Towards the end of last year, I sensed what might be coming for us
this year and I warned my husband that we were entering a very rough time. I am
telling him now that it's going to get worse before it gets better.
He has lived a life of denial and avoidance. I'm not going to
sugar coat things now. This will be hard. The cold, hard truth is that he is having to rewire himself.
He is going to have to create new instincts, new habits, new patterns.
I've told him it's the equivalent of detoxing for a heroine addict. He IS detoxing. Not from the addiction, but from the person he's become because of it, and from the choices he would normally make and the instincts he has created for himself.
I look at his parents and his siblings and I see who he probably would have been without this variable. I see who that little boy might have grown into without the weight of sin and fear, and without the shadow of guilt and secrecy.
It is time to face it all. It is time to see the things inside of him that he doesn't like and purge them. It is time to enter that valley. The Valley of the Shadow of death.
But.
In the valley, He comforts me.
In the valley, He restoreth my soul.
As we face that we are entering perhaps the hardest time in our
lives, we can also find hope in knowing that we are not alone. By simply having a desire to
make better choices, we are already drawing nearer to grace. And to mercy.
By even making the smallest choice for better, we are granted
exponential blessings and strength from Heaven. Our reward is so much greater
than our effort. The currency of Heaven has a much higher exchange rate than we
can even comprehend.
I wrote this blog - to this point - this afternoon.
Tonight, he did something that he was terrified to do, but had prayed and fasted for help with, this very day, and it was wonderfully successful. It was the miracle of currency exchange I'd just written about, making itself manifest in our lives, in his choices.
Maybe I'll talk about that more later, but afterwards he said, "It's scary to think about making these changes in my life. I was so comfortable with my old choices." I told him he was scared of living that old life forever too. I also told him he's not allowed to look back for very long. He can look back only long enough to see how far he'd come, and then he had to face forward and pick up the plow again.
I wrote this blog - to this point - this afternoon.
Tonight, he did something that he was terrified to do, but had prayed and fasted for help with, this very day, and it was wonderfully successful. It was the miracle of currency exchange I'd just written about, making itself manifest in our lives, in his choices.
Maybe I'll talk about that more later, but afterwards he said, "It's scary to think about making these changes in my life. I was so comfortable with my old choices." I told him he was scared of living that old life forever too. I also told him he's not allowed to look back for very long. He can look back only long enough to see how far he'd come, and then he had to face forward and pick up the plow again.
"For no man, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God."
I weep in humble gratitude, that our Father loves us so, and showers tender mercy upon us in our weakness.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:
he leadeth me
beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths
of righteousness for
his name’s sake.
for thou art with me; thy rod and thy
staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence
of mine enemies:
thou anointest my
head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and
mercy shall follow me all the days of my life:
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