When my husband and I got married we were fairly young. I was 22 and my husband was 21. Though we had known one another for a few years, we only dated for a few short months before getting engaged, and then another few months before saying “I DO”. Leading up to our wedding day we had many discussions about how we would handle conflict, support one another in hard times, and love one another even on the days we would wake up and decide we didn’t want to. We spent hours in pre-marital counseling and we discussed how we were going to do things different than both sets of our parents whose marriages had ended in divorce.
Communication
Today I Wept
I woke up this morning with no specific expectations of what my day would hold. I thought that my day would go about as any normal Sunday typically does. Church, lunch with family, rest in the afternoon, then church again in the evening. I was wrong, so wrong. Even with as few expectations as I had previously held, I could not have prepared myself for the way that my day would start.
Instead of waking and preparing breakfast for my family, I woke and was instantly reminded that we live in a world that is broken. I opened my phone per my usual morning routine, but this time was different. This time my heart sunk deep into my stomach and I wept. Uncontrollably, I wept for the loss of life at the hands of one individual. I wept and wept and wept for the 53 people who survived and are struggling to heal, both physically and mentally. I wept for the family members and friends of these 100+ victims of violence. Of outrageous, tragic, and unnecessary violence.
As the day has continued, my weeping has not stopped, both internally and externally. Many questions have raced through my mind, some of which I have no answers for. As a Christian, I can’t help but wonder what I can do right now. I can’t help but wonder if other Christians are also wondering what they can do right now. So while I definitely don’t have all the answers, there are a few things I feel the need to say.
To the friends and family members of those that lost their lives: I’m truly so sorry. I can not even for a second imagine the pain that you are feeling right now. I can try too, but reality is that I can’t understand it because it hasn’t happened to me. I’ve lost family members. I’ve lost friends. But not like this. Not in the same way that you did.
To those that survived: I’m truly so sorry. You didn’t deserve to be targeted. You didn’t deserve to be shot at or to witness the things that you had to witness. I can not even for a second imagine the pain that you are feeling right now. I can try too, but the reality is that I can’t understand it because it hasn’t happened to me. I’ve been hurt before. But not like this. Not in the same way you were.
To my Christian brothers and sisters: I know the questions you are wrestling with as they crossed my mind also. I see the burdens of “how can I help” in a few posts here and there. But mostly, I see silence. I get it. I do. It’s an awkward thing to know how to help when you don’t know what to say or what you can do. I don’t have the perfect answer to “what can we do?”. But I do have a few ideas of what we could refrain from doing.
The first thing that I think we have to do is step back and acknowledge the situation for what it was. This was a senseless act of terror towards a very specific group of people. It is not a coincidence that it “happened to be a gay bar”. According to reports, it was intentional, it was planned. These people were targeted. We have to acknowledge that. We can’t ignore the reality of what this situation is.
Second, let’s please step back and realize that due to what happened this morning, now is not the best time to publicly argue on Facebook about whether or not this lifestyle is correct. I understand whole heartedly the tension of speaking truth and not wavering on what the Bible says. Speak truth, yes, I understand that burden. But please, speak truth in love. I can only imagine that if Jesus were walking this earth right now, He would be the one in Orlando donating blood and hugging those who are broken. I can only imagine that he would be speaking truth IN LOVE in such a time as this. Love, always love.
Third, over the next couple of days and even weeks, there will be pastors who say that God did this. It’s God’s wrath because “he’s placing judgement on these individuals”. Please I beg you, please don’t say that to someone who is mourning right now! Comments like that are what makes people hate the church. Comments like that are not in love and they make God into something that He is not. If God did this, then how do you explain Sandy Hook to parents who lost children? If God did this, then how do you explain Columbine and Rachel Scott being shot when she was asked if she believed in Jesus? A man, one man did this. One man ruined probably thousands of lives by his actions. This was not an act of God, it is a tragedy. A terrible, terrible tragedy and act of terrorism.
As I still sit broken and confused, I have to remember that Romans tells us to “rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn”. Today, I mourn. To a community who is broken and hurting, even though we do not see eye to eye on all things, I want you to know you do not mourn alone.
