A call to helpmate… after your husband’s sexual addiction October 28, 2009

A few weeks ago I started a series of blog posts based off of a sermon that Josh Reich preached at Revolution Church, you can listen to it here. I started to read, Every Heart Restored: A Wife’s Guide to Healing in the Wake of a Husband’s Sexual Sin, By: Fred & Brenda Stoeker, and because of the message, and the questions that I got from other women in our church, I felt the need to blog through most of the book. If any of these posts have hit a cord with you, I strongly urge you purchase the book and read the whole thing. I am not promising that it will be easy reading, but I am sure that it will jumpstart a journey into healing and restoring your heart and hopefully your marriage.

The previous posts are as follows:

Is Porn or Sexual Addiction a Problem in Your Marriage?

Understanding your Man’s Sexuality: Eyes

Understanding Your Man’s Sexuality: He Feels Love in between the Sheets

His Sexual Addiction is NOT about You!

His Sexual Addiction is NOT about you! Part two.

Rebuilding Your Marriage after His Sexual Addiction…

How do you keep your heart and role as helpmate during the road out of your husband’s addiction? That is a great question and one that we will dive into here, on our last blog post from Every Heart Restored.

I would like you to take one more good look into your heart’s mirror and ask yourself this question: How am I doing in my role as helpmate? It is in this roles as helper where most wives make their biggest mistakes in marriage. Let’s return once more to Genesis and review why we were created as women:

The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care if it… The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”… For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. (Genesis 2:15, 18, 24)

Why was it not good for man to be alone? I can assure you it was not because Adam needed some help hanging vines or running a backhoe in the garden. And it was more than Adam’s needing someone to talk to or have sex with.

God know what sin was about to do to Adam and to all who came after him. He knew the wounds that would be meted out on innocent bystanders through the sin of friends, families, and even churches. He’s even seen ahead to the days when Internet porn would enslave millions of men. He had to have known all this was going to happen, because that’s what being omniscient means. Given that He knew what the future would bring, He knew it wouldn’t be good for Adam (and his future male offspring) to be alone.

As we’ve said, the word helper in Genesis comes from a Hebrew word that means “a help as his counterpart.” So what does a helper do? Fred explains it this way: as a helper, a wife’s role is to help lift up her husband-boost him, assist him, encourage him- to Christian greatness, whatever that may entail. This isn’t an easy role to fill, even when your husband is asking for your help. 

It is hard to play our helper role when our husbands are asking for help. But what are you supposed to do int that role when your husbands are not asking? What happens then?

It can be confusing, and most of that confusion revolves around the choice between these two courses of action:

1. When your husband needs your help, but he obviously can’t see it, should you simply be quiet and pray for his insight to improve, submitting in silence for the sake of peace?

2. Or should you bravely speak up directly and forcefully in the face of his blindness to challenge him to Christian greatness? What is your role?`

Maybe it would be useful to step back and take a look at the roles your husband should be playing alongside your own. It can be enlightening to see howe interrelated our roles as husband and wife really are.

Each of us has two major roles in marriage. Fred plays the headship role and is the overall leader in the home. He’s also been called by God to be the high priest of our home, the spiritual leader responsible for building a normal Christian home.

As his wife, I play the parallel submissive role to Fred’s leadership at home, and the parallel helper role to prod, lift, and strengthen him to carry out his roles as head and high priest.

Not how God expects the husband and wife to play essentially the same spiritual role for the other spouse. As a high priest, Fred is to lead me into Christian greatness. As a helpmate, I’m to work alongside the Holy Spirit to lift Fred to Christian greatness. Sadly, we’ve noticed that both of these roles are routinely ignored in Christian homes these days, although for different reasons.
It is so vital that we both play our roles well in marriage because sin is rampant everywhere, and the percentage of folks in our pews with little Christian heritage is growing rapidly. Most of us just don’t know what normal looks like anymore.

