One Wife Learns – This REALLY IS ALL ABOUT GOD!

282730_4077
From a precious wife and dear friend I first met here on the blog in July of 2012.  God has brought her a LONG way since then.  I’m so thankful for her willingness to share.   This is going to bless you – my wonderful sisters in Christ!
———————————————-
I feel like I am growing in a lot of things, but God knows that I fail…often, sometimes. Thankfully, though, I feel like I learn from each of those times!  And I know I’ll never be perfect and that’s okay!
A CRITICAL STEP:
I’m really thinking a lot about and wondering if I really did this?

Am I really focusing all my attention and focus on my walk with God or just pretending to take my focus off my husband?

I have this desire to just purely saturate myself into God and His Word on a moment by moment basis…instead of just when my “mind” has time to go there.

Because if I let it, my mind wants to just think about what my husband is up to and whether or not he’s doing this or that.

For some reason, I think this has been a huge step that I have missed.  Of course I love my husband deeply, but in order to let go of him as an idol…

I’ve got to train my mind to focus all my attention on my walk with God and what God is doing in me and through my sinful self.

Anyway, I wanted to share that with you.  I’m trying so hard to purely meditate on God all the day long!!! One of my favorite verses is
“You will keep him in perfect peace, whose eyes are fixed on you, because he trusts in you!”  Isaiah 26:3  That is my heart!
 
LEARNING TO SHOW FAITH IN MY HUSBAND AND ASSUME THE BEST:
The other day, dh was showing some things that he was about to buy on Amazon.  He is getting ready to remodel our powder room.  So he was showing me ALL the things he was getting. One of which was a table saw,  well part of me wanted to say, “Didn’t you just get a saw last year?”

But then I thought…wait a minute..your husband is not stupid. He wouldn’t buy something he already had…so its obviously different.

He briefly went through the few things he was going to buy and asked me if there was anything I needed…which I thought was so sweet.  Normally I would say, “No, I’m okay.”
But I thought..”Wait, he wants to bless me!” so I did mention I had really been wanting a food processor/mixer.   He immediately started searching for one and put it in the online shopping cart. So sweet!
Later that night, when the girls were asleep and we were talking, he got his laptop out and went through each item that he had purchased and told me the purpose for each one.  Then he showed me pictures of what he was going to do in the powder room.  Then he said, “It would cost the same amount to have someone come and do it.” This way he gets to keep all the great tools and use them again for other projects in the house.

I agreed and shared in his excitement. But really inside I was overwhelmed with thankfullness that the Holy Spirit helped me to keep quiet and just listen to my husband…otherwise I would have missed out on such an intimate moment with him.

WINNING HIM OVER WITHOUT A WORD:
My heart was hurt about something…I’m thankful that I don’t exactly remember the details of it. But I remember saying something to him like, “Can you just cover it with grace?”  I believe it was something again with his expectations and me not doing something right or something along those lines.  He left the room upset and I cried before finally falling asleep.  I honestly dont remember bringing up the conversation again.
A couple days later we were driving together somewhere and he was telling me about how he was running low on gas. He is always a risk taker with the gas meter..LOL!  Anyway, he literally coasted into the gas station as the car stalled.  He was saying how he was thanking God for that favor.  This is what he said he learned from this as he was thanking God for favor in making into the station on time.  “God could have said, too bad you “should have known better and gotten gas earler.” but instead his grace and favor was there for him and helped him get gas just in time so he wasn’t stranded. “

He said he immediately thought of me and how he often tells me “well you should have done this or thought of that, etc.”  And how he needs to extend grace to me more because that’s how God is with him.

Once again..God does this way better than I could ever do myself. He is my Defender!!!  God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.  Now I know that my husband probably won’t instantly change overnight and will still harp on me from time to time about little things…but I also know that

God’s voice is stronger and more effective than mine. So I’ll sit patiently in His arms and extend grace to my husband because God is so gracious to us!!

I think the hardest thing was two things…
1. Really removing myself from being his Holy Spirit and thinking I had to help him be more holy…cause after all, I was holier. =) As well as realizing, that my sin was just as bad…sin is sin and ALL sin grieves God’s heart.
2. Really letting go, surrendering and trusting God!  Using the structure He put in place…trusting that God is sovereign to lead me through my husband and that I am covered and protected in this structure. How freeing that was!!!!  My role is to trust my husband to lead us and God will work with my husband!!  And when I finally let go of the fear of “what ifs”  I really saw God leading my husband….wasn’t always my way or my time…but God still lead!