Question

Recently I had a comment from a reader saying

that they are having problems reading my posts......

that the words are running into my third column.

Is anyone else having this problem?

I want to fix whatever I need to fix.

Other than the words that run across the top saying.... I love you....is anything else

from my post not readable?

The whole post should be in the light brown section in the middle.

Don't want your time here reading to end up being an aggravation. ;)

Thanks!

Pray for your man

Never Alone

She slumped to the ground and leaned heavily against the giant rock at her back.

She filled her lungs, exhaling slowly as she fought to overcome the adrenaline rush that sped the blood through her veins.

It had been a rough battle. When she had first seen the evil horde, led by the merciless stomping steeds......her heart had almost stopped. But as she pulled her sword and glanced to her sides she a deep assurance of victory filled her heart as she saw all the soldiers in polished armor standing with her.

With a light heart she waited for the battle cry.... not wanting to step out on her own. As she planted her feet she had felt the weight of a hand on her arm. She looked over and saw the glint in her husbands eyes as he shared his love and assurance with a glance.

At just that moment the yell had gone up and with eyes locked they had nodded and turned to the battle side by side.

It was fierce and her screaming muscles agreed that it seemed the battle would go on forever. As far as the eye could see the battle raged. Couples stood back to back as over and over they raised their swords to stave off the putrid mass that sought to separate them.

As she fought she stumbled often on warriors that had gone down in battle. Sometimes she observed one mate standing to defend the wounded and yet sadly, others had no one lingering near. She swung at the enemy croching over their fallen frame whenever she could.

At those times she had turned to look into the eyes of the one fighting with her...eyes locked as they confirmed their pack.....Never Alone.

Eventually the onslaught had eased as the enemy retreated to regroup.

She then felt her husbands hand grasp hers as he lead her to rest on nearby rock.

And here they sat....both longing for the cool of the mountain top...... away from the heat of the battle. But instead, their senses were invaded by the smell of fires smoldering; fires that had been started by the firey arrows of the enemy.

As her heart returned to rest she looked down to see his hand, bloodied and brusied from battle, lying on her armoured thigh. Turning her head she saw his eyes closed in rest. A smile touched her face as she thought of how she loved this warrior, this man God had given to fight by her side. She was honored to be fighting with him.

(S.B.)9-24-09

Amy Carmichael

His thoughts said...