Brenda knew what normal was, and she love me enough to fight on until I could see it for myself. As my Christian sister, Brenda had a right and a duty to speak out truthfully(and even sharply) to me when I was still living in the futility of my thinking, darkened in my understanding and separated from full life in God because of my ignorance of normal Christianity.

And when it comes to your husband’s sexual sin, you have every right to stand up and help him win. To be a helpmate means that you will never allow your husband to drift to his lowest level. Instead, you’ll help him be great.

His Needs: Admiration October 26, 2009

Two Saturdays ago, Josh and I taught together in Part 4 our series I Want a New Marriage. We used the book His Needs, Her Needs as the framework for our talk. This week as a way of following that up, I’ll be doing posts through that book, some of the things we said, how to figure out if this is a need your spouse has, how you are doing at meeting that need and how this applies to your relationship.

You can listen to it here.

I’ll be looking specifically at his needs and how a wife fulfills those needs. To see her needs and how a husband fulfills those, check out Josh’s blog.

Need #5 Admiration:

I purposefully waited until today to post this blog about admiration until after Saturday’s message, “From this Moment“, to give it some context. Unlike women, men do not speak or listen in the language of LOVE, instead they speak in the language of respect and admiration. Early in our marriage, Josh and I attended a conference by Emerson Eggerichs called Love and Respect, this changed forever how we communicated and dealt with each other. If you have ever read Wild at Heart you know that a man’s deepest desire is to be used and found worthy of a great adventure. This is one of the reasons that they like to do things at 500 miles an hour and love adventure and risk. So what does this have to do with Admiration? Well, I am so glad that you asked:

• Your husband needs you to be proud of him. If you fail to give the appropriate words of affirmation to your husband he feels like a fake, and regardless of his true value, will begin to believe that at any moment someone will realize that he is not worth his salt and kick him off the team or fire him from his job or if taken to the very end… will start to look to other women to fulfill this need in their lives. Which will end up with disastrous consequences.
• Willard states, “Honest admiration is a great motivator for most men. When a woman tells a man she thinks he’s wonderful, that inspires him to achieve more. He sees himself as capable of handling new responsibilities and perfecting skills far above those of his present level. That inspiration helps him prepare for the responsibilities of life.” “For some men admiration also helps them believe in themselves.”
• For the most part men know that you love them, they do not need the atmosphere of affection that we as women do to feel constantly reassured of our man’s love. But the thing that will speak to him will be words that edify, respect, admire, and lift up your husband. He wants to know that he is worthy of the adventure that is calling, and he can overcome the obstacle that is staring him in the face.
• “An environment of carping and criticism is dangerous to your mental health. Those who support and encourage you bring out your true potential and spark your genius.”
• “Never fake your admiration. The first step in learning how to express admiration it so learn how to feel admiration. When you achieve that, you can express these feeling.”
• For me learning to feel admiration was not something that came easy at the beginning of our marriage. It took practice and an intentionality that I did not think would be necessary. Don’t feelings of love and respect come naturally in the arms of a committed relationship? Unfortunately, the answer for me was no. When Josh and I got married God was working on my heart in a huge way, but it took a few years for God to take my heart of stone and give me a heart of flesh. In the mean time I decided to write down all of the little things that Josh did that should have sparked the feeling of Love and Respect in me. After the exercise of writing things down, I was able to more naturally recognize and then express my appreciation and respect toward Josh.
• Willard says, “Therefore her admiration depends on his ability to meet her basic marital needs.” This statement at the outset may ring true, but it rubs me the wrong way. In Eph. 5:33 we as women are told to respect our husbands. There are no qualifiers to it. Josh says you respect him until he becomes respectable…
• Willard goes on to endorse an activity to communicate to your husband what you admire and what destroys your admiration for him. I would strongly caution you about taking the step to list out all of the things that destroy your admiration for your husband and give it to him unless it is done in a clinical setting. From the depth of my toes, I believe that this could really destroy your man emotionally. Can you imagine, oh, by the way here are all of the things that I hate about you? Please NO! I would suggest thinking and privately journaling those things that bother you about your husband and try to figure out if there is a common thread throughout. Is it his lack of responsibility with the kids, or time away from the family or you? Next, make it your mission to find him doing right things in this area, if he shows a hint of moving in the right direction notice it, mention it, praise him for it, throw a party about. Also, you should be having those iron sharpening iron conversations where you are pointing out sin and areas that he can improve in his life/walk, but those conversations should not be how you always talk to him.
• Work on developing an attitude of respect and admiration for your husband. Let him know this week how much you appreciate him working and bringing home the bacon. How much you love the man he is and the man that he is becoming. Start with pointing out those things that he does that communicate love to you and how much you appreciate it. That will go a long way in expressing your admiration for him.
• In the book Whale Done, they discuss that in order to train a killer whale you have to affirm the things that he is doing well or on track with to encourage more like behavior. I think that the same principle works here, affirm your husband in the things that he is doing that you already like, so you can see more of those same behaviors.

