Prayers for a Marriage -- mine, yours, and others! #13

I got some really good news today.  On  FB today someone posted something that caught my eye!    And it was good.  I mean .....there has been a turning point -- someone's eyes have been opened.   A marriage is being restored......there is a wanted to make it work.  There is a fight -- a good fight for it! 

I did a praise dance.
I sang LOUDLY in my car.
I texted  someone to make sure I was not seeing a joke..... and she stated that there indeed has been a turning point.  I was so proud of her...she was not doing the posting -- he did.  She has learned to wait and 'shout' only when God prompts her!  

THEN I prayed.  And I asked a few women I love dearly to pray MORE....and differently -- as when a husband and wife make the choice NOT to  divorce and fight for their marriage, you know  for darn sure that satan will come back with vengeance.

So, I went digging in my archives of my blogs.  I wanted to find a blog  I had written about 'restoration'.  But  the Holy Spirit did not lead me to any.

"one notch above cautious"...... THAT was my frame of mind for a good year after the turning point in my marriage.  When any of my closest prayer partners asked me, "how are things going?"   I would just say, " I am believing, praying, and I feel one notch about cautious".  

The key thing for me was TRUST.

Trust....Paula Reinhart writes an awesome book: 

Trust hangs somewhere between knowing what your heart longs for and trying to dictate the shape or timing or outcome of your heart's desire.     
It lies in the willingness to accept the particulars of how and when and where God chooses to intervene.  It waits in the cool shade of surrender.   - Paula Reinhart

Paula Reinhart says that the root of trust comes from being grounded in the fact and knowledge that you are LOVED by God.

That no matter what, as long as I am loved by God..HE will lead me to the light in this cruel world.   Do I know that - that I am SO loved?

 HIS word says I was so loved before the foundation of the world.

Learning to trust my husband  was hard, but I trusted  him through my Lord.
I trust him now, with my heart!  

Learning to trust God, has been something I have been working on for YEARS but I can say this now -- I trust God with everything.  

Now, I reminded myself that I must
 trust God when it comes to this couple and their healing.

However, the 'harder' battle to work at this marriage and grow together in a new way may be even harder for them than filling out the divorce papers.

Both my man and I totally support and implore couples to get counsel.  Godly counsel and professional.   Marriages just don't end and people just don't wake up one day and decide to file for divorce.  The frustrations that caused a separation need to be dealt with.  I did blog before about turning points and trusting and in that blog -- the key element  or turning point for both my husband and I was when we BOTH decided to be obedient to God.

I had made that decision a littler sooner than he did, but that did not make it any easier.  God has to be the center and the One we look to to meet needs.


Paula says, "if we let ourselves be loved by God, our hands release their grips on the reins of our lives and we stop trying so hard to be the one with all the answers".

God has the answers.  I don't.


So God,  I pray, show each of them -- what to do next....may they slowly reconcile and do the necessary work to be healed, healthy, and whole as a couple and allow the restoration within their family -- cause I want to be able to 'send' couples to them.....they need to be your hands and feet as a testament of  YOUR grace, mercy and victory!!  

Paula says this too:

God is always good.  If life is like a deck of cards, then God is always the wild card.  He is not subject to our human efforts to influence outcomes, we are subject to HIS.  His story is the great story being told- and none of us  know exactly how our own story will read - only that it will end well!  This is why we trust, in the important matters, always feels like a risk and why it entails courage.  

God does not have to explain Himself to us, we worship a God who is mysterious - too mysterious to fit into our formulas.  It means God is not our best friend, our secret lover, or our alter ego...HE is our God.  It evens means that it is just as frightening as it is delightful to stand in HIs presence.  Our creative relationship with God is one in which we are, at the same time, both irresistibly drawn to HIm and humbled by the grandeur of his holiness. 

 So, God, I pray that this couple embraces their relationship with Your first and then show them what is next.  Lord, protect her heart and help her trust through YOU.  Lord, protect his heart and may godly counsel be embraced so that this marriage can get back to being WHAT you intended it to be.  And I pray that they will be a testimony of Your glory.  Lord, bless her for being obedient -- for seeking godly counsel, seeking your word and for being accountable to me -- and Lord, as she moves into "one notch above cautious"....may she just reach and dig deep into Your loving arms as your work to change his heart.  .