His Father said...

~~~~~~~

"But the attack on that position is persistent and violent.
There is no end to it.

His Father said, Nor ever will be. Measure the
preciousness of Spiritual Unity by the persistence of the violence of Satanic
Attack." Pg 107

During my devotions on the 24th God gave me the picture message above....it was then followed by the same type of thought in the book I was reading by Amy Carmichael. I thought the picture God gave me was a perfect description of how I had been feeling about my husband. I never dreamed it was a warning about the attack that was coming. I didn't see the enemy sneeking up and I took the blow Friday without being able to block it. It knocked me flat.

To be honest, I had not been surrounding my husband in prayer as much as I had been others and their marriages. And because of that....the enemy TRIED a full onslaught against my husband....to thus destroy our unity.

But......the enemy didn't win. \o/

Why share this?

Because I have found in the past that our enemy often attacks the whole body using the same war tacktics. So it may be your turn next.

I want you to pray passionately for your mate.

Pray that God will strengthen them in the power of His might and protect them from the schemes of the enemy.

He is a liar and a cheat and he is sneaking around seeking to devour anyone he can.

Let your man know you are praying for them.

I will not bend my knee to the enemy and let him march around taking whatever territory he desires.....and I will not let him take what God has done in our marriage over the past few years. Our unity is not up for grabs!

We will continue to stand shoulder to shoulder with our swords raised.

Pray for your man!

Daa..da...dada....da..daaaaa

Today is the day that God decided to grace this world with my presence. ;)

I have had a love/hate relationship with this day.

Not because I am getting older.....but because of the expectations that often

accompany this day.

This year I was just thinking it would be nice to forget all about it....until Maria sent this email to me. After reading it I began to realize how really special a birthday is.

It was the day that God chose for me to enter this world.

This is the day that He chose to grace the world with a new piece of His creativity. Now......should that not be celebrated?

Thank you God for creating me!

Here is the devotional I recieved from Maria......please take the time to read it....I think you will find the information kind of thrilling.

A New Thing Ministries
He Knew You...before

I don't usually give a lot of thought to birthdays except for my family's birthdays - I don't generally think about my own. This year, for some reason has been different, my birthday has had more meaning. I was pondering it yesterday and it suddenly dawned on me that today was the day that God decided before the foundations of the earth it was time for me to arrive on this earth. It was my day to begin my journey to fulfill my purpose - He chose my day. I began to think how each of us have a destiny that God set in place before the foundation of the world, that thought alone is amazing to me, isn't it to you? After I had been thinking along these lines, my friend, Deborah, sent me some information she found about Jewish customs for birthdays. It was very interesting and I wondered if it had anything to do with why I was feeling that birthdays were, indeed significant. It says that your birthday has significance; according to Jewish beliefs your mazal is dominant on your birthday. Your mazal is the spiritual pathway which brings the divine plan down from heaven to be realized on this earth. The day of your birth is the day your spiritual pathway is dominant. It is literally like having an open heaven each year as you celebrate your birthday. They also believe that this is the day when you were given the mandate to change the world. The day when God entrusted you with a mission to make your mark on this world. In accomplishing this goal, you were given the ability to achieve incredible spiritual heights - heights unimaginable to the soul.

When you were born, God invested within you talents and qualities that are yours alone. You have the ability within you to accomplish all God has purposed for you to accomplish and walk fully in your destiny - it was settled before you were born. Because He knew you...even before you were born. You have been given a mandate to change the world. You have been entrusted with the mission to challenge a world that is hostile to spirituality and establish His Kingdom on this earth. Never let another birthday go by without remembering this truth - celebrate! You were born for and to purpose...walk in it...and walk in it fully.

Is that cool or what?

Heads Up

I hope all of you are doing fine. I am here by way of hubby's computer.... so I will make this a short post.

This past week I found out about a new site that is going to be launching October 11...the name is BLASTOFF. Many think it will be much bigger than Yahoo and Google.
Why?
Because once you join.....for free....you will get your own homepage that has some incredible things on it. From that homepage you will be able to shop....no big deal right? Think again! You will be able to shop and recieve huge discounts at many of the places you already shop. And on top of that.....you will get cash back on the money you spend. Sound to good to be true? Let me share one more detail. When people come to your site and sign up for this FREE service......and they shop....you will earn money off of what they spend.
