During the storm, I was obsessed with speaking sense into my husband. My lack of trust in God drove me to control the situation. As I let go of that control because I was getting more comfortable putting it into God’s capable hands, I found myself giving less advice, but still asking questions. Always driven to want to know the truth and gain understanding.
You will be faced with “truths” every day and it will be up to you which to believe!
There are three TRUTHS here.
One is THEIR truth. This is tricky because there really IS truth to it, but it’s exaggerated, sometimes driven AND protected by fear, hurt and pride. But you need to respect that it’s THEIR truth and they fully believe it to be true because of their own feelings being involved. To ignore, reject, and debate their truth will further hurt them, harden them, and push them away.
We don’t have to accept their truth as our truth, but we have to acknowledge it’s theirs and sometimes validate it and apologize and own our part in it. Most times there IS truth to what they are saying, but we react badly because it’s exaggerated truth.
A perfect example of this is the word NEVER. They say, “You NEVER” and we know that was an exaggeration, but yes, occasionally we withheld something or didn’t do something. We know NEVER is not the right word to use, so we argue about all the times we DID! We fail to see that those times we DIDN’T hurt them. Damaged them. THOSE are the times they are talking about and those are the things we must apologize for and validate. We need to let go of our pride that wants to defend us against the NEVER and see past it to what they are truly hurt about.
Learning to distinguish between THEIR truth and satan’s stronghold of lies, takes a real listening ear that is willing to put pride aside and not be right.
Which leads us to satan’s lies.
Here is a “truth” that is powerfully deceptive. Remember, he is cunning, wise and could talk a third of the angels into believing him! He is always throwing “truth” at you and your spouse. Your spouse, who is in a place of darkness, is very vulnerable to satan’s lies. It’s safe to say that your spouse is going to always be speaking FROM what he is being fed by satan, as well as his own exaggerated truths. The devil also brings with that truth heavy spirits of condemnation and works deeply to deepen the holds of guilt and shame. He creates a strong delusion in your spouse that creates a stronghold over them.
They will share with you EXACTLY what they hear and feel!
So, when I was driven to understand what was going on with my spouse, I made the mistake of GOING TO MY SPOUSE to get the truth! OOOPS! I got my spouse’s exaggerated truths, and satan’s lies. I also got to hear what satan was planning and plotting against my husband and family, STRAIGHT out of my husband’s mouth.
For DAYS I would embrace what he repeated, and I say this again, HE WAS REPEATING WHAT SATAN WAS TELLING HIM……I would believe it and my feelings would enforce that belief until I was fully engulfed in despair and hopelessness.
But somewhere in that deep mess, was a whisper. And I mean it was so small that it came like a gentle breeze and was gone. HIS truth! It didn’t come with a powerful impact like satan’s lies. I had to hunt it down, chase after that small whisper. I had to PURSUE truth!
Here we have lies, beating us LOUDLY over the head; knocking us down left and right. And then, the TRUTH comes so quietly that if we blink, we miss it? That sounds about right to describe my walk. Because I was a truth seeker, but I had not learned to live by my spirit yet and ONLY what my feelings, mind, and emotions told me.
I had to learn to get into God’s Word, get into a quiet place and shut up my feelings so the TRUTH would become LOUD!
We have to turn off the US. We have to learn to block out all the noise WE make. Feeling sorry for ourselves, our hurts, our pride, our disappointments. All these have a loud voice that blocks the truth. ANGER is the loudest voice of all. I can’t hear God when anger in me is present.
My quiet times were spent FIRST getting ME out of the way. I would cry it out, scream it out if I had to. Take a pity party, rant and rave to God. And when I was finished emptying out all of ME, that really was reacting to all the lies around me, God would always say “Sheila are you done? We have kingdom business to do here!” Now, He never said it in a way that left me feeling He did not validate my feelings, He always said it in a way that made me realize what I was feeling bore no fruit! I was believing and reacting to the wrong things.
The Real Truth!
He always came with truth and set me free from the lies. But I had to be willing to believe HIS TRUTH. And I will be the first to tell you it’s NOT EASY. When your spouse says, “I don’t love you, never loved you, regret marrying you.” But God says the opposite………it’s just so much easier to believe the lie. When God says He will restore, and your spouse says, “I am going to marry the other person.” or they DO MARRY them, it’s so much easier to believe that YOU NEVER HEARD GOD!
We have a choice to believe God and walk by faith, or believe what we are seeing, feeling and experiencing.
God is FOR FAMILIES! He is for restoration of our spouse, family and marriage. That is a truth we can’t afford to become blind to.
Standing with you,
Sheila Hollinger
