Devotions
When my grandmother died, there were Bibles found all over her house. There were study Bibles, King James Bibles, new Bibles, and old Bibles. Many were marked and written in, highlighted, and well worn. There were emery boards in some - emery boards were found all over her house, as I suppose they now are in mine as well. After her funeral, my mother wrote about the scriptures that were marked or highlighted in those Bibles that were still left open by her chair before she died."For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain...having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better" (Philip. 1:21-23). This was one of the scriptures she had highlighted, and one that she made mention of often. I know my grandmother prayed for me, and for my then-husband. I know she knew he (and I, then) did not live a Godly life. She never stopped loving me for this.
I've often longed to have the devotion to Christ that she has, and the kind of marriage-in-Christ she had with my grandfather. I was 7 when my grandfather died, but I feel like I know him well from all I heard about him over the years. When I was married before, my heart ached for someone who would worship and pray with me, and be my spiritual partner. While that never came, the storms did, and we chose to end our marriage of 9 years. Despite our relief and desire for a fresh start, it was a painful experience. As I attended my gradmother's funeral, the paperwork was at the lawyer's office and my then-husband sat by my side. He helped carry her casket, and I was grateful he was there. But I longed for someone to pray with me and to talk with me about her love of Jesus and how she shared His love with everyone.
Before I married my husband last year, we tried to do everything right that we knew how to do. We talked through as many different issues as we could. We debated, discussed, prodded, and quetionned. We talked about our relationships with God, our preferences for styles of worship and doctrine. And we prayed together - over the phone, and in person. We prayed during the wedding ceremony, and knelt at the alter while the minister sang the Lord's Prayer. We were sure we were set spiritually, but we were wrong.
After we moved in together in Lexington, KY, things grew tense from time to time. Space and privacy and time and work became issues larger than life. There were nights one or both of us climbed into bed miffed and fell asleep. There were mornings one or both of us went off to work miffed, and failed to invite the Lord into our day. Worse, we failed to invite the Lord into our relationship. We visited several churches, but we did not go every Sunday. Sundays became filled with "getting-ready-for-Monday" work, and Sunday night frequently bled into Monday morning as my husband pulled long-nighters (now too old for all-nighters). I felt less like a newlywed and more like an old hag.
Around the new year, I saw an ad for a church service that was a continuation on a theme of renewal. It sounded interesting, and I committed to go. My husband and I were not completely happy with each other that morning, but we went anyway. And we liked it. The next Sunday we went to Bible study before the service, and liked it too. The group was reading Optimizing Your Marriage. "Ouch", I thought. Did I really want to optimize this new mess we were in? Didn't I have other things to work on? Wasn't newlywed bliss supposed to come before the work part? I swallowed hard. As the class started, th class members went around the room telling about their "highs" and "lows" from the week. My mind raced to find a high. I wondered what my husband who was sitting to my left would say. He opted to pass. "Oh, great", I thought. So, I'm sure I said something close-to-appropriate and class began. But through all of the things I didn't agree with in the text, several Biblical truth kept emerging. I did not like the pressure God was putting on my heart. I wasn't sure how my husband would respond. He had rejected the notion of the male head of the family being the "spiritual leader". He was a marital separate, and relational immeshment was not his forte.
I decided to compromise with God. My husband and I had fallen away from a routine prayer life for a plethora of reasons. I went on ebay with a sigh and a short prayer. "OK, God, lead me to a book." I think the prayer in my head was a bit sarcastic. But I found a book called "Night Lights" by James and Shirley Dobson. It looked alright and the description said it could be done in just a couple of minutes together each night before bed. I could handle a couple of minutes! The book arrived several days later and I introduced it to my husband. I think he said something profound like, "Cool". That Sunday night we started our reading. It wasn't bad, but it felt a little weird reading about God in bed, then turning off the light and thinking, "That was a real mood killer." But we did it every night. We even took the book with us when we went to Atlanta for my conference, and even read from it in the hotel room after our trip to the E.R. We've even read it when we didn't feel like it. It has started to feel really nice. Now, if there is something on TV late at night that we want to watch, we'll do our devotions earlier in the night. We've rad about true love, serving each other, and prayer.
In the weeks ahead, we are going to work on our prayer life together. We honestly feel a bit awkward when it comes to praying together, and I'm ashamed to admit that. My husband wonders if the weird feeling comes from feeling like you are talking to your partner at the same time you are talking to God. I wonder if the awkwardness comes from too much concern for self and feeling like an idiot. We wonder what we are going to pray about, even though there is a pile of things that God needs to know about.
We've agreed to start a prayer list, or a prayer journal. We are going to write down things that we want or need to bring before the Lord in prayer, and we are going to try to pray about them - together. And we are going to pray for each other more, and in more meaningful ways. FOr example, I need to work on praying for my husand in deeper ways that simply, "God, please be with my husband today as he's at work." God says "Ask and ye shall recieve, seek and ye shall find, knock and the door shall be open unto you". But I really haven't been asking for anything meaningful, or seeking, or knocking much at God's door. Yet he keeps on blessing me.
God, thank you for blessing me, even though I haven't been praying without ceasing. Please guide us in our devotions and in our prayer life so we might have a marriage pleasing to you.
posted by No Longer In Crisis @ 3/25/2005 04:01:00 PM
<< Home