AND......if you have a child (13-18 I think) who has a college savings account....they can start their own page and it will deposit the money they earn into that account! How cool is that?!?

How did I find out about this? I have been part of a company named PrePaid Legal for a few years now......and Blastoff has asked our company to help launch the site. So if you happen to be a PrePaid Legal associate you can start using it now.

Want to find out more? Here is the link to my site. BLASTOFF Look around.....this is what your site will look like when you can sign up in October. On the top tab there is a link to the site where you can go to find out more about Blastoff. Bookmark my page and on October 11th, come on back and sign up.
Go ahead and check out the stores available by going to the mall....it will give you an idea of how much you will be able to save.

Christmas is coming up and I think this will be a great way to save money.

I know I don't usually advertise for things....but I do think this was worth crossing that line.
If you want to know more about anything on the site feel free to drop me an email.

Just to let you know

I wanted to let you know that this past Friday my laptop got sick. :( So I am writing this from hubby's computer. I'll probably be missing here till I can get it fixed. If you need to get in contact with me...... please send me an email and I will get on as often as I can to check my email.

You could pray that whatever is wrong will not have cleared everything off my computer...besides pictures, I do have some documents that would be nice to have back. :)
No, I was a dummy and did not back up my computer. :( For shame, for shame!

I do hope to see you soon.

Love ya'll.....and I will keep praying.......you are buried deep in my heart. I thank God for you often. \o/

Please

I know I have asked ya'll for prayers often enough...but it is not for me this time.
My workout buddy...Elayne....just found out this afternoon that she has cancer.
She is feeling like her life has been flipped upside down....and she is hurting.......she needs to feel the loving comfort of our God.
I know you don't know her...but she is a sister and she has come to mean a whole lot to me in the past year and a half.
Would you please pray?

That is my buddy on the left with her husband this past summer.

A Time To Remember

Rosh Hashanah.....a day to remember and repent.
Today at sunset the Jews will be observing a time to remember and cast of sins of the past.....on this the first day of their new year.
But unlike the celebrations of those in the United States...this is a somber time to evaluate our lives.
I think that is a good idea for us all.
We need to remember who we belong to.......remember the language of the country we belong to and will be going at the trumpets call.
Here is a story I found on this site--Chabad.org.

The Cry of the Shofar: Two Parables By Eli Friedman

A parable from Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov: A King had an only son, the apple of his eye. The King wanted his son to master different fields of knowledge and to experience various cultures, so he sent him to a far-off country, supplied with a generous quantity of silver and gold. Far away from home, the son squandered all the money until he was left completely destitute. In his distress he resolved to return to his father's house and after much difficulty, he managed to arrive at the gate of the courtyard to his father's palace. In the passage of time, he had actually forgotten the language of his native country, and he was unable to identify himself to the guards. In utter despair he began to cry out in a loud voice, and the King, who recognized the voice of his son, went out to him and brought him into the house, kissing him and hugging him. The meaning of the parable: The King is G-d. The prince is the Jewish people, who are called "Children of G-d" (Deuteronomy 14:1). The King sends a soul down to this world in order to fulfill the Torah and mitzvot. However, the soul becomes very distant and forgets everything to which it was accustomed to above, and in the long exile it forgets even its own "language." So it utters a simple cry to its Father in Heaven. This is the blowing of the shofar, a cry from deep within, expressing regret for the past and determination for the future. This cry elicits G-d’s mercies, and He demonstrates His abiding affection for His child and forgives him.

WE are the children of the King.
And like the individual in this story we often forget from who's blood we have come and the language of our homeland.
It is time to return to our roots......and pray that our country returns to its roots.
Take time to remember and repent,
so that when the trumpet sounds......we will be found among those
that have remained faithful to the call.
We are His people....called by His name.
We are engraved in His hand and lovingly held till that day.

Tea Party and the grand tour of Virginia

As we all know there are some huge things going on in Washington.
Things that we must have a voice in........we must not be silent. I would not describe myself as a real politically active person. Yes, I vote.......but that is about it.
But both of my brothers are really staying on top of things.
So when my older brother asked me to go with him to the march on our Capital......I really just thought it would be a neat way to see D.C again after all these years.
As I sat on the metro Saturday morning listening to people passionately talking about what they thought about the things taking place in D.C.....I began to feel that maybe I have been a little slack in some areas. They were very passionate and seemed pretty well informed.
