Relationships
Topics
- We needn't be offended by boundaries. As people get closer, especially in a
community (multiple relationships), boundaries do not go away. In fact, they become
more defined and, in some instances, might become formal as their walls and the
space they protect become ever smaller.
- Very few people, me not included, can express their hurts to those they love without at least some selfish defensiveness. The obvious result is that the other person receives it in the same way we gave it and our hurt is deepend in the rejection. It requires an unselfish humility and vulnerability to say it and hear it lovingly. A history of past hurts from doing it the wrong way is no justification for continuing to do so.
- How we react toward conflict greatly influences our perspective. If we see conflict as something to avoid, the inevitable conclusion is to avoid people or to control all those around us to maintain a superficial level. Conflict is not a battle where one side leaves victorious and justified and the other side leaves humiliated and isolated. When approached in that perspective, rarely is there a winner, anyway. Conflict is God's way of shaking up our perspective that continuously tries to settle down into a self-absorbed state. Conflict is only dangerous to those who fear having their perspective disrupted. This is where boundary issues usually take root. Of course, there are those that push their perspective on others and those that give up their perspective to them without discussion. Both are avoiding the fear of change. Conflict allows us to widen our perspective. Is the best relationships those in which we share the most in common? To say, 'There was no conflict till you showed up so you must be the cause of it' is to stay stuck in a simplistic, self-righteous, self-serving perspective that prevents the chance to appreciate the complexity of a situation and, therefore, the chance to fully love.
-It is important for small children that they grow up in a secure environment. It is also important that that security comes from their parents who project a rock solid God-like consistency. However, as children grow up, they outgrow that illusion of security. In today's world, that is happening at an ever younger age. It then becomes important that their parents become less God-like and become more real. If parents do not make this change, they lose credibility along with Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. It is just as important to teach children how to fail as it is how to succeed. It seems backward, but we gain respect when we show them our shortcomings openly. Exactly opposite of when they were little. 'You know son, I blew it today. My reaction to that situation was way off. I wish I would have done it this way.' If we can have the courage to fail in front of them, perhaps they will have the courage to fail in front of us. Practice what we preach. Maybe then, all of the dangerous coping mechanisms that are common among young people can be avoided. Do we hang onto the God-like mask too long to protect them or to protect us? They need us to teach them how to be real. How to really love. 'Love conquers all.'
- What gives man authority in the marriage? Love, as Christ loved the church (Ephesians 5:22-25). God has authority over us not because He created us but because He loved us by dying for us.
- It is not likely that when we get into close releations, that our issue(s) would rub up to their perfection. It will most always be issue to issue. This provides opportunity for excuses if we are proud. If we are humble, we can see that the diversity allows for them to have a clear view of our issues and that having a friend with that insight is a true gift. To have the attitude of King David who allowed an enemy to throw gravel and dust at him as he fled his palace. Even though the guy's attitude was wrong, David would not silence him.
- Why is there no marriage in heaven? Because it would limit us.
- We segregate relationships in our mind because we are tied to the physical within the constraints of time. God is not constrained by either and so looks at relationships as corporate yet individually intimate.
- Until we can see our relationships to others with the same sacredness as our relationship to God, we cannot do community.
- Trials expose the worst of relationships. Needy demands and expectations come to the surface. If the trial persists, the neediness becomes too much baggage to carry while dealing with the trial and we drop it. As a result, our love is purified although it might be so small as to declare the relationship loveless. But the relationship is a refelection of ourselves not the other person. It shows how little un-conditional love we have. Unconditional love is the only true love. Everything else is need. Unconditional love, by definition, cannot be stronger toward one person than another - it is universal. It is other-centered and cannot be offended.
- There is no vertical and horiziontal relationships. There is just love. When I love and care for others, I am caring and loving God as said in the Bible when God says we clothe and feed Him when we do that to others. This is true worship. When I pray and worship God, it is about how He has lovingly helped others, how we still need help. When I confess my sins and pray for others sins, I notice that sins are just blockages to community and when I praise God for victories, they usually come through community. Therefore, the line is blurred between vertical and horizontal relationship. God is love and we are with God whenever/however we participate in it. God is therefore corporate by nature and to relate to Him, we must be also. Our spirituality cannot be viewed individually because spirtuality is just a religious view for love. Love cannot exist in a vacuum. There is no one-on-one in the spirit world.
- 'Peter do you love me? Feed my sheep.' Caring for God's people is how He likes us to show love to Him.
- 'We love Him because He first loved us - corporate relationship not individual.
- If we are not willing to submit to each other, how can we say we are submnitted to God?
- Guide slowly. One point a week is fast. Never need to make two points together in counseling. Too fast a pace causes strife.
- The difference between confronting right or wrong is compassion.
- In order to get more truth from God, I need more relationship with Him or else it will turn to pride.
- 'Words that encourage are aimed not at another's layers with the intent of rearranging them, but rather at another's hidden fear with the intent of reducing it p71 Encouragement This is done by connecting them, through spiritual passion, to their true desires. This is true confrontation.
- I now realize that my neediness consists of, besides the need for female comfort, a need for acceptance. However, I am uncomfortable with acceptance from others. The acceptance I crave the most is from me. I very much like who I am when His Spirit flows through me. I despise the person I am the rest of the time - the dreaming, the neediness, the low IQ, the lack of common sense, and the weakness. Perhaps as I learn to love those that have these qualities, I can accept myself. I know that as long as I despise myself, I am not truly loving others. Help me Lord to be at peace with my shortcomings. Until I can love myself, I cannot accept love.
- Ever since Adam, men have been overwhelmed with women. So much so that, too often, we are willing to subdue our strength for fear of frightening the women off. Women learn at an early age who much fun it is to use their seductive powers to control this strength. We do the same to women. However, no one likes to be controlled completely and also, once a person has conquered the strength of another, the attraction vanishes.
- Adam denied his manhood in his neediness for the woman and so did not protect her. Jesus faced the struggle in Gethsemane and so protected us.
- When men express their manliness in a sacrificial way for the benefit of the weak - the woman, she finds it easier to trust and embrace that stength rather than fear it. When she tries to attack that strength, the man is tempted to use the strength selfishly for his own protection. This is the cycle that either draws the man and woman together as they both fulfill their roles in their own gender or pulls them apart as they depart from their gender identity. The path that the couple chooses is the responsibility of the man to express his strength and not be silent as Adam and not be deterred by societies rebuke of masculinity (or his wife's attempts at emasculation out of her fear) but do so for her benefit and the benefit of the family. He sets the lead.
