to impressed with hauling logs from one place to another. We got the shelter built, but ours was small because of my son’s lack of interest. The other kids were having a great time and did a great deal of work building their shelter. My son wanted to do his own thing, so I let him wander around a bit while the kids were finishing up their work.
While the kids were finishing, this man got a branch off the ground, took a knife out of his pocket and started to whittle. He told me how he loves to make walking sticks and will often carve animal shapes into the top of the walking stick. He wanted to carve a stick for my son.
C.J. and I ended up having to leave the field trip a day early. We left before the man had finished carving the walking stick for my son. After the field trip ended, this man found my phone number in the school’s PTA directory and called me. He had finished the walking stick but we had to leave before he could give it to us. He had tried leaving the walking stick at the school for my son, but the school wouldn’t allow it because the walking stick could be used as a weapon. He really wanted my son to have the stick and hoped we could all meet somewhere so he could give it to my child. My family met him at my daughter’s school football game. He gave us the walking stick, said hi to Chris and we never heard from him again.
This man was so nice to my son and me, but the whole time I felt extremely uncomfortable. My brain wanted to make up a story, telling me he had an ulterior motive behind his kindness. But he didn’t. He really just wanted to do a nice thing for my son. It was nothing more than that. Why is it so hard for us to believe that some people really just want to be nice to us. Why is it so hard for us to accept the generosity of strangers? Why are we so quick to let our minds tell the story? Why do we jump to conclusions and make assumptions about another person’s motive? I feel guilty that I judged this man’s actions, but I am thankful that even though I was cautious, I gave him the chance to show me what his true motives were. I learned a lesson that day. It is better to continue in these uncomfortable situations with caution than it is to shut these kind of people out because your brain tells you a story that is different than reality.
Lord, I pray you will allow us to accept the generosity of others, including strangers, without fear. I thank you for giving me the strength to proceed with caution that day to allow this good deed be done. I pray that one day, I will have the courage to offer kindness to a stranger the way that man offered kindness to my son.
I keep the song, Open up Your Eyes by Tonic on my phone as a reminder to not let my mind tell the story here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lDIJjnCHco

Choices

Why do we make the choices we make? I believe it is our own choices that determine the outcome of our happiness. Not too long ago, God gave me a glimpse of myself, that revealed to me why I have made so many of the choices I did in my life. I was driving in the car after dropping the kids off at school. God usually spends time working on my heart during those few minutes where I am by myself. As I was driving along, not really thinking about anything, out of the blue God sent me a reminder to show me who I am. The reminder was this:

When it comes to home ownership, the idea of buying a run down, fixer upper type home and doing the renovations to build something even more beautiful is so much more appealing than buying a brand new home.

You might be thinking, “So what?”
In my life, I’ve always made the choice to do things the hard way. I can’t count how many times people would tell me, “This way would be easier.” I didn’t care. I wanted to put forth the effort to do it the way that was more difficult. I never knew why, it just seemed more appealing to me. I guess that’s just who I am. Once God made me understand just how much that meant to me, I began to understand why I made so many of the choices I had made in my life.
Knowing this tidbit of information about myself makes me feel like many aspects of my life make sense. Including the choices I had made in some of my relationships. Why there was such a big struggle in my marriage. It’s because God knew I needed that time to renovate my marriage in order to find my happiness. Luckily, God protected me throughout my life, not only by keeping me strong. He did a pretty good job of giving me people who were willing to go through the struggle with me. I am thankful to have this understanding of myself and to know why I make the choices I make.
Also, I am now able to realize when it is time to let go. Sometimes God put people in my life that didn’t want to go through the struggle. I didn’t understand why. Now I know I don’t need to understand why. I know that God either has something else in store for them, or it just isn’t the right time. I know I don’t have to force my ways on them because if it is in God’s will, it will happen, God will find a way.

My Bible

This is my bible. You can see it’s been used. I’ve never read it all the way through. It’s something I use for reference in life when I don’t know what to do or where to turn. Every couple of pages, there are devotionals to help you have a better understanding of the bible verses. In the back, there is a subject index which I have referred to during difficult times.

Anytime I have a problem I don’t know how to deal with, I turn to the subject index. From there it takes me to devotionals and Bible verses that give me instruction on what to do to help myself over come whatever it is I am dealing with at the time. It has been a huge tool for me throughout the years.
Today I have added a few apps to my phone that I use for reference. I have a bible app on my phone. I have the Jesus Calling app on my iPod and I have a devotional app on my phone. I look at the devotional app on my phone the most. Two devotionals per day, one in the morning and one in the evening. Very inspirations and extremely helpful. Especially fun are times when the random devotionals match up with what is going on in my life at that time.