Really made me wish that Christians were as passionate about their cause....the cross.
By the time we arrived at our stop......the train was so packed that it took awhile to get off....and in the end they opened all gates to let us up to the surface.
We made our way to a section of the city named Freedom Square.
Pretty appropriate since we were there to protest high taxes and a power hungry government.
Those in charge are supposed to be our voice.......but something has gone seriously wrong.
The square was packed with people expressing freedom of speech.....often by the signs they carried. Here are two........some should have limited their freedom out of decency. :)
There was media of course.......both on the ground and in the air.

The crowd that was gathering grew so large that the march began an hour earlier than planned.
We actually skirted the crowds in order to get to the capital a little sooner.
I heard someone say the march was about a mile long........making up anywhere between 6 hundred thousand and 1 million.
As we came to the Capital we were met by police on horse blocking off one street. We prepared to go around them when all of a sudden we heard one of the policemen say......"We need to get out of the way now"! I guess they could see the huge wave of people coming.

There is really no way to show the amount of people present. It was a pretty neat event to be a part of. We do need to make our voice heard. Do I think this event did that?
I don't know.
But I did hear several times that day, by the speakers, that
"The Dome is ours......it is time to take it back".

We did have fun the next two days.
We visited at least 6 of the Smithsonian museums.
(This is a room in the National Archives---it holds our Constitution and many other important papers. And was in the movie.....National Treasure), Then took in all the monuments and the Arlington Cemetery.
It was neat to see the changing of the guard....it is hard to imagine that there is someone guarding the unknown soldiers tomb 24/7.....365 days a year.

The above is a picture of my brother an I at the Arlington house.....above the cemetery.
After all this we went to Colonial Williamsburg.
If you homeschool you might want to check into the program they have for homeschoolers.
As we checked in there were several families there with their children.
It is an incredible place for your children to learn history.
Over all it was a great trip.....but it is oh so good to be home.

I'm back!

Just wanted to stop in and let you know that we got back yesterday afternoon.
It was a long hard journey. :)
Anytime you head out with someone else on vacation........ it would be VERY wise to see if they are planning for a relaxing time or they are out to tackle all of Virginia.
The former was true of our time. :)
Oh my aching feet!
We arrived in D.C. around 4 on Friday............and by 5:30
we were on the metro heading to downtown.
From there it was a 5 hour race. Note to self...don't wear flip flops when running a race.
Of course if I had known I was going to be running a race....tennis shoes would have been worn.
Our first stop was at the White house.
We told someone we had a meeting with the Obama's but it seems that they did not get that memo......so we had to settle for an outside view.
From there we raced around the corner to head for the Washington Monument.
It was beautiful. The wind was blowing so hard that it was rough getting pictures. The guys had fun lying down on the benches at the bottom of the monument and looking up. Seems it gives the allusion that the monument is moving....a little much for my stomach.
From there we headed off by foot to see the World War 2 memorial.
It really was so powerful. I guess the thing that amazed me the most was the silence around all these memorials. Occasionally we would see where people had left little things in memory of loved ones.
I hope you can read what is on the wall above....we do indeed have an obligation to remember what these people gave for our freedom. I know that often unless we had family involved in these wars they can feel like they happened on another world.
I loved hearing Paw Paw talk about his time in the military.....it really opened up history for me. We need to make sure these memories don't get lost.
This is my brother and his boys...the young guys were pretty excited to be seeing things they had learned about in school and had seen on t.v.

From here we went to see Mr Lincoln.
This was the first time I had been to this monument.
If you saw Forest Gump.....this was in the background of one of the scenes.
They asked for silence while there.....I was amazed that so many people could be to quiet.
It was about 9 by this time and the place was packed. Hmmm, maybe they were as tired as us. :)

From here it was on to the Vietnam memorial.
It was too dark to take pictures........ but what an incredible experience.
I don't know if you have ever been there....but the wall starts with one name...the first person to die. And then the height of the wall begins to grow until it is at least 8 feet tall....and then begins to drop slowly till it is down to only one name...the last person to die in the war.
Looking at all the names listed you would really think they were giving all the names of those who fought in the war.....instead of just those who died.
It was amazing......and sad.
Our children need to know the countless number of men and women who died for our country.
And that those men and women considered it an honor.
We must never forget the freedom we have because of all these individuals.

From there we headed back to the Metro....what a walk!