- Without a devotion to God and the guidance by older men to that devotion through manhood, manhood itself becomes the goal rather than a tool for the good of society. It attacks the weak rather than protects them. Gangs are an obvious example because they feel their manhood in the fear they cause. It is the separation required to develop menhood. But without the example of Christ, it is not founded in love and becomes self-serving so men are stuck in the darkness of separation and begin to worship it rather than use it unselfishly for the good of others and thus return to society as a man without fear of being swallowed by the feminine nurture that we tried to escape as we passed from boyhood to manhood. This perversion can end up on a grander scale as fascism, dictatorships and hostile countries. It can start as materialism and moral relativism consisting of a self-centered existence of possessions and sex. Masculinity apart from christianity will always take this path as men begin to be taken over by the darkness that they, at first, try to conquer. Therefore, a socety without God will eventually go violent because the masculinity is not harnessed for it's good. p. 194 Church Impotent
- One major difference between male and female spirituality is that women see evil as a degredation of a moral code. Men see it more personally as a challenge from the Devil - a real being as Luther preached in the reformation. p153 Church Impotent
- True strength is not as threatening because it is not needy or demanding. Just as God can be all powerful and inviting.
- My definition of a strong woman is changing drastically. A submissive woman is stronger because she embraces the strength of her husband rather than be threatened by it. She identifies with his strength becasuse they are a team and his strength has just as much to do with her as him because she guards and cultivates it. Women want men to take a more active role in the family but the only way he can do that is to use his strength in is Patriarchal role. Women need to trust and encourage that authority. This reqires on equal amout of trust in God. Men will live up to the woman's expectations. Her lack of trust in his authroity emasculates him and produces a self fulfilled prophesy. Her trust in him by giving him the responsibility humbles him to seek God more earnestly.
- A woman's nurturing after a hard day of conquering s much better than after a hard day of failure. It is more of a celebration and my manhood stays in tact.
- Even though I am a very open person that freely shares my feelings and thoughts, no one on the planet knows me. (name) has no idea about my enthusiasm in a group environment. (name) has no idea that I love her unselfishly, platonically. (name)and the rest of the family have no idea of how You and I share thoughts together. Everyone is stuck in their own perspective. Help me Lord, as a man, to love and care outside of my own perspective. I do not know of anyone that has ever asked me who I am and desired to truly know me, not (name) or even (name). How many people have asked that of You? I do. I am asking nothing else. I deparately want some things, but I want to know You. Help me to be a man and reach beyond my pain of unmet needs that you have withheld. Beyond all hurts between us to see You clearly.
- The strength of a woman is in the support of her man. The two lose their identity as they bond to the work that God gives the man to do. That is why she takes on his name. Many women today think of it as demeaning and some will not change their names. The woman's strength is supporting the man's masculinity by rewarding him when he is strong, pointing it out when he is tired and destraught and not able to see it himself, and not coddling to his weakness. In other words, in her admiration and expectations. His accomplishments are a reflection of her and he gives her her due publicly often. She is used by God to cultivate His soul.
- It is a natural pleasure for man to want to conquer and subdue. It is pleasurable for him to seduce the woman into having sex. When controlling gets out of control, the man wants to control in order to make relationship safer and for self-gratification. This denies the beloved mystery of feminism which is threatening and therefore exciting. Out of control, this use of control is used with women that the man has not committed to protect and is then self-serving for self-gratification and self-esteem and so is no longer masculine. Women can also use control manpulatively by alowing the man to feel a false sense of control so that they canb control the man and the situation.
- Since (name) was so controlling by withholding her inner self from me, I felt some since of control and hope that I could get to her by seducing her. It felt good when she would give in. But in reality, she was manipulating me by making me feel that I was manipulating her. She never did open herself up to me. So I deal with the caos and uncertainty of life and love by seducing. She deals with the threat of control by playing along. A man and his wife cannot come together without some measure of control, manipulation, self gratitude and lust involved. It is caos all the way from Adam and Eve. The best we can do is to submit to God and to approach each other as much in the Spirit as possible, to give and not receive. Trust is developed as we see the spirituality in the other and then the caos and mystery are not so much a threat.
- The counseling image of a healthy relationship is two trees standing on their own very close. God wants me, however, to lean on Him. Not by making Him to be my primary need-meeter. Not as an escape as people interpret 'rest', but as a child who wants to learn to walk. You are not sitting still. Yokes are not made to rest in. Therefore, I do not need to resent it when people want to lean on me. My wife can lean on me. Because they are indirectly leaning on You since I am leaning on You. But they must lean on me, not as primary need-meeter but in order to help them learn to walk. Help me Lord to lean on You appropriately and have boundaries to have them lean on me appropriately. The key ingredient is love. I crave You and Your passion flows through me so that others crave You also, putting their need aside. And, in time, they lean on You directly so others can lean on them. I want to create, by Your passion, an army of cravers, not needy people.
- Can the Lord awaken my spirit before being with my wife? would it not make my fantasies of her more tempting, distracting and tormenting?
- Help me Lord to destroy the thinking that the woman is to provide me security. I am to provide her security. You are to provide me security. Only in this perspective can I truly enjoy sex without it controlling me.
- My battle with obsessing about my future wife is due to lack of faith. When I am at peace with God's promise that He is preparing her for me, His work goes back into priority. I feel as Moses who needs the human support. I am frightened at the prospect of doing God's will without the support of a spouse. This puts the support as first priority and focus on me. That would start the marriage off in codependency as it happened with (name) and (name) and leave the work on the back burner. I don't want to force God to put thorns in my marriage nest to get me on track. The work is too mportant. Also, the marriage is too important to sexualize it. God surely has a role for the marriage to plug in the work. In my neediness, the purpose of the marriage becomes all about meeting my needs. God is the center of the marriage just as He is the center of the work. When I can see this, both will be more fulfilling. They are both part of the whole, not to be separated or categorized. The marriage bed is a major spiritual battle arena. There will be more angels and demons gathered there than any other place. If I approach the bed with self gratification in mind, I have already lost the spiritual battle. If I approach it with fear and timidity, it is even worse. I want to dance naked with my wife on the front lines. To battle demons with laughter and horse play. To invite Your Spirit in love for each other and in so doing, expose the demons that torment each of us that we could not see when our emotions were not so heightened. Discovering more of Your character as Your Spirit makes it's overwhelming presence and discovering demons and tossing them out all with passionate playfulness. That's my kind of battle. Would it be so far-fetched to say that sexual intimacy could be used to heighten our discernment?
- When I try to find security in people, I project myself as a wounded bird. But I am too strong willed to be controlled. I attract people with intimacy issues that like to take care of wounded birds. This leads to me being rejected.
- One measure of my codependency is how negative my assumptions are about a person in the absence of data.
- A cruel tendency people have is that they see everyone else as a variation of themselves without taking the effort to see life through other's eyes.
- Have I rejected people as much as they have rejected me?
- A common cruelty we all do to one another is pushing buttons. Other people's weaknesses, issues and hangups are irritating to us because they control us forcing us to tiptoe around them in some specified manner in order to keep the person from blowing up or crying. So, since a full blown confrontation is too uncomfortable and we do not care about the person enough to help them by going through it, we prefer the ole' jab and hope the person gets the hint so we can relax around them. Unfortunately, by hurting someone in their sensitive spot, we only validate their issue. We are doing exactly what they fear. So the problem gets worse. Expecially when you consider that what looks like a little jab to us probably feels like a major blow to the person. Also, there is most certainly, others jabbing the poor fellow too. That can be overwhelming. We must care enough to help and not just try to make it better for ourselves.