Praying

Growing up Catholic, they teach a lot of recited prayers. The prayers are always good, but as a child, I never understood what I was praying for. When I started visiting other churches, I’d get overwhelmed when I’d hear other people pray. There would be a time for prayer requests and right there, on the spot, someone would put together this fabulous sounding prayer that had real meaning. I wanted to learn to pray like that!
Learning to pray a prayer that had real meaning was very difficult for me. It still is today. Before I am able to pray a prayer I am comfortable with, I have to pray that God gives me the words for my prayer. Then I have to wait for Him to follow through. Usually what happens next is a flood gate is opened with words that have hope and meaning. I end up having to pick the right ones and form them into sentences.
In the beginning, it felt so weird to pray. I was praying because I was desperate and I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t know how to deal with the situations going on in my life. I didn’t know how to get over it because there was no way I was able to get closure. All my life, I’ve always been able to gain closure when needed. Closure is vital for moving on and over coming things. But in this one situation, I was not allowed closure. I was beginning to get angry and that anger was starting to consume me. I wasn’t going to let that happen.
I started talking to a friend about it. She told me about how she has prayed to God to take the anger out of her heart. I didn’t think that was going to help, but I was so desperate, I gave it a shot. Anytime I could feel the rage come out of the woodworks, I’d pray over and over for God to take it away. I’d beg him, “Please, God, take these feelings away.” To my surprise, it helped.
But of course, the feelings would come back at another time. So I’d pray, “Please, God, take these feelings away.” Over and over and over, until the feelings started to lift. As days went on, I didn’t have to say the prayers so often.
As days turned into weeks, I decided to stop asking God to take my anger away. Instead, I made the choice to pray blessings upon the person who my anger was directed at. I’d pray I’d be able to forgive them. I’d pray they’d find happiness. I’d pray they would feel love. Once I started praying for them and not for me, my anger disappeared a lot quicker. The things I pray for, really are things I want. I don’t have to be the one they find happiness with. They don’t have to feel love from me. But I want them to find love and happiness with others. If they do find love and happiness with me, that’s great! But I am now able to accept that it might not be me they find those feelings with and I am now in a place where I can be okay with that.
Over the months, I have gotten more comfortable with praying. It’s becoming more natural to me. It still takes a long time for me to find the right words. But I am grateful when God gives the words to me.

God Speaks

A little over a year ago, some events took place in my life that caused family members to act like enemies. We decided it was best for us to close the doors to some of our relationships. We needed time to grow, learn and better ourselves and unfortunately, closing these doors was the only way to do that at the time.
Over the past several weeks, the message at church has been to love your enemy. Since family members were acting like enemies, it was those family members I first thought of. God had been sending me a message to try to open those doors. But I didn’t know how. So many hurtful things had been said and you can’t unsay things you have already said. But that’s okay! You can’t undo what has already been done. What you can do is try your best to make sure you do things better in the future.
I continued to pray, because I still did not feel I knew how to do what God was asking me to do. I prayed to God, asking him how do I show love to my enemy? Before I continue, I want to emphasize I do not really consider these people my enemy. I use it more as an analogy. God gave me the answer. Scrolling through my Facebook news feed one day, I saw a post that said something along these lines,

“Extend the same grace to others that God has extended to you.”

I had my answer. I knew how God wanted me to show love to my enemies. But I was still confused. I asked myself, “What grace does God extend to me?” He forgives me. He blesses me. Okay, how can I do that for them? I didn’t know the answer to that question so I waited. Then it came to me. Someone said something along the lines of “Others see our love in what we pray.” God wanted me to begin by praying for my enemies. But in order for it to do any good, they had to see what I had been praying for.
“But what words do I use?” God put the words into my head. I began to post prayers were others could see them. I sent prayers to three people. Two of those people had very positive responses. The third person only had words filled with anger and hate. Literally right after I read her responses, I opened a devotional app on my phone. The Bible verse for that day was

Take no part in the worthless deeds of evil and darkness; instead, expose them. ~ Ephesians 5:11

I sent the same prayer to three different people. Two responded with kindness. The third responded with hostility, anger and hatred. As I read her responses, I did not get angry. I could feel her pain, her hurt. I don’t know what caused her pain, but it is deep. I wanted to offer her comfort, but sadly, it is not me she is wanting to receive comfort from.
I pray, Lord, that you will take that pain and hurt away from her. I pray that others will show her love. I pray you will allow her to feel that love. I pray that you will put someone in her life with whom she would want to fight to keep the relationship alive instead of fight to destroy it. Lord, every one deserves love and happiness, no matter what they have done in their past. Please, Lord, help her feel your forgiveness.

