In August it will be 9 years that I married that crazy teenager who stole my heart in a country on the other side of the planet. We had what some people would call a jiffy lube wedding. Invitations were sent by email and 6 hours of premarital counciling was done in 1 weekend. My family came together and we got it done in the nine days we had. the preparations were some of the best memories i'll have of the whole 9 days.
Anyway in those six hours we had with pastor Chuck we learned a lot mostly about ourselves. At the end of the sessions he gave us a test and at the end of the test he was astounded. He told us that in 35 years of being a pastor he had never seen 2 people know each other so well. All of our answers had been exactly the same.
This brings me back to our healing process. There is a point when a marriage is put through a storm, whatever that storm may be, where love has to become a choice. A choice? You say. Yes a choice. There were many times where I would be bringing Robert pills or something to eat in bed and he would look at me and say "why haven't you left yet? I'm worthless why do you insist on staying." I would tell him "because God chose you for me, your stuck with me for life." I had made my choice before the anger began and as hard as it was I chose to love him. Were there times where I couldn't stand the thought of him? Yes. Did I become resentful for the pain he caused me?Yes. One thing that faith gave me was quiet pep talks with myself where I would be able to adjust my attitude and my heavenly father would give me peace of mind and spirit, so that I could go back in with a smile and truthfully say I love you. After he became bitter those pep talks became more frequent but I never realized how bad it had gotten until my bed rest with Jason.
Robert made his choice to love me during that fight. I accused him of mentally leaving me already. That he wasn't here. I asked him if we should just seperate and him not buy a returning ticket untill he was ready? He told me he was willing to fight. As I told you before he became my old Robert for the 4 weeks before he left. When he got back I gave him a lot of space to work on his relationship with God and my job to work on was to just shut up and listen which he would tell you is still hard. I tend to interrupt a lot so still working on that. I feel like there are things we had to relearn how to do. And there are still things that we used to do that we realize we need to enforce back into our relationship. It's crazy to think that the couple that knew each other so well almost nine years ago is still struggling with communication after 2 years of not communicating much. When I saw Robert start trying when He got back it made me want to try. It only took a couple months for people at church to notice that something was different. I was glad I wasn't the only ones hat noticed. I knew I was changing too maybe more smiles. But the biggest thing that I noticed by the time Jason was born was his willingness to pray again. The next spring Robert started working doing some handyman stuff. A lady in our church hired him to do some work. It started out with both of us painting her house. Then it was just him doing repairs. He ended up replacing 1300 square feet of her roof. He just kept working and slowly his confidence started building and I guess you can say his manness returned and with it his faith strengthened. I never thought that he would became the one with the attitude "don't worry the Lord will provide". That was my job. Lol when I got my nursing license and I could officially start looking for work he came to me and said we need to start praying about missions again. A dream we had long since flushed down the toilet was now being reborn in our hearts and not just mine but my husbands as well. What have we learned since Jason was born? More than we did in the 6 years prior to his birth. God is showing us what it's like to get on your knees together and in doing so get results. We have things that we are still working on and quite frankly we will be working us the rest of our lives. We have gone through a ton of small hurricanes since we stepped into the state of Md but with our faith now unwavering they don't seem as big as the one that consumed us for so long.
I am proud to say that God restored Robs health to probably about 85% of what he used to be but there are those things that were damaged beyond repair that need constant medication. His liver and blood pressure as well as the nerve pain and hand tremors have found their treatments so that Rob can live a normal life. I'm glad he gets to start a new job this week.
I don't know if you have gotten anything from my little series on us in the raw. I hope you have. Love is a choice! Not just a feeling. It doesn't have to be a spouse that you are feeling hopeless about, it could be a sibling or parent. As Christians it's not our job to give up it's our job to forgive and sometimes that maybe the most difficult thing ever. We're lucky though we're not alone. I love my husband and I respect him, I'm learning to be what God wants me to be and some days I'm more upset with myself at my stupidity than anything else. I have a big foot that likes to insert itself into my mouth quite often. Hahaha! I'm glad I have such a gracious God and a husband that knows I'm human. You have a right to choose so choose to pray first and let God guide you like He's guiding us. We may take a wrong turn but He knows how to get us back on the right path.
I love you Robert. If one person reads this and chooses to fight for their marriage like we did it's worth it, telling our story and having people share it.
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