- Dad and Mom's issues caused them to be isolated into loneliness that permeated the rest of the family even to the next generation of families. My fear and bitterness at seeing it in my parent's marriage and in my own intense loneliness through school, college, marriage and beyond to now has the reward of being right. I know that all those that have left me(parents, siblings, wife, fieancee, etc.) did so because they left the path that you have for them and I did not. But my bitterness created the very loneliness that I feared. When someone showed any signs of not being intensely intimate, I would stand in the path and push them away with bitterness and rebuke them for not joining me. In essense, blocking them from getting back on the path with me. Help me, Lord, instead to lovingly woe them to join me on Your journey so that Your journey, with me, looks inviting. Help me, Lord, to make Your path so inviting that even lost people will want to get saved so they can walk in it rather than the path looking critical and abusive as it does now.
- To the person receiving it, there may seem to be a fine line between holding someone accountable and holding a grudge. To the one giving it, they are miles apart. The one is for the one receiving it and the other is for the one giving it.
- Bitterness is for weak, self-centered people. When we are willing to ask God for His perspective on another person's actions, it disperses the bitterness as we see the issues and evil deception by the devil behind their actions.
- Our issues always get us exactly opposit of what we desire and are trying to get through them. Dat wanted respect, but Mom's issue with men made her give the opposite. Dad's low self esteem made him choose force to get it froom her and us. The result was that no one respected him, only feared him. This caused a growning dependence on force for him to feel secure. He never gotten what he wanted, even to this day.
- All issues (devil's deceptions) have one purpose - to destroy relationship - with people and with God because fellowship (love) is the devil's biggest fear.
- I might have written this before, but it is worth repeating - God makes context out of relationships not relationships out of context.
- A good marriage can fill in all of the gaps of love left when we were a small child or a bad marriage can reinforce them. Many times, the damage prevents us from receiving the love offered and it becomes self-fulfilled prophesy. We need God's Spirit to fill the gap. The neediness caused by man prevents me from seeing God as the solution rather than a person, such as a wife. The problem works against itself. I do not need Your love through miraculous manefestations in order to confirm Your love to me before others as the chrismatics. I just need Your love.
- Unless we are willing to be open with ourselves for the purpose of change by God's guidance, our relationships have a very shallow context. 'Confess your sins one for another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed.' James 5:15
- The motivation for healing must include being effective in helping others. Otherwise, my prayers become selfish whining.
- Ironically, I'm finding that when I am not needy and lonely and I am not looking around at women, they are more attracted to me.
- If we cannot feel the other person's pain, then we are very likely contributing to it.
- Zacharias 13:6 Jesus returns and His first words are, 'I received these wounds in the house of my friends'. Great opening statement. My sentiments exactly. Every christian that I know tries to convince me that their pain is worse than mine so that they can use and abuse me. They judge their pain based on how poorly they deal with it. That's a martyrdom complex and there is no one as dangerous.
- Help me Lord to get through the physical, through the emotional, and on to the spiritual. Not only in my relationship with You, but with life and others, even eventually with my wife.
- Our culture sees relationships resulting from context (purpose). However, relationships are not a commodity by which we attain other things such as status, etc. Although it is true that our circumstances do result in various relationships, the relationships should have priority over the circumstances. Relationships cause purpose, not the other way around. Relationships are one of the few things that we can gather on this earth that we can take with us to Heaven. I do not want someone to have a relationship with me in order to accomplish a purpose. I want someone to have a relationship with me because they value me and my company and as a result of coming into 'one accord' as the 120 did on the 50 days leading to Pentecost, a divine purpose is developed as God moves through the relationship. It is not so important who the relationship is with as much as how much unity is in the relationship. Isn't it enough to know that 'where two or more are gathered in my name, there I (God) will be in their midst'?
- Relationships are not a commodity by which we purchase other things. Relationships are valuable in and of themselves and are one of the few treasures that we get to gather here on Earth to take to Heaven.
- I need to connect, truly connect with others in order to connect with myself and with God. I have given up on 'christian fellowship' as being my main source of connecting. I need to connect with the world.
- Some have described it as a bubble and others as a negative aura about me. I am alone because of this negative aura and I have this negative aura because I am alone. I need divine interference to get me out of this. As God gives me wholeness, which includes love and the the discernment and the right brain and the music, I will not be alone.
- Thank You Lord for showing me that the ever increasing isolation with (name) was for my good, not a punishment. Everyone I know, (name),(name) the (names), the (names), (name) all thing that asking for a person to disclose their feelings in a relationship is unreasonable. That is unreasonable and absurd. It is not my job to fix these people. I tried to lead by example, but they just enjoy being in an intimate conversation without having to share. I am encouraging their self-centered attitudes. Also, I leave the conversations tired and still alone. This inability to open up is a major roadblock to a chirstian walk. Participating in these relationships just whittles away at my already small self esteem as I subject myself to rejection. I have had this all my life. I do not need any more.
- Boundary: If I receive communication from (name) (verbal or non-verbal) that she wants me to get closer, I will ask for verbal confirmation. This protects me and makes her aware of her communication. If the response is positive or negative, I will honor that request. If I get a 'stone face' (no response) the encounter ceases. (I walk away) 'Stone face' will no longer be allowed.
-The physical must be done in the context of connecting, not in order to connect. The physical does not connect. Spiritual is the only real connection. So what I am craving is spiritual.
- (name) and I recognize that the relationship is unfulfilling without a divine purpose. Self gratification, even with such neediness, has never been enough for us. But, to avoid the religious route, purpose is not about doing some ministry. It is always about connecting with God. The best way to connect with God is to connect with other people, including each other. I think both of us have confused discernment with connecting. I have felt that I could never fully connect with God until I had my discernment developed. (name) feels that she is already connected because she has full discernment. Discernment is only a measure of how low our voltage is and how much of the gift God has granted. I can connect fully without discernment when God directs conversations with others to obvious channels that I can relate to and share. (name) can be completely isolated from God and be getting stuff in all day. She cannot connect with God until she connects with people. Connecting, however, is not about sitting in a circle pondering our spiritual paths only. That would be religious and would be ignoring the wild side of God (the best part). Lord, help (name) and I learn to connect to each other by ourselves and with others in a well rounded way.
- I am able to maintain control (from getting too physical) when I am thinking about (name) rather than myself (my needs).
