Are you a vocal man-beater? February 14, 2012

If I asked most any good-willed person if they thought inflicting physical harm upon another human being was wrong, I most assuredly would get an undoubtedly YES, response.  Not only wrong but rather heinous & horrendous.  I most certainly agree and in NO way am I going to lesson the impact of this kind of tragedy but I want take a look at another area of devastation that far too often is simply brushed off as a yeah yeah yeah just get over it.  You know the old sticks and stones can break my bones but words can NEVER hurt me.

Wow, I don’t think that could be further from the truth!  Have  you ever had a cut, a wound, or a bruise?  Yes, it hurts, even deeper when unjustly inflicted from another.  Yet in a relatively short period of time the physical wound heals and is gone.  Is there an emotional wound attached with that? Absolutely, and that can be treacherous…..I am not alleviating that just stay with me and hear me out.  I have unfortunately experienced unjust physical wounds and I would not wish that upon anyone, but if you asked me what were the most crushing events of your life, honestly……that would NOT be one of the first things I’d remember.

The MOST painfilled times I can remember involve a sense of aloneness, worthlessness, being undesirable, being invisible, or completely misunderstood. Those spoken and unspoken words that you have NO security in the one who should love you, and not only are you NOT wanted, but a complete nothing.

Blood can be wiped away, capillaries repair themselves, & the multiple shades of the bruises fades, but what about the fatal blows to my spirit, to my heart, to my mind?  Internal bleeding can go on for years without even being diagnosed and when it is, how much of life has already slipped away?  These Mariana trenches can take years of tenacious effort to completely heal and overcome.

Psalm 57:4  My soul is among lions;
I lie among the sons of men
Who are set on fire,
Whose teeth are spears and arrows,
And their tongue a sharp sword.

Psalm 64:2-3    Hide me from the secret plots of the wicked,
From the rebellion of the workers of iniquity,
Who sharpen their tongue like a sword,
And bend their bows to shoot their arrows—bitter words,

Psalm 140:2-3     Who plan evil things in their hearts;
They continually gather together for war.
 They sharpen their tongues like a serpent;
The poison of asps is under their lips. Selah

There are so many references in God’s Word about the tongue I could go on and on. At times it can be our most powerful weapon with our subjects in waiting for their impending death.

Now here is where God’s convicting comes in. The following is an excerpt from the book Love and Respect. It is from a letter that was sent in to Dr. Eggerichs from a husband in response to his wife’s efforts on implementing unconditional respect towards him.

“….it faded away like a mist. She returned to her old self. She has not trusted me due to her relationship with her father.  She has in the past been a VOCAL MAN-BEATER with her negative thoughts and comments about men, in general. I feel like an orphan in my own home. I feel like a husband with no wife.  What I do experience of her presence is her critical, negative, hostile, and judgmental attitude…..My emotions for my wife are being buried daily by her attitude towards me when she makes me feel less than a man.”

As I scrape my heart up off of the floor I must confess how guilty, as Christian wife, I am of this.  Vocal Man-beater, let that sink in for a minute.  Pretty harsh huh? Also……VERY true!

Critical, negative, hostile, and judgmental attitude…….are any of those reigning true for you?  Are you letting the world convince you, you are just expressing your emotions, or he deserves it, or I can’t help it he really makes me mad-EXCUSES!  These are nothing more than excuses to pacify our self-righteousness.

What if God unlocked the power of what being a 1 Peter 3 girl could do in your marriage? That purity and reverence lived out in your life, and the gentle quiet spirit that is of great worth to God.

What if…….instead of being a vocal Man-beater you became a vocal Man-esteemer?  Could that resurrect life into your gradually dying husband?  Stop trying to do it on your own…..LET Him into your heart and allow the transformation to begin unto completion!

We Bought a Zoo…ok not I January 5, 2012

It has been eons since I last went to the movie theater, but as a reward for my 11 year old Mayo giving himself painful shots every two weeks I decided we should go to a movie together.  Ok, first I rationalized with myself that the crazy  ticket prices were far worth letting my son know that he is doin a great job. Then, there is that popcorn and I happen to think our local theater has the BEST popcorn ever.  Lastly, I faced the dilemma that there isn’t usually anything worth seeing.  I came across this interesting movie called We Bought a Zoo.   Sounded inspirational, was based on a true story, and I thought surely there would be some “good character qualities” in there.

So we went and I was delightfully surprised as I highly recommend this movie. In fact it surpassed my expectations.  It contained real-life situations, real-life pains, and an extraordinary responses to life.  I have NOT read the book, so I cannot comment on how off track the movie went, but it was full of encouragement and life-lessons if you are willing to open your eyes wide enough to see them!

I  don’t want to give much of the movie away, so you can go see it and let it speak to you first hand, but I would like to share a COMPLETELY unexpected conviction.  When I came to see this movie I wasn’t expecting a marriage movie, and it is not.  Mr. Mee’s marriage certainly is one of the focal points, but it truly is a whole life movie.  When you ask God to speak to you and convict you…….HE WILL and He does it where and when HE wants!  I find this most often occurs when I LEAST expect it!

Benjamin Mee had the seemingly perfect marriage. Well, we all no there is NO such thing as a perfect marriage, but he had a really really good one!  He found and married a rare gem, a true woman, which today seems so hard to find.  He had an exciting job doin what he loved, two adorable kiddos…..life was GOOOOOOD-right?  He had something beautiful, something worthy, something so many of us are longing for, and…………….God took her home.  This seemingly perfect wife, in her youth, with a great husband, and two young children who needed her……AND He took her home.

Besides almost shoveling down THE ENTIRE BUCKET of popcorn(with extra butter of course), I was begging my Mayo, “Please help me eat this I am going to eat the whole thing!”  I reached the point were I could no longer resist my conviction and the warm salty tears began to overflow in a steady pitter patter.  Seriously, no one else in the theater was cryin and I mean it really wasn’t even a crying scene. The more I saw the beauty of his life, the pain of his loss, and the excruciating struggle to OVERCOME, every wiping of a tear was replaced by ten more.

I began to be consumed with grief, a completely new experience for me. I know pain(we’ve been best buds), I know hurt, I know sorrow, I know wallowing, I know self-righteousness, but grief? As unpleasant as this new sensation was it actually propelled me forward. Unlike all the other horrendous feelings that I willingly climbed into a hole for, this grief was bringing me one step further, one step closer…to Him.

You see I have gone through life will all my gripes about NOT being the poster wife, and having anything BUT the poster husband, and ghhhrrrr@@@##### for this stinkin, stinkin marriage of mine! I had this husband united to me in marriage through Christ and he was here, right here with me on earth, yet for 95% of our years together ALL I carried was the hurt and the suffering and the pain. God didn’t take my husband home….I had him here, I had a chance.  I became consumed like a wildfire with grief for EVERY SINGLE SECOND I did ANYTHING BUT BE, LIVE, and LOVE as my husband’s unconditional wife.

Through the unstoppable force from within I was compelled to surrender to my knees and plead to God for forgiveness.  Yeah, I know what He is going to want me to do next…it is coming!

We live in an information age with endless knowledge available that we can feed ourselves until we’re overflowing.  I am finally starting to grasp that matters of the heart cannot be fixed by knowledge, by wisdom, or by human efforts, BUT ONLY through ONE source……Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.

Is He trying to work on your heart?  Oh, won’t you let Him, His blessings are abounding.