My husband and I just celebrated our 31st wedding anniversary. I am so proud of that! In our world today, I think it’s a huge accomplishment. I would just love to tell you that our marriage has followed a path lined with chocolate kisses and rose petals, but that would be a lie. We are just like anybody else. We have had struggles and hardships that have tested our union. Even though, we love each other deeply, it wasn’t until we realized we needed to put God first in our lives, that a divine calmness came over us. We are both saved, but we had spent much of our lives together letting everything else in the world get in the way of our service to the Lord.
We fell in love and got married at a very young age. We were blessed with three beautiful children by the time we had been married for eight years. Somehow, we survived those challenging years when I attended college and managed not to kill each other or become homeless. We have faced many things that I have seen other marriages fall apart over. Sometimes, regardless of how much you love one another, the tornado of life you find yourselves swept up in can destroy you. By the grace of God, we have been spared total destruction. Trust me, Satan did all he could to tear us up, and we made it easy for him by not putting God first in our lives.
I shouldn’t be amazed by this at all, but the way the Lord works, still kinda amazes me. A spiritual enlightenment began happening for both of us at pretty much the same time. We just happen to be facing some tough issues at the time as well. Amongst all the turmoil, one thing was perfectly clear, we wanted to serve the Lord no matter what. We both realized that we didn’t need to worry about how the bills would get paid, if we were going to lose the house we built, whether we loved our jobs, or what are grown kids were going to do with their lives. All the time we had been spending on the worries of our lives was just time wasted. It was time wasted because we should have spent that time serving God. He is the one in charge of our lives. For I know the plans I have for you”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“plans for your welfare, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. Jeremiah 29:11 Our worrying was a product of our lack of faith. We had forgotten that God takes care of us. In chapter 6 of Matthew it is most beautifully explained, 25 This is why I tell you: Don’t worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Isn’t life more than food and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the sky: They don’t sow or reap or gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you worth more than they? 27 Can any of you add a single cubit to his height[a] by worrying? 28 And why do you worry about clothes? Learn how the wildflowers of the field grow: they don’t labor or spin thread. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was adorned like one of these! 30 If that’s how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow, won’t He do much more for you—you of little faith?
We are so much more important to God than birds and flowers. Forgetting that is such a mistake. Reading this verse again recently, I had an epiphany about my life, my situation, and my struggle. The spirit came over me and filled me with this divine knowledge and I was able to let go. I don’t know the exact point when my husband reached this same place, but he did as well. I’m not trying to tell you that everything is perfect in our lives now. We will still worry and we are still facing struggles, but acknowledging that God is on the throne and we are here to serve Him has allowed us to have a whole new lease on life. We are focused on our walk with the Lord and ways to serve and worship Him. Come what may, we are both happier now, in our lives and with each other, than at any other time before because we are putting God first.
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