- The Lord finally broke the silence and began talking to me in my devotions. He set up the scenario of the children of Israel camping at the Jordon, trying to determine whether to cross. It was an invitation. The invitation that I have been seaking for 8 years. The invititation is for a short period. On the back side, it is bound by His clear word, through circumstances, that (name) was to start school in January and was not to stop until she finished her 2 year degree. that I took as the 40 years in the wilderness. On the front side, the period is bound by a doctor's appointment to determine if she has miraculously been cured from (disease). The results should be at about the middle of Nov. Yes, the same time we began our engagement. the requirement to cross was a willingness to expose ourselves, spiritually and emotionally to God and each other. Until we were willing to expose ourselves spiritually and emotionally, we have no business exposing ourselves physically. It would be morally wrong and perverted. No different than a one night stand. Without exposing ourselves and accepting the love from one another, we cannot have intimacy. We will begin a list, Lord willing, to put our faults in the open, on the altar. Of course, the first issue with me is my high voltage and the temper that goes with it. For (name), it is her counterpart to my temper, her shutting down. The Lord gave me another one for (name). that is that she would need to learn to trust my discernment like her own and submit to me as the spiritual leader of the home. I so appreciate the Lord giving me these things so that I could fulfill the role requrements of a husband. He saw fit to give me the Jordan analogy and invitation alone as well as this last issue with (name). For me, He asked that I no longer claim my 'sledge hammer' speech as part of my identity but as a sin that He can heal. He proved this by not sharing with (name) aout her indepent attitude problem and, instead, requiring me to tell her all of it. I felt God's guidance and explained it well and she was able to accept it. Thank You Lord! This process will allow us to cross over the Jordon the only way God will allow it - as one flesh. Would'nt it be something if we were to cross over and get married on the same day that we first came together, the crossing of the Red Sea, Nov 15?
- In order for God to be the center of our marriage, He must be the center of each of our lives separately.
- 'Notice the kind of people that God brings around you, and you will be humiliated once you realize that this is actually His way of revealing to you the kind of person you have been to Him. Now He says we should exhibit to those around us exactly what He has exhibited to us.' (reference foot washing) September 11 - The Utmost for His Highest - I have been surrounded all my life with self-centered people whose only interest in me is what they can get from me. Forgive me Lord.
- Help me Lord to remember that the only way for me and (name) to find out who we are is to discover who You are.
- The Lord told me through (name) that He has much greater climaxes for me than the ones I yearn for with (name). Help me Lord not to let the mourning get in the way of You showing me joy apart from our normal mode of comfort through heard times. Passion seems to be Your theme lately and I like that You have made me Passionate like You.
- Forgive me Lord for not fully offering You the wonderful gift of marriage that You have given me. When I get frustrated at the date, I know that I am not alligning my desires with Yours. I will accept the path You have for me. You are priority.
- Help me Lord to learn to take care of myself so I won't be so needy with Carol.
- Thank You Lord for perspective. If I can back off physically then You can put even more passion into our marriage. Sounds great.
- Help me Lord not to fail the two ays Adam did. Help me to protect my wife from evil bny prayer, encouragemtn, and not smothering her. Also, help me to not choose her over You.
- Forgive me Lord, that I pine away at the absence of (name) so much yet forget that the same situation that we find ourselves in is the same situation that You and I have always been in. Perhaps this is Your way of showing me how I need to keep the two relationships in the proper perspective. You are showing me how You have felt from the beginning. Help me Lord, to pine for You the way that I do for (name). Thank You for answered prayer. You truly love me more than I love You. Forgive me Lord for leaving You alone in the middle of the room. I offer myself to You to pine for You the way that I pine for (name). I can't bear to hurt with the same intensity as You, but I am willing to share in some of the bitter-sweet love together. If Your love can be so intense indirectly through (name), how intense are You? I thank You Lord for Your kind, gentle approach about Your unimaginable pain. Your mercy is as great as Your love. I crave Your scent on me as I do for (name)'s.
- Thank You Lord that I don't have to struggle to be pleasing to (name). You shine on me and she is moved. I am just clay, but Your light makes me sparkle. Help me to always keep my focus on You and let You deal with (name)'s feelings toward me.
- Lord, we do not come to dedicate this union to You. It is part of You. We accept Your conditions on it, not just now, but forever. You ask us to refrain while You work in others and in us. We do it gladly, even with great pain. We offer that pain to You as an offering of our love to You. I will not yank out of Your hand what You offer so freely and lovingly. Help us never to see this love as a diversion to You. This is not an attachment to Your work in us, it is Your work in us. You have claimed it from the beginning by putting Your mark on every part of it. It is not us and You, it is just all of us. You are always my true love. I do not see this love with (name) as a mistress on the side. The love I love (name) with is Your love. You put it there. Our union is holy ground. It is our church. When I stroke (name)'s unbelievably soft skin and carress her tender cheeks with kisses, I want You to feel every bit of it. I love and worship You as I love her. Our marriage bed is Your chapel. Help us always to leave this relationship in Your presence and not try to take from it to fill the empty voids in us caused by the pain that we have suffered. It is not a struggle to keep our relationship and Yours on the right balance and perspective. It is all You and Yours.The only dedication we offer is ourselves. Your love crushes my pride more than a thousand lashes. Help me Lord to never try to take (name) out of the chapel. with all Your love.
- Lord, help me to remember that relationships, whether with You or anyone else, is to be shared and accepted, not to be strived for.
- Being (name)'s husband is part of my identity that God has geiven me. Help me Lord to always keep it in that perspective.
- Thank You Lord for also confirming this love by so fully and miraculously answering my fleece test.
- I believe that God is enjoying this love affair even more than (name) and I. It gives Him yet another way to love us. I feel God's inspiration and pleasure when I show love to (name). All love is from God. Thank You Lord for Your confirmation so that this love that You have given us outshines any lack of confidence in my feelings.
- Just as Mary did at the request of Gabriel, I offer the most personal part of myself for Your service. Thank You for (name). I underestimated You. Your Grace has humbled me. I am not worthy of (name)'s love let alone Yours.
- Thank You Lord for the relationship with (name) that is based so much on You that whenever I start getting clingy and put the relationship above You, it deflates as I am no longer able to participate fully. It's a threesome. When You are at the center, it flourishes. Help us both to remember that.
- It seems that it is a natural tendency when establishing a relationship with someone to set up an image of that person, to sum them up in some oversimplified set of boundaries. We also do this with God. In order to be fully loving, I need to get out of my comfort zone and embrace the complexity of the individual or God. In order to be fully loving, I need to get out of my comfort zone and embrace the complexity of the individual or God. I need to try not to insult them by assuming how they think or feel. They are all as complex as I am.
- God set marriage up to represent our relationship to Him when He comes back for His bride at the last trump just as He used the sacrifice of lambs to represent the crucifixion. If marriage is only a picture, I can't imagine what the real thing will be like.
- As I have seen the dating seen in a new light - trivial small talk and false pretences - I have started to see all relationships the same way. As I ate alone at a restaurant, I heard all of the pathetic, trivial small talk around me at other tables and suddnely changed from lonely to grateful to be alone. But now I see that this viewpoint only frees me to reach out to others with a hand of true friendship rather than one of neediness.
- It seems as though part of the storm is of my own making. I have been thinking of my misery as mainly due to loneliness. But I look at the kind of guys that the ladies like and I don't want to be like them. Nearly all of the women seem to be obsessed with appearance and I have no interest in them. Perhaps some of my misery is in hanging on the the idea that a wife would cure it rather than the loneliness itself. Could I ever come to the place of fully accepting my loneliness as a blessing?
- I can forgive better when I am willing to look for the pain in another's life.