We got back to our room at 12.....seems they were doing some work on the line. But at least my feet got a break. Tomorrow I would be wearing my walking shoes!

I'll stop here and tomorrow I will share our experience with the walk on the Capital.
We have a voice.....this is our nation.....we must never settle for silence.

Sharon goes to Washington

Yes, they are calling me in!
Bet you never figured that I was so need and known
that they would call me in to sort some things out.
I know...laugh, laugh, snort, snort. :)
But maybe after the incidents on the news.....some of the higher
ups need to have their patoots swatted. I speak of those who don't follow polite manners and those who don't know the old saying....Tell the truth and shame the devil.
O.K....that is as political as I am going to get. :)

What is really happening? I got an invite from my big brother to go with he and his kids to Washington for the march that they will be having this Saturday.
I don't know if you have heard of the 9-12 Project...but if you google it you can find out some more info.
We are going to camp about an hour away and take the metro in.
I haven't been to D.C since Keith came to pick me.
We eloped and got married in Oakton, Virginia.
So it has been at least 22 years since Washington was graced by my presence.
See what happens to our government when I stay away? :)

We will leave tomorrow morning and come back late Monday evening.
I'll take my camera and take plenty of pictures. I don't promise to look glamorous since there is only so much that one can do from a camp ground.

This is my first protest/march to attend.
I promise to behave myself and not end up on the front of any newspaper because I was not displaying exemplary behavior.
Ha! Can you even imagine....really you couldn't. ;)

I'll be back soon....behave!
Love ya

It is time for harvest!

I am going to ask you to do some serious praying.
We have a sister in Christ who has found that her marriage under a huge attack.
And since the Bible tells us that what we are experiencing....the body of Christ is also experiencing.....I would venture to say that she is not the only one out there going through this.

I won't go into the details here...but God knows. And He will put to her credit your prayers.
Remember how you prayed for our safety? Those prayers work!
Our enemy wants to plant doubts about that truth. I heard someone last night say that we need to go right back at satan with those doubts.
Can we tell him that we doubt the validity of those doubts?
I think if we finally decide to stand on the truth we might just confuse the author of confusion!

Remember our God promises that He is near to the broken hearted.
I need some warriors who are willing to stand with me.
Warriors who have put on their armor and are ready to fight the good fight.
Are you ready?
You are not just a Woman,
a Sister, a Mom or a Wife....
or any of those other titles that the world likes to throw at us.
If you are a Sister in Christ......you are also called to fight like the warrior you are.
Ready to link arms and put out some of those fiery darts?
Ok.....here is what to pray for.
Let's pray for unity in marriage.
All of our marriages!
Let's thank God for making His tender presence known.... to this sister who is hurting and all of our sisters who are hurting silently.
I know that I am not the only one who in the past looked at my marriage and thought that it had not lived up to what I thought it should be or wanted it to be.
Or what the Bible says it should be.
That will crush our hearts so fast.

Pray for husbands who will stand up and take the spiritual lead.
Not stomp on hearts.....but gently go with us to the throne. We need husbands who will love their wives as Chirst loves the church.
It can happen......I will have been married 22 years in November......and God will testify that for 10+ years I prayed for this in our marriage. I just wanted to know and feel that I was loved.
And it is happening.....it has happened.

Pray that memories of past love and romance will be brought back to the forefront of the mind. Where the mind goes the body follows.
Let's pray that God will light a fire where the fires may have gone out.
Yes, physical intimacy is IM.POR.TANT!

MOST OF ALL.......Pray that God will be glorified in our marriages.
That His will will be done here on earth as it is in heaven.
When the battle looks to our eyes like it is over and being lost.......our prayers can and will
call down
The Commander of Heavens Armies
and all His power.
Amen?
I think we can all use the what is available to us through His power.

And I will remind you of this......when you pray for the lives of others....you are planting seeds for a wonderful harvest for yourself and your marriage.
There will be no harvest without seeds being planted.
And when we plant a seed....think about an apple seed......the harvest comes in in bushels!And for years to come!

So lets plant those seeds.
Are you with me?

Answered prayer

This goes out to all of you who answered my call for prayer Thursday...in specific, a prayer
for the safety of our family.
On Friday Keith went up on the mountain to work without me. About an hour or so later I got a call from him saying he needed me.....his voice was a tad wobbly.
I soon found out that his transmission had gone out in his truck. I didn't know it at the time but
that meant that when he put his truck in reverse and pressed on the gas.....it went forward.
Not a good thing when you are on narrow roads that require some backing up to maneuver the turns. I know that our lives are in the hand of God......and I can't help but think that God used your prayers to protect my husband.Keep up the prayers!
Thank you.

