“God, please make me a robot.” Don’t laugh. I prayed that so many times throughout the 7 years of my storm. “I will do what You ask, I just need your help with the emotions and feelings that keep getting in the way and I am tired of being in so much pain. Please, take the feelings away. I want to be a mindless robot, please.” 

He never did. But He did help many times with them. His presence would come as I yielded and gave in to His plan. His wisdom. And as He shared WHY this was all happening…again….and again, (yes, because I was the groundhog day guy that had to restart every day over-because the pain and circumstances would come and wisk me out of God’s plan and back into “it’s all about me and what is being done to me.”

God is not mean. And when I say, “it is not about you. Don’t take it personally.” I am NOT saying. You don’t matter. God doesn’t feel that what you are going through is less than, or unimportant. What I am saying is that there are TWO people here that are going through very different things, BUT God has the same exact ultimate goal for both of you. In my storm, I had a hard time putting myself into his real shoes. I had all these shoes that I believed he was walking in.

“He was selfish and didn’t love me anymore. Hated me like the scripture said (Malachi 2:16). He was intentionally trying to pay me back for the years I hurt him with my control.”

But if thou shouldest hate thy wife and put her away, saith the Lord God of Israel, then ungodliness shall cover thy thoughts, saith the Lord Almighty: therefore take ye heed to your spirit, and forsake them not, Brenton Septuagint Translation

I had LOTS of other things I came up with to fill in the blanks of why my faithful, loving, never ever lied, God personally handpicked and gave to me-husband had all of a sudden decided that “|he loved me but was no longer in love, he regretted marrying me and I had forced him to marry him against his will, he wasn’t happy and never had been with me”……….and on and on. Had the whole 19 years been a lie? Did I miss it, and it wasn’t God who brought us together? Or worse…what if it was God as I knew, but I had seriously messed it up? I had treated him so unkind by dominating and overriding his will, that God was allowing this man to “It is better to live in a corner of a roof Than in a house shared with a contentious woman.” Provers 21:9    I was reaping what I had sowed.?? Another thing my husband would ‘lovingly’ point out. I had controlled him for 19 years, so now he was gonna get to be this way for 19 years. Boy did I HATE hearing that and would run like a baby to God about what he was saying.

And that was why I cried so often for Him to take away my emotions and just let me be an unfeeling robot. Because the things my husband was saying, doing, feeling, thinking, and what I thought he had truly come to believe, was well………..just too much to bear.

But God just wouldn’t do it. He wanted me to use all those feelings and emotions and grow into a person that could hear Him above it. That is so important I can’t stress it enough.

In the beginning, I would hear Him, but believe what I was seeing more than trust His words.

I would hear Him, but I would believe my husband’s words more than His words.

I would hear Him, but believe in what my heart, my pain, my feelings, my emotions would be feeling more than His words.

It was like His words held no power. That was a BIG issue with Him as a parent that His child was not listening to Him.

Any parent is going to understand this when I put it this way. How many times have you, in YOUR wisdom, taught your child something, and they just won’t listen? Oh, they hear you, but they have no faith that you know what you are talking about. They look at you like, “Yeah, right!!” And then go on to do things their way, fail, and you are like “See!!!!”

It’s so frustrating when they don’t trust what we say because we KNOW what their immature young minds can’t possibly know at that point in their childhood.

Same with us. God is all-wise. All-knowing and when He tells us something, we hear Him, but have chosen, IN OUR CHILDISH STATE, to not trust and believe in what He has said. And God, as a parent……lets the lesson take place so we GROW UP. That is why He doesn’t take away our feelings and emotions and walk us through this storm. He USES the storm to teach us to hear Him, and believe in HIS words ABOVE the noise of the storm. His words to us will calm the raging around us. His words will comfort, guide, teach, and bring clarity to the chaos.

It’s when we listen to everything else BUT Him that we get sidetracked and derailed.

How do you listen? How do you hear? For each of us, that takes time, patience, practice, and purpose! Set aside each day to do just that. For some, He speaks to you while your mind is on something else, like taking a shower, driving, mowing the lawn. For some, it’s in worship. For some, right in the moments when you are waking up or going to sleep. Learn to pay attention and WRITE it all down in your special ‘promise’ journal meant just for what He speaks to you so you have a powerful tool to combat doubts and dark places where your faith is low.

Everything is going to work itself out. For those of you just starting, I want to encourage you with this. It’s going to be ok. I know that it doesn’t feel like it. That the only thing you believe is going to make it ok, is if or when your spouse wakes up and comes home. But I am here to tell you, that is not the way it’s supposed to happen. You are supposed to become OK, before restoration, or this was all for nothing. WE have to be OK, IN the storm. Be OK, if when that storm ends, we are still left alone and not restored back to the one that we love. God knows that if you have the loving and trusting relationship, you are meant to have with Him, THAT is what will make you OK no matter the outcome.

Standing with you, 
Sheila Hollinger

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(~Marriage Revealed Ministries Inc. is committed to helping bring healing and restoration to couples who are struggling in their marriage. We do this through the revelation of Who God is and His heart and design for marriage which never intends abuse in any form. If you suspect abuse in your relationship, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 or visit them online at thehotline.org~)