- If I cannot be satisfied with intimate moments with God, how can I fanticize that life would be satisfying if only I had a wife?
- Very few people, me not included, can express their hurts to those they love without at least some selfish defensiveness. The obvious result is that the other person receives it in the same way we gave it and our hurt is deepend in the rejection. It requires an unselfish humility and vulnerability to say it and hear it lovingly. A history of past hurts from doing it the wrong way is no justification for continuing to do so.
- How we react toward conflict greatly influences our perspective. If we see conflict as something to avoid, the inevitable conclusion is to avoid people or to control all those around us to maintain a superficial level. Conflict is not a battle where one side leaves victorious and justified and the other side leaves humiliated and isolated. When approached in that perspective, rarely is there a winner, anyway. Conflict is God's way of shaking up our perspective that continuously tries to settle down into a self-absorbed state. Conflict is only dangerous to those who fear having their perspective disrupted. This is where boundary issues usually take root. Of course, there are those that push their perspective on others and those that give up their perspective to them without discussion. Both are avoiding the fear of change. Conflict allows us to widen our perspective. Is the best relationships those in which we share the most in common? To say, 'There was no conflict till you showed up so you must be the cause of it' is to stay stuck in a simplistic, self-righteous, self-serving perspective that prevents the chance to appreciate the complexity of a situation and, therefore, the chance to fully love.
-It is important for small children that they grow up in a secure environment. It is also important that that security comes from their parents who project a rock solid God-like consistency. However, as children grow up, they outgrow that illusion of security. In today's world, that is happening at an ever younger age. It then becomes important that their parents become less God-like and become more real. If parents do not make this change, they lose credibility along with Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. It is just as important to teach children how to fail as it is how to succeed. It seems backward, but we gain respect when we show them our shortcomings openly. Exactly opposite of when they were little. 'You know son, I blew it today. My reaction to that situation was way off. I wish I would have done it this way.' If we can have the courage to fail in front of them, perhaps they will have the courage to fail in front of us. Practice what we preach. Maybe then, all of the dangerous coping mechanisms that are common among young people can be avoided. Do we hang onto the God-like mask too long to protect them or to protect us? They need us to teach them how to be real. How to really love. 'Love conquers all.'
- What gives man authority in the marriage? Love, as Christ loved the church (Ephesians 5:22-25). God has authority over us not because He created us but because He loved us by dying for us.
- It is not likely that when we get into close releations, that our issue(s) would rub up to their perfection. It will most always be issue to issue. This provides opportunity for excuses if we are proud. If we are humble, we can see that the diversity allows for them to have a clear view of our issues and that having a friend with that insight is a true gift. To have the attitude of King David who allowed an enemy to throw gravel and dust at him as he fled his palace. Even though the guy's attitude was wrong, David would not silence him.
- Why is there no marriage in heaven? Because it would limit us.
- We segregate relationships in our mind because we are tied to the physical within the constraints of time. God is not constrained by either and so looks at relationships as corporate yet individually intimate.
- Until we can see our relationships to others with the same sacredness as our relationship to God, we cannot do community.
- Trials expose the worst of relationships. Needy demands and expectations come to the surface. If the trial persists, the neediness becomes too much baggage to carry while dealing with the trial and we drop it. As a result, our love is purified although it might be so small as to declare the relationship loveless. But the relationship is a refelection of ourselves not the other person. It shows how little un-conditional love we have. Unconditional love is the only true love. Everything else is need. Unconditional love, by definition, cannot be stronger toward one person than another - it is universal. It is other-centered and cannot be offended.
- There is no vertical and horiziontal relationships. There is just love. When I love and care for others, I am caring and loving God as said in the Bible when God says we clothe and feed Him when we do that to others. This is true worship. When I pray and worship God, it is about how He has lovingly helped others, how we still need help. When I confess my sins and pray for others sins, I notice that sins are just blockages to community and when I praise God for victories, they usually come through community. Therefore, the line is blurred between vertical and horizontal relationship. God is love and we are with God whenever/however we participate in it. God is therefore corporate by nature and to relate to Him, we must be also. Our spirituality cannot be viewed individually because spirtuality is just a religious view for love. Love cannot exist in a vacuum. There is no one-on-one in the spirit world.
- 'Peter do you love me? Feed my sheep.' Caring for God's people is how He likes us to show love to Him.
- 'We love Him because He first loved us - corporate relationship not individual.
- If we are not willing to submit to each other, how can we say we are submnitted to God?
- Guide slowly. One point a week is fast. Never need to make two points together in counseling. Too fast a pace causes strife.
- The difference between confronting right or wrong is compassion.
- In order to get more truth from God, I need more relationship with Him or else it will turn to pride.
- 'Words that encourage are aimed not at another's layers with the intent of rearranging them, but rather at another's hidden fear with the intent of reducing it p71 Encouragement This is done by connecting them, through spiritual passion, to their true desires. This is true confrontation.
- I now realize that my neediness consists of, besides the need for female comfort, a need for acceptance. However, I am uncomfortable with acceptance from others. The acceptance I crave the most is from me. I very much like who I am when His Spirit flows through me. I despise the person I am the rest of the time - the dreaming, the neediness, the low IQ, the lack of common sense, and the weakness. Perhaps as I learn to love those that have these qualities, I can accept myself. I know that as long as I despise myself, I am not truly loving others. Help me Lord to be at peace with my shortcomings. Until I can love myself, I cannot accept love.
- Ever since Adam, men have been overwhelmed with women. So much so that, too often, we are willing to subdue our strength for fear of frightening the women off. Women learn at an early age who much fun it is to use their seductive powers to control this strength. We do the same to women. However, no one likes to be controlled completely and also, once a person has conquered the strength of another, the attraction vanishes.
- Adam denied his manhood in his neediness for the woman and so did not protect her. Jesus faced the struggle in Gethsemane and so protected us.
- When men express their manliness in a sacrificial way for the benefit of the weak - the woman, she finds it easier to trust and embrace that stength rather than fear it. When she tries to attack that strength, the man is tempted to use the strength selfishly for his own protection. This is the cycle that either draws the man and woman together as they both fulfill their roles in their own gender or pulls them apart as they depart from their gender identity. The path that the couple chooses is the responsibility of the man to express his strength and not be silent as Adam and not be deterred by societies rebuke of masculinity (or his wife's attempts at emasculation out of her fear) but do so for her benefit and the benefit of the family. He sets the lead.
- Without a devotion to God and the guidance by older men to that devotion through manhood, manhood itself becomes the goal rather than a tool for the good of society. It attacks the weak rather than protects them. Gangs are an obvious example because they feel their manhood in the fear they cause. It is the separation required to develop menhood. But without the example of Christ, it is not founded in love and becomes self-serving so men are stuck in the darkness of separation and begin to worship it rather than use it unselfishly for the good of others and thus return to society as a man without fear of being swallowed by the feminine nurture that we tried to escape as we passed from boyhood to manhood. This perversion can end up on a grander scale as fascism, dictatorships and hostile countries. It can start as materialism and moral relativism consisting of a self-centered existence of possessions and sex. Masculinity apart from christianity will always take this path as men begin to be taken over by the darkness that they, at first, try to conquer. Therefore, a socety without God will eventually go violent because the masculinity is not harnessed for it's good. p. 194 Church Impotent
- One major difference between male and female spirituality is that women see evil as a degredation of a moral code. Men see it more personally as a challenge from the Devil - a real being as Luther preached in the reformation. p153 Church Impotent
- True strength is not as threatening because it is not needy or demanding. Just as God can be all powerful and inviting.
