... marriage advice to myself...

after having been single for about 5 1/2 years, I am preparing to get married again in 65 days..

ever since the unthinkable happened a week before Christmas 2009,
God has been using me to speak into my married girlfriend's lives..

I am not kidding myself.
I was as much responsible for the failure of my marriage.
I wasn't the one who gave up and left.
but I did contribute to it getting to the point where he did just that.

being unhappy, disappointed, lonely, rejected in your marriage is a difficult thing.
being tossed aside, a lifelong covenant broken, a family shattered into pieces..
that's a LOT HARDER

let me just say this:
I could have done without all the "not-supposed-to-be-moments" my girls and I have been encountering and struggling with since.
We all could have done without the consequences of the sin of separating what the Lord had put together..
it needed the "manufacturer's fixing" to heal all that was ripped apart...
( and the consequences remain anyways)

so... as I am contemplating my new marriage with my new husband,
apart from being so very, very thankful to God for bringing us together,

I am committed to this:
( relying on God for this, by His strength and grace )

I will always respect him
I will always put him first, ( right after God, but he is okay with this, since he does too :)
I will be his biggest cheerleader
I will be his most faithful supporter
I will be
patient
kind
not envy
not boast
not proud
not rude
not self seeking
not easily angered
I will
keep no record of wrong ( FORGIVE before the sun goes down )
not delight in evil
rejoice in the truth
always protect
always trust
always hope
always persevere.

I will pray each morning, ( and we are already praying together every morning and every night )
to be just that..
that godly wife that complements her husband,
submits to his leadership
standing by his side
trying ( again, by His strength... not mine )  to be the Proverbs 31 wife..

will we have issues and disagreements?
for sure.
what we will do with it is what is important...

we are praying that for all of our girls, five in total,
we could be showing them that marriage is something that can work
that when the Lord is in the middle of it all,
it is something that can last "until death do us part"....

He is all about restoring the years the locusts have eaten.
so I trust He will restore this for them, and for us.

Forget the former things;

    do not dwell on the past.

 See, I am doing a new thing!

    Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?

I am making a way in the wilderness

    and streams in the wasteland.

AMEN