Got Secrets???

Do you have secrets?
I heard someone say that everyone knows something that they are planning on taking with them to their graves. Whether it be a torrid college affair or a hidden stash of money, a little too much of a shopping spree or a wild weekend with the girls, a secret is something that you have to continuously cover up and keep quiet.
And honestly, I can't be bothered.
I've never been one that's good with secrets. I always did an exceptional job with other people confiding in me. With others, once its told to me, I'm the vault; it goes in and never comes back out. But with my own secrets, I'm not so good. I always wind up telling someone. That's why I try not to keep them.

Luke 8:17

"We're not keeping secrets; we're telling them.

We're not hiding things; we're bringing everything 

out in the open." (The Message)

You see, keeping a secret a secret usually means having to tell lies, and lies are never a good thing in any relationship especially a marriage. Lies destroy trust and trust is one of the main areas of the foundation of a relationship. You can't truly give your heart to someone that you can't trust. Would you want to share a life with someone who was never completely honest with you? 

Or maybe, you can't trust yourself.

One question that you could ask yourself would be, am I worthy of being trusted? I know I have asked myself that question many times before. I didn't call keeping secrets from my husband actually telling lies. I called it "if he doesn't ask, I don't have to tell". It wasn't anything major. But then, he started to ask and I started to lie. 

There are no small lies just like there are no small sins.

Once you decided to keep something from your husband, you have to lie to keep the truth concealed. One thing that I have learned about lies is, they're like a roll of toilet paper; you keep lying, it keeps unraveling. It unravels and unravels with every lie that you tell, and pretty soon, you're left with nothing but an ugly, brown piece of cardboard. There's nothing else left.
But the bare truth.
As hard as it may be, as painful as the conversation, when lies or secrets are presented, tell the truth. The truth will be revealed anyway. Its better to do damage control now than to have to pick up the pieces afterward. Make it your business to lay everything out. It can make your relationship stronger and your stress level lower. Lying is stressful! I have enough going on and don't need to add self-inflicted high blood pressure to the list.
So, maybe the name of the post should be...
"Got Truth???"

Stop Fighting Dirty, Part 2

Sooo, the last time that we talked, we were talking about how we can let the bitterness of unforgiveness play an unhappy role in our lives and our marriages. This time, we're going to talk about how wrong our husbands can be sometimes.
There, that feels better, doesn't it?
Okay, maybe those men of ours don't do things wrong, as much as they don't do things the way that we would do them or like them done.
Or, maybe they do things wrong.
 Potato. Potato.
Anyhoo, sometimes its may seem as though your husband has been possessed by someone other than the person that you have grown to know and love. I know it seems that way to me. I can swear that I know him inside and out, then he does something that is so ridiculously out of character that I believe he is a stranger to me. He can say something that is so mean and hateful that I feel like a slap in the face would have hurt considerably less. When those times happen, if they happen, I need you to take a deep breath, take a step back and realize...
Its a trick.

Romans 12:21

"Do not let evil defeat you;

instead, conquer evil with good."(Good News Translation)\

You're not being tricked by your husband, its the devil that is doing the dirty fighting. 

He knows that, if he can try to hurt you through the man that you love most, it would shut you down. And that's where the fighting starts. Sometimes its fighting between you and your husband, sometimes it fighting within yourself, and all the time its fighting the urges you feel to hurt your husband in return.

It's a natural response. When someone hurts you, as a human being, we feel obligated to either defend ourselves or run away. When you husband seems like a stranger to you, its because something other than him is trying to drive a wedge between the two of you. Why? Because tampering with marriage is tampering with the family. And tampering with family is tampering with the health of everyone involved.

And that's what the devil does. Mess up stuff.

The best thing that you can do is not feed into the foolishness. Once you see it trying to pop up in your husband, shut it down and forgive immediately. Holding on to the hurt will only cause it to grow, like fungus. Have you ever thought about mold? It grows best in dark places. Same goes for bitterness. It grows on the inside where it can fester. But once you shed light on it, it shrivels and dies.

The same goes for life outside of mold.

Don't let the mess that tries to rear its ugly head consume you. Overcome the evil with the good and the good only comes from God. He is perfect in all his ways. So if you stay in Him, no evil can overtake you.

Take the high road, hunni. Don't fight back.

Le the light shine on it...

Stop Fighting Dirty...

I do believe that the title is pretty self-explanatory, but for the sake of blog posting, let's talk for a while, shall we?
Once again, I have a problem. Okay, maybe not a problem so much as a character flaw.

I never forget anything.

For as long as I have a conscious memory of being me, I can remember every person that has ever hurt me in any way. I may not remember names, but I can definitely remember faces and occurrences. From the boy that teased me in third grade for being chubby, to my father for his particular manner of discipline, to finally, my husband, and ever harsh word he has ever uttered in my direction.