- My definition of a strong woman is changing drastically. A submissive woman is stronger because she embraces the strength of her husband rather than be threatened by it. She identifies with his strength becasuse they are a team and his strength has just as much to do with her as him because she guards and cultivates it. Women want men to take a more active role in the family but the only way he can do that is to use his strength in is Patriarchal role. Women need to trust and encourage that authority. This reqires on equal amout of trust in God. Men will live up to the woman's expectations. Her lack of trust in his authroity emasculates him and produces a self fulfilled prophesy. Her trust in him by giving him the responsibility humbles him to seek God more earnestly.
- A woman's nurturing after a hard day of conquering s much better than after a hard day of failure. It is more of a celebration and my manhood stays in tact.
- Even though I am a very open person that freely shares my feelings and thoughts, no one on the planet knows me. (name) has no idea about my enthusiasm in a group environment. (name) has no idea that I love her unselfishly, platonically. (name)and the rest of the family have no idea of how You and I share thoughts together. Everyone is stuck in their own perspective. Help me Lord, as a man, to love and care outside of my own perspective. I do not know of anyone that has ever asked me who I am and desired to truly know me, not (name) or even (name). How many people have asked that of You? I do. I am asking nothing else. I deparately want some things, but I want to know You. Help me to be a man and reach beyond my pain of unmet needs that you have withheld. Beyond all hurts between us to see You clearly.
- The strength of a woman is in the support of her man. The two lose their identity as they bond to the work that God gives the man to do. That is why she takes on his name. Many women today think of it as demeaning and some will not change their names. The woman's strength is supporting the man's masculinity by rewarding him when he is strong, pointing it out when he is tired and destraught and not able to see it himself, and not coddling to his weakness. In other words, in her admiration and expectations. His accomplishments are a reflection of her and he gives her her due publicly often. She is used by God to cultivate His soul.
- It is a natural pleasure for man to want to conquer and subdue. It is pleasurable for him to seduce the woman into having sex. When controlling gets out of control, the man wants to control in order to make relationship safer and for self-gratification. This denies the beloved mystery of feminism which is threatening and therefore exciting. Out of control, this use of control is used with women that the man has not committed to protect and is then self-serving for self-gratification and self-esteem and so is no longer masculine. Women can also use control manpulatively by alowing the man to feel a false sense of control so that they canb control the man and the situation.
- Since (name) was so controlling by withholding her inner self from me, I felt some since of control and hope that I could get to her by seducing her. It felt good when she would give in. But in reality, she was manipulating me by making me feel that I was manipulating her. She never did open herself up to me. So I deal with the caos and uncertainty of life and love by seducing. She deals with the threat of control by playing along. A man and his wife cannot come together without some measure of control, manipulation, self gratitude and lust involved. It is caos all the way from Adam and Eve. The best we can do is to submit to God and to approach each other as much in the Spirit as possible, to give and not receive. Trust is developed as we see the spirituality in the other and then the caos and mystery are not so much a threat.
- The counseling image of a healthy relationship is two trees standing on their own very close. God wants me, however, to lean on Him. Not by making Him to be my primary need-meeter. Not as an escape as people interpret 'rest', but as a child who wants to learn to walk. You are not sitting still. Yokes are not made to rest in. Therefore, I do not need to resent it when people want to lean on me. My wife can lean on me. Because they are indirectly leaning on You since I am leaning on You. But they must lean on me, not as primary need-meeter but in order to help them learn to walk. Help me Lord to lean on You appropriately and have boundaries to have them lean on me appropriately. The key ingredient is love. I crave You and Your passion flows through me so that others crave You also, putting their need aside. And, in time, they lean on You directly so others can lean on them. I want to create, by Your passion, an army of cravers, not needy people.
- Can the Lord awaken my spirit before being with my wife? would it not make my fantasies of her more tempting, distracting and tormenting?
- Help me Lord to destroy the thinking that the woman is to provide me security. I am to provide her security. You are to provide me security. Only in this perspective can I truly enjoy sex without it controlling me.
- My battle with obsessing about my future wife is due to lack of faith. When I am at peace with God's promise that He is preparing her for me, His work goes back into priority. I feel as Moses who needs the human support. I am frightened at the prospect of doing God's will without the support of a spouse. This puts the support as first priority and focus on me. That would start the marriage off in codependency as it happened with (name) and (name) and leave the work on the back burner. I don't want to force God to put thorns in my marriage nest to get me on track. The work is too mportant. Also, the marriage is too important to sexualize it. God surely has a role for the marriage to plug in the work. In my neediness, the purpose of the marriage becomes all about meeting my needs. God is the center of the marriage just as He is the center of the work. When I can see this, both will be more fulfilling. They are both part of the whole, not to be separated or categorized. The marriage bed is a major spiritual battle arena. There will be more angels and demons gathered there than any other place. If I approach the bed with self gratification in mind, I have already lost the spiritual battle. If I approach it with fear and timidity, it is even worse. I want to dance naked with my wife on the front lines. To battle demons with laughter and horse play. To invite Your Spirit in love for each other and in so doing, expose the demons that torment each of us that we could not see when our emotions were not so heightened. Discovering more of Your character as Your Spirit makes it's overwhelming presence and discovering demons and tossing them out all with passionate playfulness. That's my kind of battle. Would it be so far-fetched to say that sexual intimacy could be used to heighten our discernment?
- When I try to find security in people, I project myself as a wounded bird. But I am too strong willed to be controlled. I attract people with intimacy issues that like to take care of wounded birds. This leads to me being rejected.
- One measure of my codependency is how negative my assumptions are about a person in the absence of data.
- A cruel tendency people have is that they see everyone else as a variation of themselves without taking the effort to see life through other's eyes.
- Have I rejected people as much as they have rejected me?
- A common cruelty we all do to one another is pushing buttons. Other people's weaknesses, issues and hangups are irritating to us because they control us forcing us to tiptoe around them in some specified manner in order to keep the person from blowing up or crying. So, since a full blown confrontation is too uncomfortable and we do not care about the person enough to help them by going through it, we prefer the ole' jab and hope the person gets the hint so we can relax around them. Unfortunately, by hurting someone in their sensitive spot, we only validate their issue. We are doing exactly what they fear. So the problem gets worse. Expecially when you consider that what looks like a little jab to us probably feels like a major blow to the person. Also, there is most certainly, others jabbing the poor fellow too. That can be overwhelming. We must care enough to help and not just try to make it better for ourselves.
