The sleepless nights, waiting for my husband to come home from fire calls…driving past the local dive in the afternoon and seeing his truck parked there…fighting about everything…I was just plain done. I was sick of our marriage. Surely, there had to be more to marriage than the cycle of disappointment, hurt, fighting, and making up.
Change your marriage: Things you tolerate, you do not change.
When you choose to tolerate a marriage that makes you sick, you have no motivation to make a change. STOP IT! ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! You were created for so much more, you were created to live abundantly. If you are done with the marriage, it’s time to make a change. It’s time to call on the POWER available to you to change YOUR life and walk out that mission. You can’t change your spouse- no amount of nagging, whining, pleading, or crying will change your spouse. The only person you can change is YOU! And when YOU change, the people around you change, too….
Pray. Prayer changes everything. When you seek God’s face, curl up on His lap and cry out to Jesus, things change. Your words are powerful, they go forth and accomplish that which they are intended. As you pray, God softens your heart and enlightens you with His understanding. Spending time talking with God invites Him into your situation, your circumstances, your perceptions, your understanding, and powerfully reminds you He is God and you are not…thankfully! Allow Him to break your heart for what breaks His. As you pray, God will show you where you need to forgive…and where you need to seek forgiveness. Two of our favorite prayer resources are Power of a Praying Husband and Power of a Praying Wife. We’ve also got downloadable prayer sheets for praying Ephesians 5 and 1 Peter 3 into your marriage!
Praying Gods word into your wife’s life
Praying Gods word into your husband’s life
Open and read God’s Word. How will you know Jesus and God’s desires for your life if you don’t read His love letter to you? Don’t know were to start? There are 31 chapters in Proverbs, read one chapter every day. Today is February 3, so start today with Proverbs 3. Grab one nugget, one passage to cling to during the day. Whether it’s a battle passage or one that informs your perspective that day, let God speak it to you. I love how He shares so much about the characteristics of the wise…and the foolish in Proverbs. And how to respond to the foolish.
Walk in faith. What your emotions are telling you may not move you to walk out what God created you to do. Our emotions are good, but you cannot live on or make decisions based on your emotions. Choose to seek God’s Word, and walk out what He says, and let your feelings catch up later. When I’m overwhelmed by emotions pulling me in directions that may not line up with God’s Word, I love to be reminded of the power of walking by faith in this song by Jeremy Camp, I Will Walk By Faith. Take each step in faith, let God take care of the consequences.
Encourage your spouse. Speak life into your marriage! You can seek to find all the things about your spouse that make you crazy, or you can encourage the things you see in him/her to call your spouse up. Be your spouse’s number one cheerleader! In marriage, your spouse is your ally, build him or her up for the battle of life. Husbands need that affirmation, respect and encouragement from their wives. Wives need that love and security from their husbands. You’ve got a choice every day- speak to the prince/princess or the punk in your spouse…he/she will respond.
Rest. Resting in God’s sovereignty is recognizing that no matter what it looks like, what it feels like, God is still in control, still working everything together for your God and His glory as you choose to submit to Him (Romans 8:28). As you rest in God’s sovereignty, let Him refresh and restore you. Let God be God, let the Holy Spirit convict and inform as only He can, let Jesus be Jesus, you be who God created YOU to be!
Your broken marriage can go the distance.
Broken is where God shows Himself strong…if you’ll let Him. Choose to walk a different path, do something different to get different results. The marriage you are in CAN become the marriage beyond your wildest dreams!
NOTE: If you are in an abusive relationship, get safe FIRST! Get out of the dangerous situation and seek help. It is only from safety that you can work on your marriage!
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Check out Podcast with Scott and Sherry’s story that is Proof your Marriage CAN become better. – Our Divorce didn’t work out here:
Come alongside what GOD is doing through Scott and Sherry with Zoweh.org. Rescuing and Redeeming Marriages across the country
Go here for more information: https://allies.zoweh.org/support-the-jennings/