Our prayers do work.......the prayers of the righteous availeth much.

A few concentrated prayer requests

By now you know that we have been seriously praying about what God has planned for our future here in the mountains of N.C.
I have known for awhile now that God was taking us in the direction of full time Christian ministry......and have quietly just continued to pray about God putting that on my husbands heart.
Well...last night at church that prayer was answered.
He told me that he had something really important to tell me....and then looked me in the eye and said what had been on my heart.
He said, "Sharon, God is calling us to be missionaries."
I will admit that those were not the exact words that I was expecting......it gave me visions of getting on an airplane heading for deep dark Africa.
After a quick check to see that that was not the vision he was having....and it was not....I breathed a sigh of relief and gave him a quick kiss. I knew by the tears in his eyes that God was writing a beautiful thing on his heart.
We are now in complete unity....a beautiful thing before our Lord.

If you will help us by praying about our future I would so appreciate it.
Pray that God will continue to unite Keith and I.
Pray that as we walk that our family will be protected from the schemes of the enemy.
Pray that He will direct our path and give us a greater understanding
of what He is calling us to do.
We continue to work up on the mountain with the Mountain Top Experience ministry.
We have still not been given a clear answer as to our future there.
They have asked us to write down our beliefs so that they can be presented to the board next month. Dad said we should just hand them the Bible and say.....This is it! :)
But we will sit down and write out all that we have been taught by the Spirit....that should do it.
We have also have had a little direction from our church.
I won't go into that now...but they are praying too.
Needless to say.....we are learning what it means to walk by faith.
It is a little intimidating...but HE IS FAITHFUL!
He is our provider and in Him our security is secure.
I know this deep in my heart.
Thank you for your prayers.
I will let you know more as He speaks. Thank you for linking arms and prayers with us.

Your Sister in Service

So You Wanna Go Back?

I wrote this back in May of '07.
If God had told me I would be where I am now... in '09....I would have been both thrilled and terrified. I have learned much on this journey.....a journey that is not finished yet.
I am posting this again because it was a good reminder for me. A reminder that I DON'T want to go back. A reminder that I have come so far....to far to give up now.
Yesterday was rough. Rough enough to make me look back over my shoulder.
Good thing I was not looking at Sodom and Gomorrah. :)
I know He is faithful to see this journey through to completion. \o/
I am going to leave the comments.....because there are a few of you still walking with me that were here back then. It was kind of like a great big hug when I realized how long ya'll had been around. He has given me some great sisters for this journey.

There is a verse in Hebrews that has stood over me in the last years like a giant wave waiting to crash over my head and send me spinning. I am drawn to this verse almost like a security blanket. Yes. It comforts me and makes me breathe a little deeper. What's that verse?
Hebrews 11: 13-16. O.K, not verse--verses.

All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth.
People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country---a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

I loved studying the life of Abraham with Beth Moore. I loved the way God called him to leave all that was the life he had known. Sometimes I wish he had been a woman because then we would have gotten a little more of the emotional side of the journey down on paper. But, even though we did not--I know it must have been a little emotionally unsettling. But--he did it. He left what he knew and followed God on a path that he could not see and in human terms did not make sense.
For years I have felt like I have been on this path. Going places in my heart and mind that made people look at me a little funny when I spoke of what God was telling me and showing me. But--that was O.K, because out of every dozen people I got close enough to tell--He would send one who was willing to listen to my hearts thoughts and "Go There" with me.
(Tracy you know you are one)
It has been a great journey moving from glory to glory. I love thinking that as the Lord's eyes swept to and fro across the face of the earth He had to stop on me because He saw a heart that was different. {That and I was waving my hand and screaming , "ooo, 000, pick me!"}
He saw a heart that was yearning for something more----HIM!
So, now we are out in the middle of the dessert and I look around and I say, Where God? Where do you want us to go? You said go, and we did. Now, were is the land you have prepared for those who love you and are walking according to your plan?
Now the true faith walk begins. That walk for me looks a little different than Abraham. He walked--I have been asked to sit and wait. Sounds easy? Try excruciating.
Now I know in Hebrews all of these people who walked the walk of faith--they could have looked back and gone back.
That is the part of the verse I love the most. God would have let them go back. Back to their old homeland and it's captivity. But they choose to move on and look at the reward they are being blessed with.
Have you ever thought that their rewards in heaven have still not stopped piling up because we are still witnessing their lives and gaining strength because of their testimony?