All quotes are taken from Willard F. Harley Jr’s book His Needs Her Needs.

Sunday Morning Review… October 25, 2009

And so we have made it to the last week of our I Want A New Marriage Series! Hard to believe that we have spent 5 weeks dealing with all aspects of marriage. If you have not had the opportunity to listen to all of them I would strongly suggest that you do that. I think that they all build on each other in a very strong way without being too obvious.

This week we ended with the topic of Headship and Submission. definitely something that “church people” have an opinion on. In conservative circles men use this passage like a bat, in liberal churches they ignore this passage, and society as a whole does not recognize or understand the importance of roles in marriage.

Josh did an excellent job of explaining what submission is and is not, while holding men up to the very high standard of leading their homes and being responsible to God.

He explained what headship and then gave some very practical ways to gauge yourself (men) on how you are doing at leading your home.

Josh ended with the picture of Adam and Eve and God ultimately held Adam responsible for the sin that entered our world.

All-in-all some pretty heavy stuff. I hope that you enjoy.

PS. This week I will be doing some follow up posts about what submitting and respecting your husband looks like. I will cover the last need from His Needs Her Needs; Admiration, as well as look at your role as helpmate in dealing with your husband’s sin and addiction. Take time to notice your man this week and sing his praises!

His Needs: Domestic Support October 22, 2009

This past Saturday, Josh and I taught together in Part 4 our series I Want a New Marriage. We used the book His Needs, Her Needs as the framework for our talk. This week as a way of following that up, I’ll be doing posts through that book, some of the things we said, how to figure out if this is a need your spouse has, how you are doing at meeting that need and how this applies to your relationship.

You can listen to it here.

I’ll be looking specifically at his needs and how a wife fulfills those needs. To see her needs and how a husband fulfills those, check out Josh’s blog.

Need #4 Domestic Support:

