My Storm Made Me a Coward?-Marriage Restoration

Before my 7-year Stand began, I was a very secure woman. Secure in myself, my control, my manipulation, and the ways I took to get what I wanted. The truth is, this wasn’t really security, but insecurity and self-preservation led me.

7 “Blessed [with spiritual security] is the man who believes and trusts in and relies on the LORD And whose hope and confident expectation is the LORD.

8“For he will be [nourished] like a tree planted by the waters, That spreads out its roots by the river; And will not fear the heat when it comes;

But its leaves will be green and moist. And it will not be anxious and concerned in a year of drought. Nor stop bearing fruit.  Jeremiah 17: 7-8 Amp

I lived unfiltered, with no consequences for my actions, at least, that is what I thought.

But those consequences caught up to me.

Once my storm hit, this control freak got a wake-up call. No longer could I control, manipulate, and talk my way into things, so my insecurity had nothing to lean on as a crutch. My husband was not buying it anymore. No amount of bullying, sweet-talking, lying, groveling or planning the next best thing to say was being appreciated or received by my husband.

Instead, it was being met with defensive moves and counterattacks the likes of which I had never seen.

Gone was the agreeable, sweet, never confrontational spouse that I knew. Suddenly replaced by a man that thought everything I said was a plot to keep him from being happy and trapped in a marriage he no longer wanted.

When the realization came and was fully understood, that I no longer had any control of my spouse, the situation, and there was nothing I could do; fear and terror took over.

Fear was not uncommon to me. Either was terror.  What was uncommon to me was how control and manipulation were no longer the solutions to handling these two giants. I could no longer face them and bully them into submission.

Instead, I was left feeling more vulnerable, more helpless, and more insecure than I had ever felt in my life. I did the only thing left to do. I opened the Word of God and began looking for something, anything that would help my terror.

“For he will be like a tree planted by the waters, That spreads out its roots by the river; And will not fear the heat when it comes; But its leaves will be green and moist. And it will not be anxious and concerned in a year of drought Nor stop bearing fruit.” Jeremiah 17:8

This scripture gave me exactly what I was looking for. I was so unstable, shaking, wavering, and confused. The promise of being firmly rooted and planted, unmoved, and taken care of in the times of trouble seemed almost too much to believe. “How God? How can I have this?”

I had to back up…

 7 “Blessed [with spiritual security] is the man who believes and trusts in and relies on the LORD And whose hope and confident expectation is the LORD.

I had to break this down one by one and meditate on all that was asked of me if I wanted the promise of being secure and not living in fear.

BELIEVE

All Christians believe in God. But that is sometimes as far as that belief goes. The Israelites believed in God. Daily following the cloud by day and fire by night. Yet they never made it into the promised land because of unbelief. How?

God is not asking us to just believe He is real. He is asking us to believe with our choices everything the Word says about Him. Believe He is good, despite the bad that we see. Believe He is for us when all is against us.

• Believe He loves us when He feels far from us.
• Believe He is near and with us, despite not hearing Him and going through the silence.
• Yes, we believe He is real, but still can harbor so much unbelief.
• Choosing to believe what we see, think, feel, and are told by reality and circumstance. 

 TRUST

Trust is something that we chose, but it’s also something that grows and comes through time with our experiences. The more we come to believe that despite all that is happening to us is for our good, or that God is going to work all things out for good, we will come to trust Him more.

Trust hinges a lot on believing in the character and nature of God because we are not going to always see what we are hoping to see as quickly as we desire to see it. We must trust in Who He is, be assured by His character, so we can trust in His choices, His plan of action as He works on our behalf.

A misconception about trust, is we think trust has to do with God answering our prayer. Trust God for the divorce to never happen, or for the spouse to not commit adultery. That is not what trust is.

• Trust is knowing God is going to be with you and see you through whatever comes your way.
• Trust what words He spoke as a promise must come to pass.

RELIANCE

Learning to transfer all reliance from my spouse to the Lord was a large stress relief. I found every time I looked to my spouse to meet my needs, any need, it triggered insecurity because I got the opposite results.

It’s a heartbreaking realization to come to know the person you trusted, relied on, and looked up to is no longer there for you.

When you no longer have your best friend that you can share your deepest secrets, insecurities, and fears with, you can take great comfort in knowing that God is there for you, and working to help you get that back.

He understands fully how important it is to be reunited with our one flesh, and have that intimate support that He created us to have with our spouses.

So while I was heartbroken over the loss of this relationship, I was optimistic about expanding my knowledge of God and our relationship, and I knew that my loss was only temporary.

 HOPE, CONFIDENCE, EXPECTATION IS THE LORD

We all know what hope, confidence, and expectation is. But what we don’t often realize is where we are pining it. When we are looking to our spouses and expecting them to bring us hope and then being confident in what we get from them as truth.

This means if we expect them to encourage us, and they fail, we lose hope and become confident that this is beyond impossible.

But when you pin your source of hope on Who God is, how much He is for your restoration, EXPECTING Him to always be working on bringing you both into a right relationship with Him, then that is something you can be confident in.

Not by what you see, feel, or hear coming from your spouse. When the Lord is your Anchor, your ever-present help in times of trouble, you will become steady, sure, firm, and unmoved.

 These things take time. Patience. Awareness. Learning how to recognize when you are feeling insecure, why, and how you are trying to ease it.

Standing with you,
Sheila Hollinger