Lost

In my last post, I described my faith in God as if God had been in the room, but I didn’t know Him. There were times I’d look over and see him in the room, wave at him, say hi. But that was about it. There was a short period of time where I guess you could say I kicked Him out of the room. That time was short lived.
I was very lucky because my parents provided a very good upbringing for me. They worked hard to build a strong foundation for my future. Of course, as a child, I didn’t see it at the time. Often times I wanted to fight it. Once I had my own family, I wanted my children to grow up with the sense of security I had as a child.
I was raised in a Catholic home. We went to church every Sunday, but I never understood what I was being taught. During my teen years, I started to have questions. I didn’t ask anyone my questions because I didn’t know how to put my questions into the right words. I had friends who told me I was going to go to Hell because I was Catholic. I didn’t believe God would send me to Hell because I was a different religion than they were. God was suppose to be loving. I wanted to tell them the God their church taught them about was not the type of God that they were making Him out to be. I knew I was a good person, from a good family with good values. Why would He hate me because I was Catholic?
Later in my teenage years, I remember sitting in Mass when the priest stated if a couple came to him and one was Catholic and one was Jewish, and they wanted to get married, he would turn them away. He did not agree a Catholic and a Jew should get married and he would not allow it in his church. That made me angry. Again, I had to question if that was Godly behavior.
I noticed other things in the church, not just the Catholic church that made me ask questions. It wasn’t long before I developed a hatred for religion. I wasn’t angry at God. I knew God was not who these people were claiming Him to be. I didn’t go to church for a long time. I avoided anything that had to do anything with religion. I didn’t think about God much during that time either. 
Once I had my daughter, I wanted her to have an upbringing that included God. I bought a children’s Bible and a few other Christian based books, but not many. She was 5 when she came to my husband and me and said, “Mom. Dad. My Aunt goes to church. My grandmother goes to church. The people in my books go to church. My friends go to church. Why don’t we go to church?”
My husband and I decided it was time to go to church. Since we were going for her, I wanted to make sure she had a good experience. I research the churches in the area and found one I thought catered most to children. She loved it and that made me happy. That church did not feel like home to me, but I was more concerned about my daughter’s experience than I was my own. Today my daughter is 14. We have moved several times and attended a couple of different churches along the way. The church we are at now feels most like home to me. I’m very grateful to be where I am.

Faith

Recently, my husband shared his testimony with our Life Group class at church. In his testimony, he discussed some of the issues we had in our marriage. He shared with the class that at one point, I wanted out of the marriage. He talked about how he felt when he learned I had stayed in the marriage based on a voice I heard in my head. The voice was not my own. I argued with the voice. I told the voice it was wrong. However; I chose to listen to the voice.

At some point in his testimony, a woman in the class asked where my faith was during this time in our marriage. She wanted to know if my faith in God was strong during our troubles. I've been thinking about the answer to that question ever since that day.

I did hear a voice telling me to stay in my marriage. Yes, I listened to the voice. But did I know that was the voice of God? Did I trust the voice?

At the time, I certainly did not think it was God. I didn't fully trust the promises the voice was making to me. But I wanted to believe that the voice was true. For whatever reason, I don't know why, I chose to give the voice a chance. I stayed.

But I was only physically in the marriage. Mentally, I was somewhere else. I was in limbo. Things in our marriage seemed to be slowly getting better, but the progress was slow. There were many times where it felt we'd take two steps forward and then three steps back. We were on a vicious cycle that seemed never ending.

A little over a year and a half ago, I had had enough. I remember sitting on the bathroom floor, screaming at God. What's funny was at this point, I still didn't fully believe it was God that had told me to stay. But it seemed like God was the best one for me to lash my anger out to. I screamed to him that I was done with this marriage. I was done waiting for Him to fulfill his promise that everything was going to get better.

It wasn't long after that an event happened in our life. Someone lashed out at us and we began to lash back. I associate that lashing out as a great turning point in my marriage. That was when big changes started to happen in our marriage. Things started to change so quickly for us, it was overwhelming, but in a good way. It wasn't until things began to change that I realized it was God who had been telling me to stay in my marriage all those years.

Since that event that took place a little over a year ago, I have been able to see God working in my life. My husband and I are on the same page with many of our decisions. The event that took place was a tragic one. It forced us to close doors to some of our relationships. We needed to take time to grow, time to gain wisdom and better ourselves. We are still learning today. Some of the doors we closed cannot remain closed forever. Opening those doors is a scary thought, but it is something that can't be avoided forever. I'm scared of going back to old habits. I like the path I am on right now. I want to show others that things can change. Some people do have the ability to change. But you have to be willing to see the change. And you have to allow the time it takes to change. Unfortunately, sometimes it takes a horrific event to cause someone to want to change. Change does not happen overnight. It takes time, a long time. But it is possible in some instances.

Where was my faith all that time during my marriage? I guess the best way to answer that question would be, I knew God was in the room, but I didn't know who He was. Kind of like the kid that sat behind you in science class. You know the kid sits there, but you have no clue who he is. I think that has been my relationship with God for a big chunk of my life. Always in the room, but a complete stranger to me.

There was a brief time in my life where I kicked Him out of the the room, but it was short lived. Ironically, it was when my husband came into my life that I allowed God back into the room. But again, I didn't know who God was until much later.

My faith today is new. Less than a year old. But it is getting stronger and stronger each day. I'm thankful for the changes that have happened in my life and I look forward to the challenges the future holds now that I know God.