Yes, I remember every dirty look, every unkind grunt, every missed call and every slammed door. But the thing about my remembrance is, its not for retaliation. I don't hold fast to these bad memories for self gain for to bring back out when I need leverage for something. If that were the case, I think that I would have a lot of the things that I've wanted from a lot of different people.

I hold on to them because... Well, there isn't really a good reason. I just do.

To me, I think that every past hurt has showed me just who they are: human. I also have a bad habit of holding those that I love in the highest regard. Remembering the pains shows me that they aren't God.

My mistake all this time has been unforgiveness. I thought all this time "Hey, if I still treat them the same and don't act ugly, I'll get over it and I'll be fine." Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. So I have about thirty years of bitterness in a lock box that has been built around my heart.

And it will take a lot more than a blog post to fix it.

Romans 12:21

"Don't let evil get the best of you;

get the best of evil by doing good."(The Message)

I titled this blog post the way I did because, playing dirty isn't a fight against your husband, its a fight against yourself. Being bitter didn't hurt the little boy from third grade for my father or my husband or even myself; it only hurt me. Because I wasn't forgiving or letting anything go, I glued myself to one spot in my life. Until recently, I never grew up. My body got older and I learned a few things, but I never matured.
I allowed evil to get the best of me for a long time, almost to the demise of my marriage and even my life. But God gave me the grace to see what evil had taken from me and to begin the process of restoring my heart and my mind. That's how I got the best of evil; with the good grace of God.
You see that cartoon? Lucy always played dirty and Charlie Brown never had a chance.
You can never win this way.
You can never forgive anyone with your own strength. No matter what your husband has done, you deserve to forgive him. It's not about anything that has anything to do with him. Forgiveness of your choice, and it is a choice. Unforgiveness is a fight that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. So don't fight that way. Allow God to fight this evil for you. That's good.
 Don't fight dirty.

How Do You Want It?

I've had this ongoing problem with my husband for a while now. Well, while is quite the understatement since I've had this issue with him since right after our honeymoon. Despite our six children, my husband has a zero capacity for romance. I'm not exaggerating in the least bit. I'm not sure if he missed some romance lessons along the road of life or what but, he lacks a certain level of affection that I feel like I've been begging for throughout or marriage.
Some would say, "Why haven't you asked for what you want?". Well, I've asked, suggested, yelled, screamed, cried and even bargained. Nothing has worked. I think he just doesn't have those romantic-comedy movie/novel bones that I've heard and read so much about from Lifetime move networks and voyeuristic conversations with other ladies that I've come in contact with.
I know, I know. I can't base my life and marriage on the lives if others, whether they be fictional or fact.
But a girl can dream...
Anyway, I'm not so sure that he lacks romantic bones, I think its just that his romance bones are more practical than fairy tale.I know that he loves me and adores our children and our happy little home. I love that he works hard to make sure that we have everything that we need and most of the things that we want. Sometimes it would be nice to have some of the bouquets of roses and back-bending, Scarlett O'Hara-style kisses, but I have to work with what I have.
And so do you.

Romans 12:9

"Love must be genuine..."(NIV)

See, the thing is, my husband can try to change and do all the things I've read in books and seen on TV but it wouldn't be his love. He wouldn't be authentic and uniquely him. Why would I want him to act like someone else when he's the one that I fell in love with? Yes, taking my desires and needs from him into consideration every once in a while would be nice, but I want him, not him acting like someone else.
I'm not saying that I have discontent for my husband, however, sometimes I would like to have a little love the way I like love. I like hugs and kisses and touching and affection and surprises without an apology and text messages telling me how deeply in love he is with me. And the few occasions that I have received those things I will never forget. But, I have to realize how my husband shows his love to me.
He romances me by gets up every morning, despite the extremely colorful language that I hear after the fifth or sixth time he's taken advantage of the snooze button, to go to work and provide for myself and our children until I finish school.
He pays every bill faithfully in order for us to have electricity to work/play on our many electronic devices and watch the 700+ channels on television.
He washes his own clothes, which I haven't decided is a blessing or a curse.
He is quite easy on the eyes, and can still make me blush and giggle like a high school girl with just one look from across the room.
*Sigh*
Bottom line is, I like how he loves me. Wouldn't change it for the world. And I would hope that he likes how I love him to. I struggled with being submissive and not wanting to lose myself, but part of Sam is her being my husband's wife. I want to be good at it. So I love him my way, but with him-influences.
Do you take your husband's desires into consideration in the way you love him? If you do, kudos on learning the lesson before me! If not, think about what he likes and add that to how you like to do it.
I don't know about you, but how he wants it is giving me his best.
And that's exactly how I want it...