- Dad and Mom's issues caused them to be isolated into loneliness that permeated the rest of the family even to the next generation of families. My fear and bitterness at seeing it in my parent's marriage and in my own intense loneliness through school, college, marriage and beyond to now has the reward of being right. I know that all those that have left me(parents, siblings, wife, fieancee, etc.) did so because they left the path that you have for them and I did not. But my bitterness created the very loneliness that I feared. When someone showed any signs of not being intensely intimate, I would stand in the path and push them away with bitterness and rebuke them for not joining me. In essense, blocking them from getting back on the path with me. Help me, Lord, instead to lovingly woe them to join me on Your journey so that Your journey, with me, looks inviting. Help me, Lord, to make Your path so inviting that even lost people will want to get saved so they can walk in it rather than the path looking critical and abusive as it does now.
- To the person receiving it, there may seem to be a fine line between holding someone accountable and holding a grudge. To the one giving it, they are miles apart. The one is for the one receiving it and the other is for the one giving it.
- Bitterness is for weak, self-centered people. When we are willing to ask God for His perspective on another person's actions, it disperses the bitterness as we see the issues and evil deception by the devil behind their actions.
- Our issues always get us exactly opposit of what we desire and are trying to get through them. Dat wanted respect, but Mom's issue with men made her give the opposite. Dad's low self esteem made him choose force to get it froom her and us. The result was that no one respected him, only feared him. This caused a growning dependence on force for him to feel secure. He never gotten what he wanted, even to this day.
- All issues (devil's deceptions) have one purpose - to destroy relationship - with people and with God because fellowship (love) is the devil's biggest fear.
- I might have written this before, but it is worth repeating - God makes context out of relationships not relationships out of context.
- A good marriage can fill in all of the gaps of love left when we were a small child or a bad marriage can reinforce them. Many times, the damage prevents us from receiving the love offered and it becomes self-fulfilled prophesy. We need God's Spirit to fill the gap. The neediness caused by man prevents me from seeing God as the solution rather than a person, such as a wife. The problem works against itself. I do not need Your love through miraculous manefestations in order to confirm Your love to me before others as the chrismatics. I just need Your love.
- Unless we are willing to be open with ourselves for the purpose of change by God's guidance, our relationships have a very shallow context. 'Confess your sins one for another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed.' James 5:15
- The motivation for healing must include being effective in helping others. Otherwise, my prayers become selfish whining.
- Ironically, I'm finding that when I am not needy and lonely and I am not looking around at women, they are more attracted to me.
- If we cannot feel the other person's pain, then we are very likely contributing to it.
- Zacharias 13:6 Jesus returns and His first words are, 'I received these wounds in the house of my friends'. Great opening statement. My sentiments exactly. Every christian that I know tries to convince me that their pain is worse than mine so that they can use and abuse me. They judge their pain based on how poorly they deal with it. That's a martyrdom complex and there is no one as dangerous.
- Help me Lord to get through the physical, through the emotional, and on to the spiritual. Not only in my relationship with You, but with life and others, even eventually with my wife.
- Our culture sees relationships resulting from context (purpose). However, relationships are not a commodity by which we attain other things such as status, etc. Although it is true that our circumstances do result in various relationships, the relationships should have priority over the circumstances. Relationships cause purpose, not the other way around. Relationships are one of the few things that we can gather on this earth that we can take with us to Heaven. I do not want someone to have a relationship with me in order to accomplish a purpose. I want someone to have a relationship with me because they value me and my company and as a result of coming into 'one accord' as the 120 did on the 50 days leading to Pentecost, a divine purpose is developed as God moves through the relationship. It is not so important who the relationship is with as much as how much unity is in the relationship. Isn't it enough to know that 'where two or more are gathered in my name, there I (God) will be in their midst'?
- Relationships are not a commodity by which we purchase other things. Relationships are valuable in and of themselves and are one of the few treasures that we get to gather here on Earth to take to Heaven.
- I need to connect, truly connect with others in order to connect with myself and with God. I have given up on 'christian fellowship' as being my main source of connecting. I need to connect with the world.
- Some have described it as a bubble and others as a negative aura about me. I am alone because of this negative aura and I have this negative aura because I am alone. I need divine interference to get me out of this. As God gives me wholeness, which includes love and the the discernment and the right brain and the music, I will not be alone.
- Thank You Lord for showing me that the ever increasing isolation with (name) was for my good, not a punishment. Everyone I know, (name),(name) the (names), the (names), (name) all thing that asking for a person to disclose their feelings in a relationship is unreasonable. That is unreasonable and absurd. It is not my job to fix these people. I tried to lead by example, but they just enjoy being in an intimate conversation without having to share. I am encouraging their self-centered attitudes. Also, I leave the conversations tired and still alone. This inability to open up is a major roadblock to a chirstian walk. Participating in these relationships just whittles away at my already small self esteem as I subject myself to rejection. I have had this all my life. I do not need any more.
- Boundary: If I receive communication from (name) (verbal or non-verbal) that she wants me to get closer, I will ask for verbal confirmation. This protects me and makes her aware of her communication. If the response is positive or negative, I will honor that request. If I get a 'stone face' (no response) the encounter ceases. (I walk away) 'Stone face' will no longer be allowed.
-The physical must be done in the context of connecting, not in order to connect. The physical does not connect. Spiritual is the only real connection. So what I am craving is spiritual.
- (name) and I recognize that the relationship is unfulfilling without a divine purpose. Self gratification, even with such neediness, has never been enough for us. But, to avoid the religious route, purpose is not about doing some ministry. It is always about connecting with God. The best way to connect with God is to connect with other people, including each other. I think both of us have confused discernment with connecting. I have felt that I could never fully connect with God until I had my discernment developed. (name) feels that she is already connected because she has full discernment. Discernment is only a measure of how low our voltage is and how much of the gift God has granted. I can connect fully without discernment when God directs conversations with others to obvious channels that I can relate to and share. (name) can be completely isolated from God and be getting stuff in all day. She cannot connect with God until she connects with people. Connecting, however, is not about sitting in a circle pondering our spiritual paths only. That would be religious and would be ignoring the wild side of God (the best part). Lord, help (name) and I learn to connect to each other by ourselves and with others in a well rounded way.
- I am able to maintain control (from getting too physical) when I am thinking about (name) rather than myself (my needs).