How incredible is that?
So when I remember that my life is no longer my own------I know, I can not turn back.
The picture at the top is of my old house being demolished in December '06.
We thought God was going to have us rebuild on the same site and now God has told us to move on. Where, we don't know. For this problem solver-- the biggest battle has been sitting and waiting.
But I am convinced that I will see the the victory and glory of MY LORD in the land of the living.
Because I will stand in faith, God will NOT be ashamed to be called--- Sharon's God.

(Back to '09 -And not we did not know at the time of this post that we would be selling all to move to North Carolina. Or that we would still not be sure of what or where God is leading us. But I do know this....I am NOT going back. Onward and upward!)

It sparked these memories

I just finished reading a fictional story in which a husband brought his wife roses....just because.
Hard to imagine?
He wanted to show her that he loved her and that he recognized all that she did daily.
If I had read this about 15 years ago my response would have been....Ha! Fat chance.

Back in the late 80's when Keith and I married.....I had a husband that was clueless.....and I believe he would admit that he didn't want it any other way.
He was raised basically as an only child since his brother and sister were around 18 and 19 when he was born. Yes, he was a forty something baby.
And since his parents retired by the time he was 10.....life was all about him.
His parents were at every game he played....this continued through college when he went to school in Minnesota. His parents would pack up the camper during football season and make the trip from Louisiana. Keith's mom would cheer from the side lines and then feed the guys after the game.
Yes, he was a tad pampered.
We met at a singles Bible study when he was in his mid 20's and still living at home.
I loved his mom and dad.........they were really all about family. His mom had a huge heart.
After Keith and I had been dating for awhile they told me that if Keith did not marry me....they would. :)
Keith and I did finally marry after about 2 1/2 years of dating and engagement.
I wonder if I would have gone there if I had known the rough ride that would follow? Truthfully...probably not.
We married in November, and then moved in with his dad after his mom passed away two months after we were married. And by August we had added a child to the mix.....two weeks after that child was born Keith lost his job. Whew!
Honeymoon period.......what's that?! ;)

I can not even begin to explain how excruciating these first several years of marriage were. There was no romance and certainly no spiritual intimacy. Talk about popping dreams!
All of the details finally led to a separation that lasted about a year and a half. This separation saved our marriage.
During this time God worked on my heart and I invited Him to step in and change my heart.
Did things change right away? No. But now I was in this for the long haul....come hell or high water. LOL.....both of which I felt like I walked through.
And, I am sure Keith would tell you the same.
I am in no way guiltless in what led to our rough years. But often God grabs a woman's heart first....and that is what happened in our marriage.
I began to let God change me......and tried as best as I could to keep my mouth shut and let God work on my husband. I know I gave Him a really hard time.....my mouth is not given to silence.

It took awhile for God to heal my battered heart. I didn't feel very loving toward my husband and I know it showed. But as I allowed God to fill my heart with His love....that love started to spill over onto Keith. The grrrrrr that had ruled my heart for so long began to diminish.
And one day......the changes that God had been making in my husband heart....it began to show.
I began to see a sacrificial nature begin to show up. It would come and go.....and God really held my heart during those times. It is really easy to let bitterness set in during these times of change. Sometimes you can feel like you are being used.
But God knew what He was doing....and eventually my respect for my husband began to grow.
Not that I have arrived.....God is still working on me in this area.

About 6 months ago Keith began to pray that God would teach Him to love me as Christ loves the church. I was a bit skeptical about what that would look like at first. I mean Keith had already changed so much....not yet having arrived at perfection....but oh so much better.
One thing that did change was that I began to see him take a real interest in leading our family in a spiritual way. This is still something that I am getting used to.....because I felt for years that I was the leader in this area.
Just recently we have started getting up with each other in the morning so that we can pray together before we have our own separate devotions.
This is a story that has been almost 21 years in the making.

I am not sure why I am sharing this.....but God has a plan.
Satan thought he would win in the destroying of our marriage.....but he didn't.
Don't give up hope. Keep praying for your husband and marriage.
I have not "arrived".....I will keep praying for my marriage and my husband.
And for those of you have asked me to pray for you and your marriage....know that God and I talked about you this morning.
Don't give up hope.

Mark 9:23 (New International Version)

²³" 'If you can'?" said Jesus. "Everything is possible for him who believes."

²⁴Immediately the boy's father exclaimed, "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!"