“Pastor Benny said, “When you are completely surrendered you begin to feel fresh rain to touch the dry grounds of your soul.”
Ps 63:1.
O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is;
I believe and expect fresh rain and blessings to me and my soul.
May 24
Splitting Headache
“For I hate divorce,” says the LORD, the God of Israel.
Malachi 2:16
This is probably the poem Simone is writing right now as we go through our struggle and working on our own feelings alone with no consideration for anyone or anything else. We .
This poem was written by Jen Abbas, then an 18-year-old child of divorce. I’ve arranged it a little differently on this page than it appears in her book, Generation EX, to make it fit. Its message is too important to allow form to quiet its voice. Listen to “The Eruption.”
Divorce is like a trembling earthquake,
The world shakes, rumbling with rage,
And all the anger, guilt, and frustrations
That have been festering for so long below the surface
Suddenly spew upward in an inferno of hate or apathy.
At times the earth calms and you think the turmoil is over,
Settled, stable, but then the cycle begins again,
Repeating, repeating, repeating.
You are weary, you want to rest,
And that is when you realize the shaking has stopped,
But there is an eerie feeling lurking in the air.
You are hesitant to believe anything anymore,
You are so tired after struggling for so long,
And so you rest on the one solid patch of land,
Only to watch it split in two,
Two separate, distinct parts that will never come together again.
Each new patch supports part of you,
And as you watch, they pull away.
This is the type of poem that breaks my heart because it represents so many children who are torn apart by divorce. No matter what you are experiencing in your marriage, and no matter how tough it is, just remember the impact that staying together will have on your children.
Discuss
Promise each other that this will never be the heart’s cry of your children. Talk about who you should consider sending this poem to right now.
Pray
Pray for the children of divorce today, who are struggling to be loved and to belong. Pray for a friend who is moving toward a split.
Excerpted from Moments With You and name changed to put Simone’s name because we cannot hear how she feels but I can just imagine she feels the same way or even worse because she cannot express it for us to know or hear. We only see it in her actions and sometimes sadness, or when she is with me and wants me to feed and treat her like a baby…..Luv you Simone.
The Secret to a Lasting Marriage Dennis Rainey Maybe you’ve had a similar experience with your own spouse: One night, my wife Barbara and I ended up in bed facing opposite directions. Since early in our marriage, we have prayed together each night before we go to bed. But that night, I didn’t want to pray with her. In my conscience, however, Jesus Christ was asking me, Are you going to pray with her? I don’t like her tonight, Lord, I replied. I know you don’t, He said. But you’re the one who tells people that you pray with your wife all the time. Slowly, the Lord turned me over, and I said, “Sweetheart, will you forgive me?” And Barbara and I talked and prayed. I thank God for that tradition of prayer He s helped us build early in our marriage. I am not exaggerating when I say that Barbara and I might not still be married had it not been for daily prayer. If there is one simple ritual I would urge couples to begin adopting in their marriages, it is this one—the habit of praying together every day. When I was still a newlywed in 1972, I asked my boss and mentor, Carl Wilson, for his single best piece of marital advice. He and his wife had been married 25 years and had four children. “Denny, that’s easy,” he said. “Pray daily together. Every night for 25 years we have prayed together as a couple.” Since that day several decades ago, Barbara and I have missed daily prayer fewer than a dozen times. That discipline has helped resolve conflicts, kept communication flowing, and, most importantly, acknowledged our utter dependence upon Jesus Christ as the Lord and Builder of our family. Surveys at our Weekend to Remember® marriage getaways indicate that less than eight percent of all couples pray together on a regular basis. I suspect that less than five percent of all Christian couples pray together daily. Let’s bring back a popular slogan from the 1950s: “The family that prays together stays together.” I believe that if every Christian couple would pray together regularly, our nation would experience a spiritual renewal of historical proportions, including a dramatic drop in the Christian community’s divorce rate. And when the divorce rate drops within the church, we will see a spiritual and moral awakening in America. I want to challenge you to something today: Commit to praying with your spouse for one week before you go to bed each night. Please don’t say you’re too busy for this. Don’t let time in front of the TV watching a ball game or a sitcom keep you from praying together. The average American adult watches 30 hours of television a week, and there has to be a little time in there to pray! By the same token, don’t let hobbies, singing in the choir, or working at the church keep you from praying together. It’s easy to get busy—we all have a lot going on in our lives. But don’t get so busy that you can’t make the time to pray together with your spouse. Avoid living independently of one another. God gave you your spouse, and your marriage is the single most important relationship you have on this earth. Of course, you’ll have interruptions when you pray together. Anyone with a telephone, children, or even pets can be guaranteed of that! But I encourage you to go past the interruptions. Time for devotions and prayer with your wife or husband is just too important. When you pray together, you multiply your joys, divide your sorrows, add to your experiences with God together, and help subtract your haunting past from your life. During the rugged times of your marriage, you can share your burdens. Prayer can also take away the desire to get even and replace it with a willingness to work things out. I urge you to make this commitment with your spouse. You may be afraid to start, and let me assure you, you are not alone. Many people are hesitant to start praying with their spouses. If this is the case, try saying this prayer: Lord, teach me how to pray with my spouse. I’m afraid. I can promise you; it will be one of the most rewarding things you will ever do for your marriage and for your family. Dennis Rainey is president of FamilyLife.
Whether you consider yourself together or ‘two’- gether, you will both find a wonderfully comforting yet exciting familiarity with each other. Familiarity never truly spawns into contempt, as the saying goes. Relationships that exist without creativity and satisfaction are the kinds that spawn contempt. Doing things together with your spouse doesn’t mean that you become dependent on each other.
Dependence is absolutely the worst thing for your relationship and will ultimately lead to an unhealthy co-dependency. Complete independence is not altogether good for a marriage either. If you are so focused on your own independence, you can never be a true couple. Interdependence is what almost all successful couples have been able to achieve and maintain. Interdependence is simply a reciprocal relation between interdependent individuals. It is possible to achieve such a balance in a relationship and it is the best way to have a respectful and successful partnership with your spouse.
Start to think about everything you do as an activity or opportunity for the both of you.
This is just a lesson to me.
When one partner changes, the other partner changes too. It’s a law of relationships. If you aren’t getting what you need or want from your loved one, instead of trying to convince him or her to change, why not change your approach to the situation? Why not be more pragmatic? If what you’re doing (talking to your partner about the error of his/her ways) hasn’t been working, no matter how sterling your logic, you’re not going to get very far. Be more flexible and creative. Be more strategic. Spend more time trying to figure out what might work as opposed to being hell bent on driving your point home. You might be pleasantly surprised. Remember, insanity has been defined as doing the same old thing over and over and expecting different results.
Look, life is short. We only have one go-around. Make your relationship the best it can possibly be. Stop waiting for your partner to change in order for things to be better. When you decide to change first, it will be the beginning of a solution avalanche. Try it, you’ll like it!