• He needs peace and quiet. A home that is welcoming and relaxing, it does not need to be fancy, it just needs be calming.
• This usually is not an issue until the kids arrive: who is going to stay home with the kids, who is going to work, how do we split up the chores, is it fair to assume that all chores will be done by the person who stays at home or works less hours? This has huge potential to blow up in your face!
• This has less to do with having a white gloved clean home and more to do with how he feels when he walks in the door; relaxation and pleasure.
• I realize that the house will not be spotless and dinner on the table every night that your husband walks in the door, but again, are you trying?
• “A revolution in male attitudes in housework is supposed to have taken place, with men pitching in to take an equal share of the household chores. But this revolution has not necessarily changed their emotional needs. Many of the men I counsel still tell me in private that they need domestic support as much as ever.”
• “They may talk a lot about how unfair it is to expect women to do all the housework, but when it comes to actually doing it, their wives know that it’s mostly talk.”
• “Children create huge needs, both a greater need for income and greater domestic responsibilities. The previous division of labor is now obsolete. Both spouses must take on new responsibilities. Which ones should they take? In most modern marriages, both spouses opt for income, leaving the domestic responsibilities to whoever will volunteer.”
• Usually there are no willing volunteers, or one of you does the work because you feel like you have to, but that puts a wedge into the relationship and creates resentment on a regular basis.
• There does need to be a fair division of responsibilities, but that does not mean things should be split half and half.
• Harley suggests:
  • listing out ALL household responsibilities and how important each person thinks that they are.
  • Assume responsibility for those things that you enjoy doing or would prefer to do yourself.
  • Assign the remaining responsibilities to the one wanting each done the most.
  • Meet the need of domestic support by assuming responsibilities that deposit the most love units.
• “In marriage, you do things for each other because you care about each other’s feelings, not just because you want them done yourself. And that can deposit carloads of love units if done in the right way.”
• “Let me repeat a concept that is crucial to your marital happiness. If you and your spouse are in love with each other, you will have a happy marriage. If you are not in love you will feel cheated. So whatever it takes to trigger the feeling of being in love with each other is well worth the effort.”
• I understand Willard’s desire to set up a distinction of household chores, but I think that in some ways he is missing the mark by not addressing the deeper issue of the difference in male and female roles. Instead of getting into it here, take a minute to listen to Josh’s talk, after it posts, from October 24^th.
• For those of you with kids: “It doesn’t build character to five your kids jobs that you hate to do; it builds resentment. If you want your children to help around the house, have them choose tasks from your list of household responsibilities that they would enjoy doing.”

 

All quotes are taken from His Needs Her Needs; by Willard F. Harley Jr.

His Needs: An Attractive Spouse October 21, 2009

This past Saturday, Josh and I taught together in Part 4 our series I Want a New Marriage. We used the book His Needs, Her Needs as the framework for our talk. This week as a way of following that up, I’ll be doing posts through that book, some of the things we said, how to figure out if this is a need your spouse has, how you are doing at meeting that need and how this applies to your relationship.

You can listen to it here.

I’ll be looking specifically at his needs and how a wife fulfills those needs. To see her needs and how a husband fulfills those, check out Josh’s blog.

Need #3: An Attractive Spouse

• What I am saying: How much care do you take about the way that you look? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Do you try to present yourself in the same way that you did when you were dating? Do you take into consideration what your husband likes.
• What I am NOT saying: You have to look like Barbie, or a super model. You have to look the same way that you did when you got married (Pre-kids, 5, 10, 15 years ago), but you do need to TRY.
• Just because your husband wants you to look nice does not mean that he is shallow. If you have the emotional need for affection you do not see that as trivial, just like if your husband has the emotional need for an attractive spouse it is not trivial to him. You need to take it seriously.
• You have to remember that when your husband works, watches tv, and goes about his daily life he is inundated with women who take time to look the best that they can look. Take time to at least brush your teeth and put on deodorant. That is all that he is asking of you, to care. You will never look like the airbrushed models, because in real life, they don’t even look like their pictures.
• Just because he loves you for you doesn’t mean he doesn’t care what you look like. You may want him to love you for what is on the inside, but you still need to be attractive to him on the outside.
• Again, Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, you do not need to look like a beauty queen everyday, plus wearing a crown and sash would get redundant, unless you are only wearing a crown and sash. I simply mean that you should try to look the way your husband likes you to look. You should resemble the women he married.
• A man with the need for an attractive spouse feels good whenever he looks at his attractive wife, why not deposit love units whenever you can.
• Your husband is worth it. Consult him when you are making a change or getting your hair cut, because isn’t that the whole idea, to be attractive to him?
• A word about modesty.
• If you know how to make your spouse feel good, doesn’t it make sense to go ahead and do it-whenever you can?
• Underwear drawer take time to re-evaluate each year. Replace old worn out underwear with things that he likes. What does he like? Ask him.