- The Lord finally broke the silence and began talking to me in my devotions. He set up the scenario of the children of Israel camping at the Jordon, trying to determine whether to cross. It was an invitation. The invitation that I have been seaking for 8 years. The invititation is for a short period. On the back side, it is bound by His clear word, through circumstances, that (name) was to start school in January and was not to stop until she finished her 2 year degree. that I took as the 40 years in the wilderness. On the front side, the period is bound by a doctor's appointment to determine if she has miraculously been cured from (disease). The results should be at about the middle of Nov. Yes, the same time we began our engagement. the requirement to cross was a willingness to expose ourselves, spiritually and emotionally to God and each other. Until we were willing to expose ourselves spiritually and emotionally, we have no business exposing ourselves physically. It would be morally wrong and perverted. No different than a one night stand. Without exposing ourselves and accepting the love from one another, we cannot have intimacy. We will begin a list, Lord willing, to put our faults in the open, on the altar. Of course, the first issue with me is my high voltage and the temper that goes with it. For (name), it is her counterpart to my temper, her shutting down. The Lord gave me another one for (name). that is that she would need to learn to trust my discernment like her own and submit to me as the spiritual leader of the home. I so appreciate the Lord giving me these things so that I could fulfill the role requrements of a husband. He saw fit to give me the Jordan analogy and invitation alone as well as this last issue with (name). For me, He asked that I no longer claim my 'sledge hammer' speech as part of my identity but as a sin that He can heal. He proved this by not sharing with (name) aout her indepent attitude problem and, instead, requiring me to tell her all of it. I felt God's guidance and explained it well and she was able to accept it. Thank You Lord! This process will allow us to cross over the Jordon the only way God will allow it - as one flesh. Would'nt it be something if we were to cross over and get married on the same day that we first came together, the crossing of the Red Sea, Nov 15?
- In order for God to be the center of our marriage, He must be the center of each of our lives separately.
- 'Notice the kind of people that God brings around you, and you will be humiliated once you realize that this is actually His way of revealing to you the kind of person you have been to Him. Now He says we should exhibit to those around us exactly what He has exhibited to us.' (reference foot washing) September 11 - The Utmost for His Highest - I have been surrounded all my life with self-centered people whose only interest in me is what they can get from me. Forgive me Lord.
- Help me Lord to remember that the only way for me and (name) to find out who we are is to discover who You are.
- The Lord told me through (name) that He has much greater climaxes for me than the ones I yearn for with (name). Help me Lord not to let the mourning get in the way of You showing me joy apart from our normal mode of comfort through heard times. Passion seems to be Your theme lately and I like that You have made me Passionate like You.
- Forgive me Lord for not fully offering You the wonderful gift of marriage that You have given me. When I get frustrated at the date, I know that I am not alligning my desires with Yours. I will accept the path You have for me. You are priority.
- Help me Lord to learn to take care of myself so I won't be so needy with Carol.
- Thank You Lord for perspective. If I can back off physically then You can put even more passion into our marriage. Sounds great.
- Help me Lord not to fail the two ays Adam did. Help me to protect my wife from evil bny prayer, encouragemtn, and not smothering her. Also, help me to not choose her over You.
- Forgive me Lord, that I pine away at the absence of (name) so much yet forget that the same situation that we find ourselves in is the same situation that You and I have always been in. Perhaps this is Your way of showing me how I need to keep the two relationships in the proper perspective. You are showing me how You have felt from the beginning. Help me Lord, to pine for You the way that I do for (name). Thank You for answered prayer. You truly love me more than I love You. Forgive me Lord for leaving You alone in the middle of the room. I offer myself to You to pine for You the way that I pine for (name). I can't bear to hurt with the same intensity as You, but I am willing to share in some of the bitter-sweet love together. If Your love can be so intense indirectly through (name), how intense are You? I thank You Lord for Your kind, gentle approach about Your unimaginable pain. Your mercy is as great as Your love. I crave Your scent on me as I do for (name)'s.
- Thank You Lord that I don't have to struggle to be pleasing to (name). You shine on me and she is moved. I am just clay, but Your light makes me sparkle. Help me to always keep my focus on You and let You deal with (name)'s feelings toward me.
- Lord, we do not come to dedicate this union to You. It is part of You. We accept Your conditions on it, not just now, but forever. You ask us to refrain while You work in others and in us. We do it gladly, even with great pain. We offer that pain to You as an offering of our love to You. I will not yank out of Your hand what You offer so freely and lovingly. Help us never to see this love as a diversion to You. This is not an attachment to Your work in us, it is Your work in us. You have claimed it from the beginning by putting Your mark on every part of it. It is not us and You, it is just all of us. You are always my true love. I do not see this love with (name) as a mistress on the side. The love I love (name) with is Your love. You put it there. Our union is holy ground. It is our church. When I stroke (name)'s unbelievably soft skin and carress her tender cheeks with kisses, I want You to feel every bit of it. I love and worship You as I love her. Our marriage bed is Your chapel. Help us always to leave this relationship in Your presence and not try to take from it to fill the empty voids in us caused by the pain that we have suffered. It is not a struggle to keep our relationship and Yours on the right balance and perspective. It is all You and Yours.The only dedication we offer is ourselves. Your love crushes my pride more than a thousand lashes. Help me Lord to never try to take (name) out of the chapel. with all Your love.
- Lord, help me to remember that relationships, whether with You or anyone else, is to be shared and accepted, not to be strived for.
- Being (name)'s husband is part of my identity that God has geiven me. Help me Lord to always keep it in that perspective.
- Thank You Lord for also confirming this love by so fully and miraculously answering my fleece test.
- I believe that God is enjoying this love affair even more than (name) and I. It gives Him yet another way to love us. I feel God's inspiration and pleasure when I show love to (name). All love is from God. Thank You Lord for Your confirmation so that this love that You have given us outshines any lack of confidence in my feelings.
- Just as Mary did at the request of Gabriel, I offer the most personal part of myself for Your service. Thank You for (name). I underestimated You. Your Grace has humbled me. I am not worthy of (name)'s love let alone Yours.
- Thank You Lord for the relationship with (name) that is based so much on You that whenever I start getting clingy and put the relationship above You, it deflates as I am no longer able to participate fully. It's a threesome. When You are at the center, it flourishes. Help us both to remember that.
- It seems that it is a natural tendency when establishing a relationship with someone to set up an image of that person, to sum them up in some oversimplified set of boundaries. We also do this with God. In order to be fully loving, I need to get out of my comfort zone and embrace the complexity of the individual or God. In order to be fully loving, I need to get out of my comfort zone and embrace the complexity of the individual or God. I need to try not to insult them by assuming how they think or feel. They are all as complex as I am.
- God set marriage up to represent our relationship to Him when He comes back for His bride at the last trump just as He used the sacrifice of lambs to represent the crucifixion. If marriage is only a picture, I can't imagine what the real thing will be like.
- As I have seen the dating seen in a new light - trivial small talk and false pretences - I have started to see all relationships the same way. As I ate alone at a restaurant, I heard all of the pathetic, trivial small talk around me at other tables and suddnely changed from lonely to grateful to be alone. But now I see that this viewpoint only frees me to reach out to others with a hand of true friendship rather than one of neediness.
- It seems as though part of the storm is of my own making. I have been thinking of my misery as mainly due to loneliness. But I look at the kind of guys that the ladies like and I don't want to be like them. Nearly all of the women seem to be obsessed with appearance and I have no interest in them. Perhaps some of my misery is in hanging on the the idea that a wife would cure it rather than the loneliness itself. Could I ever come to the place of fully accepting my loneliness as a blessing?
- I can forgive better when I am willing to look for the pain in another's life.
- If I cannot be satisfied with intimate moments with God, how can I fanticize that life would be satisfying if only I had a wife?