The Prayer Gap in Our Marriage and What We are Doing to Improve It
I love my husband A LOT. As a matter of fact, I would say anyone that knew me when we first became friends would tell you that I loved him long before either of us realized it. I remember even in our friendship how easy it was to pray for him. I prayed for his spiritual walk. I prayed for his family. I prayed for his daily stresses and for his future. There might have even been a point when I transitioned to praying for our future, but shhh don’t tell him. We were still “just friends” when that started.
Early in our relationship, it was easy to pray for him. I prayed for wisdom and guidance as he chose a career. I prayed for him to be a strong leader that set healthy boundaries in his life. I prayed for him to be a great father and for strength to fight the personal battles he faced daily. I prayed for good mentors, healthy friendships, peace, and grace for himself when he failed.
Into our first year of marriage, it was still easy to pray for him. I prayed for discernment as he made big decisions. I prayed for comfort as he worked through grief. I prayed for truth and transparency with me in our relationship. As we learned we were pregnant, I prayed for a relationship with his daughter that would be honoring to Christ. I prayed for gentleness in parenting. I prayed for him to work through anything from his childhood that might affect him as a parent, as a father.
I don’t know exactly when, but I do know at some point it got a lot harder to pray for my husband. When I really sit and think about it, I can identify a few reasons that I stopped praying for him. They may not be valid, but they are reality. These things stood in the way of me being intentional in my prayer life. These things made it easy to forget or simply to just choose not to do it.
First, our schedules seemed to get really insane. We had a newborn at home. We were both working full time while being full time students. He was on a night shift, I was on a retail shift. It seemed as though we rarely saw one another. I was busy. He was busy. I was tired. He was tired. You know how it goes.
Second, sometimes I just didn’t know what to pray for. It seemed as though our conversations where we would sit and share our burdens became fewer and further between. Due to the fact that we had so little time together, it was easy to stop asking hard questions. It was easy to spend the little bit of time that we had together discussing the “necessary” parts of marriage; bills, childcare, our budget, weekend plans, etc. We stopped being intentional asking how we could pray for one another.
Third, to be completely honest, we both made some really stupid choices where we hurt one another. For me, I was bitter and angry. He had hurt me. He had disappointed me. I had a hardened heart that stood in the way of me pursuing the type of prayer life I should have had at all. Let alone for him, the one who caused that deeply rooted pain.
Well, this past week some things happened in our marriage that made me take a step back. It made me sit and think about where things possibly went wrong and what needs to be done to make it better. It was in this time that I found myself drawing close to the Lord and praying consistently for my husband. It was in that time it clicked and I went “duh, I can’t remember the last time I prayed like this for Josh”.
Rightfully so, that thought bothered me. I continued to think on this for a few days to determine a way to make prayer for him a priority. A priority when I’m busy, when I don’t know what to pray for, and even when I am angry and my heart is hard. I also considered the reality that I need him to pray for me and that we need to be praying for our daughter. After some thought, I broke out an old, unused white board and came up with some specifics. The original idea is still on that old ragged whiteboard hanging on the wall in our room. However, part of me thought to myself “How neat would it be to put it on paper so that as the weeks pass Josh and I can go back and see how some of those prayers have been answered?”
With that being said, here is the final product. What I love about it is that it can be changed to suit our needs during whatever season of life we are going through. I love that it’s basic. Yes, I could have spent more time making it “pretty” by adding color, flowers, and creative elements. But, I didn’t because basic is what works for us. I have to admit, I shared it with my husband (the old white board version) and he was actually excited to have found a way to bridge this gap in communication. I didn’t say anything to him, but I even saw him whip out his cell phone and snap a photo of the stuff I filled out. This means he doesn’t only like it, but he’s willing to use it. This means we’re back on track to a healthier prayer life for one another. That excites me.
If you find yourself or your marriage sitting in the silence like we did, find something. Do what works for you. Make it a priority to be in prayer for one another because without that, life comes along and sweeps us further and further apart.
Join us in being more intentional to bridge the gap in your own marriage. Find the PDF Version of our prayer chart Here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByLLaBXJlnz7MGg5U0RIR21NeFU/view?usp=sharing
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