His Needs: Recreational Companionship October 20, 2009

This past Saturday, Josh and I taught together in Part 4 our series I Want a New Marriage. We used the book His Needs, Her Needs as the framework for our talk. This week as a way of following that up, I’ll be doing posts through that book, some of the things we said, how to figure out if this is a need your spouse has, how you are doing at meeting that need and how this applies to your relationship.

You can listen to it here.

I’ll be looking specifically at his needs and how a wife fulfills those needs. To see her needs and how a husband fulfills those, check out Josh’s blog.

Need #2 Recreational Companionship:

• “It is not uncommon for women, when they are single, to join men in pursuing their interests. They find themselves hunting, fishing, playing football, and watching movies they would never have chosen on their own. After marriage wives often try to interest their husbands in activities more to their own liking. If their attempts fail, they may encourage their husbands to continue their recreational activities without them. I consider that option very dangerous to a marriage, because men place surprising importance on having their wives as recreational companions.”
• So do you still do things that you make not choose to do, just to be close to and spend time with your husband?
• Have you tried to clean up your husband’s act? Making him shave, wash his clothes, change his language etc. If you try to do this to his recreational interests, he may feel like you are trying to cramp his style and take away his sense of identity. If you don’t participate in activities with him, some of his most enjoyable activities are done without, you, his wife present.
•  Instead of making steady love deposits by having fun together, the couple with completely separate recreational interests misses a golden opportunity. They often spend some of their most enjoyable moments in the company of someone else, with the distinct possibility of allowing another person to fulfill the emotional needs of you and/or your spouse.
• Sometimes you have the option of deciding what is more important, a certain activity or the quality of your marriage. Do you have activities that not only distract from, but take away from the quality of your marriage?
• Try brainstorming some activities that you both enjoy and can do together.
• When you enjoy an activity and can share that experience with your spouse, you will associate those good feelings with him and thus your love grows. If your husband shares those feelings with someone else, he will risk developing love for another woman.
• The couple that plays together stays together.
• Boundaries will help to establish ground rules for people that you do spend time with when you are not around your husband. Do you or your spouse spend time alone, one-on-one, with the opposite sex?

All quotes are taken from His Needs Her Needs; by Willard F. Harley Jr.

His Needs: Sexual Fulfillment October 19, 2009

This past Saturday, Josh and I taught together in Part 4 our series I Want a New Marriage. We used the book His Needs, Her Needs as the framework for our talk. This week as a way of following that up, I’ll be doing posts through that book, some of the things we said, how to figure out if this is a need your spouse has, how you are doing at meeting that need and how this applies to your relationship.

You can listen to it here.

I’ll be looking specifically at his needs and how a wife fulfills those needs. To see her needs and how a husband fulfills those, check out Josh’s blog.

Need #1  Sexual Fulfillment:

• *Disclaimer: These statements come from a view of marriage that normal. Not plagued with addictions and abuse. 
• “Affection is the environment of the marriage while sex is an event. Affection is a way of life, a canopy that covers and protects a marriage. It’s a direct and convincing expression of love that gives the event of sex a more appropriate context. Most women need affection before sex means much to them.”
• Now this does not mean that if you are not getting the affection that you want; you don’t have sex. Quite the contrary; Men feel intimacy in the acts leading up to, during and after the act of intercourse, but just because you have sex with them and make yourself available to them it doesn’t necessarily mean that they will spend more time with you or pour more affection on you. But it is worth a try!
• All of these principles about emotional needs cannot be played out in isolation. If you want your husband to meet your needs, it would be a good place to start to look to see if you are meeting his needs, but you also need to be communicating and actively working on your relationship. 
• Too many times we look at sex as just a physical and somewhat mental act, but for guys it is the primary way that their emotional needs are met. In just the same way that you feel intimacy through relating he feels intimacy in the acts leading up to, during and after the act of intercourse.
• So how does that impact how you approach the marriage bed?
  • Frequency: A man has the physical need for release every 72 hours.
  • Availability: You may feel very righteous if you make yourself available to him whenever he wants, but if you are not fully engaged in the experience then it is like him having a conversation with you while watching the tv on mute. Make sure that you are not only physically available, but emotionally involved in each encounter.
  • Variety: Place and Position. That is all I am going to say about it.
  • Quickies: These are totally appropriate and needed, but don’t make this the norm for your sex life.
  • Climax: This is a touchy subject…
    • “His experience is so visceral and almost automatic that he usually does not understand that most women must learn how to respond sexually, and he is not prepared to teach his bride how to enjoy her own sexuality.” But being prepare for sex and being prepared to make love are two different things.
    • “A man cannot achieve sexual fulfillment in his marriage unless his wife is sexually fulfilled as well. Therefore a woman does her husband no favors by sacrificing her body to his sexual advances. He can feel sexually satisfied only when she joins him in the experience of lovemaking.”
    • So you need to know what turns you on and be able to express that to your husband. Husbands have patience as your wife learns to enjoy the sex relationship as much as you do.
    • There are additional resources available to women who have a hard time with this. Start by reading the Sexually Confident Wife and go from there.
• Men are not dogs or animals, as society tends to paint them, but they “paw and grab” because they desire to connect with you intimately, not just use you physically.
• When men decide to get married they are also deciding to limit their sexual experience to you, his wife. How are you doing at meeting this vital need? If your husband is not meeting your emotional needs you can put your energies into kids, hobbies, and other relationships, in doing this it may not be healthy, but it is not necessarily a sin. While if your husband tries to get his emotional need for physical intimacy fulfilled outside of the marriage relationship it IS sin.
• You cannot enjoy your end of the marriage if your spouse does not enjoy his end. Don’t withhold sex as a way to punish or make a point. You will be withholding more than a physical aspect of your relationship, but a vital emotional need.

All quotes are taken from His Needs Her Needs; Willard F. Harley Jr.

“Sunday Morning” Review October 18, 2009

Tonight we continued our I Want A New Marriage series with What I Said Yes To, out of Matthew 5: 38-48. Josh explained that when we signed up for marriage it was not to be served, but to serve. We used that as a jumping off point to talk about the top 3 needs of a man and women out of the book, His Needs, Her Needs; by Willard F. Harley Jr. Josh explained to the men that women have the need for Affection, Conversation, and Honesty & Openness. I explained to the ladies that men have the emotion need for Sexual Fulfillment, Recreational Partners, and an Attractive Spouse. Josh did a great job of handling his topics. I did say words that I never thought I would say in front of a crowd like; frequency, climax and position, but I think that it struck a chord with people because of the questions… So before I say too much take a listen, fill out the emotional needs questionnaire with your spouse, and have some great conversations.

This week Josh and I will be blogging about the top five needs of the opposite sex; so stay tuned!

Rebuilding Your Marriage after His Sexual Addiction… October 16, 2009

I have paused in my posting about sexual addiction and how to rebuild your marriage because this next section cut through me like a dagger. This book is a must read for those ladies who are trying to forgive and heal in the aftermath of their husbands addiction, but also for ladies who want to understand their husbands sexuality better, and want to become a true helpmate. I know that word is a “bible word” and either over or under used in your circles if influence… This next section of the book and my posts is all about moving forward in your marriage and what a normal marriage looks like.  So stick with me as we move through some practical ways to move out of the woundedness of your life and into the marriage of your dreams… 🙂

The principles involved in rebuilding a marriage broken by sexual sin are the same principles required to fix any broken marriage, regardless of the type of sin. After all, if you’ve been trampled by sin, you’ve been trampled, and it doesn’t matter what kind of sin crushed your heart and marriage. A wife’s healing and response must always be the same, and she will follow the same principles of healing and restoration no matter how her husband crushed her- because the challenge is always the same… that somehow, the trust must be reestablished, real accountability must be formulated, and romantic love must be revived.

So where do you start?

People are 100 percent responsible for their lives 100 percent of the time. Yet what spouses do or don’t do has a direct influence on the situation. A wife can certainly make matters worse, but she can also make matters better if she plays her position well.

Ask yourself,”How much do I look like Christ these days in my marriage?”

The emotional fog is thick, and the hurt and loneliness can be so disorienting that you can walk in circles for months, even years. Maybe you’ve already been saying to yourself, I don’t know where to go from here or what to do. I  don’t even know what is right or wrong anymore. Nothing feels normal to me these days.

Jesus is your mark in the distance, your reference point. When God speaks of normal life and character, He speaks along these lines: Jesus is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. He is the most normal person ever to walk the planet Earth. You are a believer, My child. Are you walking normally like my Son, Jesus?

You’ve been called to a normal married life, and Jesus is the magnetic pole of all things normal. Becoming normal is what Christianity is all about. Your husband needs to become normal like Jesus and stop hurting you. At the same time, this is your chance to normalize your relationship and stop inflicting your husband with more wounds from your cold shoulder and biting tongue. The wounding on both sides has got to stop or you’ll never be normal.

Brenda and Fred take a turn and discuss what God’s plan for your marriage is and what a “normal” marriage should look like. This is the part that I love and hit so close to home… Oh, that people would come to see marriage not as what it can do for them, but how they can be a key component in the restoration of their spouse… Read on.

[Brenda thought, In our marriage] where was the joy and fun and wonder? I have obviously missed God’s plan for my marriage! Or had she? It all depends on the perspective.

Couples who have been married for a few months or years know how different their ideas about marriage and the reality of marriage is. These couples were convinced that God had personally put two of His wonderful children together in holy matrimony, to have and to hold, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish until death do they part. It was like He would turn down the marriage bed every night and place a chocolate on each pillow. God would be their quiet, benevolent, behind-the-scenes partner in their marriage of three.

But things didn’t always work out that way. Why? Because God has higher purposes for marriage, and those purposes may not necessarily be all about you.

He wants happiness for you, but He also wants what is best for you and what is best for your husband. He knows that this sexual disaster in your marriage will force you to learn ho wo love the unlovely, the very bedrock trait of Christian character, and He knows that what’s happened will shatter your husband’s defenses so that the Lord can move in closer and begin healing his long-festering wounds.

We usually say something like this to God: I don’t care, Lord! His sexual junk is just filthy and sick. I don’t even want to touch him anymore. And how can I trust You now, God? You didn’t care enough to keep me away from this pervert. Well, I quit, and I;m getting out of this marriage!

But God is caring. Isn’t it caring and right for God to improve your character? We are His, after all. Besides, marriage never was all about you. What if God needs to change your husband by making him struggle through these problems with you? Is it not fair for God to ask you to serve  Him this way after everything He’s done for you? We aren’t truly a marriage of three until we accept His higher ways of thinking on marriage. Consider this verse:

If your first concern is to look after yourself, you’ll never find yourself. But if you forget about yourself and look to me, you’ll find both yourself and me. (Matthew 10:39, msg)

And if we don’t accept His higher ways of thinking, guess what continues to happen? While you’re thinking everything is wrong, everything may actually be going perfectly, from God’s perspective, and you’ll remain totally confused and frustrated while your husband is healing.

If you’re to avoid confusion and frustration, you must accept this pair of possibilities:

1. God may have created your marriage in part for the messy work of helping Him heal your husband’s wounds, of assisting your husband in his journey to Christian maturity.

2. God may have picked you to be the central figure in this work of restoration from the very beginning. How do you know this marriage isn’t among God’s highest dreams for your life?

I know what you’re thinking: If it is, then I’ve been duped. I didn’t sign up for this. Maybe so. But all too often we ignore God’s higher-ways point of view and miss His vision for our marriages, which He’s intended as our very own under-the-radar, no-headline, home mission field. Perhaps you’ve spent years asking God to reveal His will for your life, when all along He’s been asking in return, How are you doing with that little part of My will that I’ve already revealed to you regarding your marriage?

I’ve been right there with you, especially after reading through e-mail after painful e-mail from women confronting a husband’s sexual sin. But recently God challenged me through another counselor’s view of sexual sinners, and I had to admit I wasn’t looking enough like Christ.

I no longer view  these guys as the dark underside of humanity. A big change happened in me when God moved me beyond There but for the grace of God go I and on to There go I. Not that I did any of the severe things that many of my men have done, but I am a sinner and just as capable of this type of fallen, compulsive, sinful behavior.

What changed me most was the revelation that I am not my brother’s keeper. I am my bother’s brother, and these brothers need help. And when one of these brothers really gets it, really turns things around, it’s like watching Lazarus walk out of the tomb, fully alive. And then when that new life spills over into whole families, it’s simply breathtaking.

What about you? There’s no question that you are your husband’s wife. But when you look in that mirror of your heart, what do you see? Are you also your husband’s sister? If you’re to handle his wounds well on Christ’s behalf, you’ll have to act like a loving sister, too.

Christ’s example is clear. Jesus was wounded plenty, just like you- it happens to all of us. But while it’s okay to be wounded, it’s not okay to stay wounded.

Christ refused to stay wounded, and He didn’t dwell on how He was being mistreated (as we’re so prone to do). Instead, Jesus chose to be His brother’s brother and to help the wounded around Him, the very ones who had wounded Him and who would eventually nail Him to the Cross. If He focused at all upon His own wounds, it was to turn them around in order to bring glory to His Gather’s grace and to change the entire world. In the end, He could pray, “I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do” (John 17:4).

You too, can bring God glory on earth by completing the work He gave you to do. And what is your work? To be your husband’s sister in Christ, and not just his wife. You, too, can refuse to stay wounded, fixing your gaze upon the Cross, the Word, and the regenerative power of the Holy Spirit and turning your focus toward your hurting brother. It isn’t easy at all and you certainly won’t change the whole world like Jesus did, but you’ll surely change that smaller world around you and the relationships that God has place in your hands.

 So be encouraged and take the steps in your personal journey to have the strength to walk alongside your husband. At the end of your journey imagine the words that, not only, God will  have for you, but the love of your life will have for you. Imagine being able to pray, “I have done all that You asked me to do. I have brought glory to You, Father.” Keep at it.

Sunday Morning Review October 11, 2009

Tonight was an exciting night at Revolution Church! Josh took on the exciting topic of Divorce from Matthew 5:31-37. I say exciting only because divorce hits really close to home for me, and I know that it can be a really touchy subject for a lot of people because it is so personal. In light of that lets begin…

Josh began the night with talking about the marriages that we see around us, what marriages did you grow up looking at? Josh talked about God’s desire for us to be holy instead of happy. Sometime’s those coincide, but most of the time happiness ends up being the easy way out while holiness requires a more measured response and tends to be a harder decision.

In our time in ministry we have rubbed shoulders with many couples who are thinking of getting married, in the process of getting married, or who are in the process of pursing a divorce.

Josh has received many reasons for divorce including, but not limited to:

• I am not in love anymore
• My spouse is not meeting my needs
• I don’t understand my spouse, we are just so different
• God told me to do it… Which is one of our favorites because he specifically states in Malachi 2 that He hates divorce!

Josh goes from there to explain how God uses Hosea, in the book of Hosea, to show His love for us… This is one that you may not think is for you, but is a great listen. Take a moment to listen to it here, click on What’s Got to Happen to Make Marriage Work.