Guest helpmelord777 Posted November 11, 2003 Share Posted November 11, 2003 Hello. I have been married 2 years to a woman who struggles very seriously with pride and anger. We met at our church and she professes to love the Lord, which I believe is growing suspect. We had a quarrel this weekend and as always, she doesn't want to talk about it but gives me the "cold shoulder" and cancalled our plans at a Christian party with friends. I was very bitter at this point and called, of all people, my mom, to return her call from earlier. My mom is wise, saved 25 years, and knew something was wrong and, in sin, I told her that my wife was acting out in the flesh again, and I thought she might be bi-polar because of her frequent moodiness to a serious degree. My wife overheard the entire chat with mom and packed her bags and didn't return until the next day 6pm after leaving the previous day at 4pm! I learned later from my Amex. card she was at a hotel! Now, she wants a divorce. It has been 3 days and she has done nothing but abuse my character in the house and says she is getting her own apartment. I have begged her for forgiveness, repented, and have sought fellowship with the Lord and have been forgiven by God but not by her. She says she doesn't really care about the "covenant she made with the Lord, AND THAT HE WILL FORGIVE HER LIKE ALL OTHER SINS AS WELL!!! At this point she has no regard for things of the Spirit at all! She will not reconcile with me. She is unwilling to come for counseling stating, "It didn't help in the past" I wonder if she really is saved in my heart from some of the behaviors previously she has shown. She hardly reads the Word, prays, or anything. She was raised a "Christian" and thinks that she's fine. She, in 2 years of marriage has admitted a few times only when she was wrong and in sin, and has come to me to ask forgiveness. My question is this: If she leaves me and goes back to her country in Europe and will not reconcile with me. According to 1 Cor 7:15 am I ok with the Lord? What if she divorces me for no good reason, am I going to be an adulterer if I re-marry? What happens to the person that wants to remained married but the other doesn't? There has been no abuse, no adultery, no biblical reason to divorce but she says she doesn't want to have to work and struggle on this the rest of her life. What will this do to a man, who teaches and dsires to be a Pastor one day? Help me! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Evangelist Dare Posted November 11, 2003 Share Posted November 11, 2003 My dear brother , i feel the pain and enxiety from your words....Be encouraged my brother, God is on your side..How do i know? because His word declares it...If God be for us, who can stand against us? Gracious Father i come to your throne of grace right now lifting up this brother and his problem. lord i ask that you begin to move right now on his behalf and on behalf of this marraige. i ask lord that you move on his wife and ask that you convict her heart about what she is doing. lord if she is not saved i ask that you open her eyes to the truth of your word and bring her to the knowledge of your saving grace...and if she is saved i ask that you bring her out of this backsliding lord. lord i ask that you bind right now every foul demonic spirit that has come against this marriage and that you cast them into the abyss never to return again...lord i ask that you just envelope this brother in your love and prescense and that you comfort his heart in all of this...that you strengthen him in the inner man lord.....father i ask that you just bless him and encourage his heart today father and have your will and your way in this all for its in Christ name i do pray amen and amen brother may i encourage you to read HEB. 3 PSA.34 PSA.71 ISA.40 MATT.6 PSA.46 PSA.23 PSA.42 PSA.43 Isa 41:10 Fear thou not; for I [am] with thee: be not dismayed; for I [am] thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness Isa 41:13 For I the LORD thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee. Is there ANYTHING TO HARD FOR THE LORD? ...Gen.18 No there isnt. thank you Jesus God bless you brother and i will continue to pray for you both.....much love in Christ , evang. dare Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
godrulz Posted November 11, 2003 Group: Diamond Member Followers: 1 Topic Count: 13 Topics Per Day: 0.00 Content Count: 885 Content Per Day: 0.11 Reputation: 8 Days Won: 0 Joined: 01/25/2003 Status: Offline Birthday: 02/19/1960 Share Posted November 11, 2003 Have you talked to your pastor or church leaders? A believer should not initiate divorce if there are no grounds. If your spouse wants to sever the relationship, you may not be able to prevent that. Free will can even override prayer (God will not coerce her to 'love' you and remain committed). Your marriage is worth fighting for. Some denominations will not allow you to be in pastoral leadership if you are divorced and remarried. I believe divorce is wrong and tragic. If it should happen, the Bible seems to assume one will remarry if there is no hope of reconciliation (other person remarries). God in his grace and mercy could raise you up to pastoral leadership in a denomination that does not exclude divorced leadership. The Gospels and Pauline teaching (I Cor. 7) on divorce and remarriage need to be exegeted carefully. May you have wisdom. May your spouse repent and obey Christ. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest LadyC Posted November 11, 2003 Share Posted November 11, 2003 i am divorced and remarried. i know exactly the struggle you are going through, since scripture takes such a firm stand on divorce. for many years i felt God would never bless me in a second marriage, and i remained unmarried for ten years. eventually i quit letting guilt control me. i had repented of the wrongs i had committed in my first marriage. i had also repented for having initiated and followed through with a divorce from my alcoholic, drug addicted, mentally and physically abusive husband. and ya know what? God not only forgave me, He remembered my sin no more! It was as though it had never happened. i wondered for a while, with two children, how could God possibly forget? well, it took me a long time to get to the place where i understood.... i am God's child... and my children are also God's children. yes, they have a physical father. but when abraham sent hagar and their son ishmael away, what did God say to hagar regarding the lack of a father for her son? He said to lift up the boy and take him by the hand, and He would make him into a great nation as well. and then scripture tells us "God was with the boy as he grew up". God took on the role of father to Ishmael when his own father was no longer in his life. Yes, God condemns divorce. But he also forgives divorce, and erases the entire event from memory. the only requirement is to repent. i'm curious as to how long you knew your wife before you married her? it sounds as though you didn't spend enough time getting to know her to realize that she was not suitable wife material. learn from that, so that you don't make the same mistake twice. just trust in God, he'll bring you His very best for your life as a wife next time, if you lean on God's judgement, and not you're own. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest helpmelord777 Posted November 11, 2003 Share Posted November 11, 2003 Thank you all for the caring and loving replies. Lady. Good discernment! We only knew each other 6 months! We met at church. Even now if the Lord has her stay with me and she repents and forgives, I am so wounded that she will throw this away so easily! It makes me feel like she really isn't in it "till death due us part" More like "till I am sick of it and want to split". The problem with me is I know God hs called me to Pastor a church. I have been teaching 2 years now at my church and feel called. I am also a Deacon so alot is at stake here. This could hurt the faith of others and shame the name of our Lord as well! The real difficulty is she is from another country, has no family here, is really homesick. I only met her 2 months after she came here to USA! I think she wants to sabotaged this so she can go home. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest LadyC Posted November 11, 2003 Share Posted November 11, 2003 helpme... you will NOT shame the name of the Lord. and your congregation will be understanding, if you are up front with them. speak with your senior pastor and ask if you can have a few moments at the pulpit to ask for prayer during all this mess. you'll find that you are blessed not only by God, but through the congregation as well. that's what the church body does, the members lift one another up in prayer and support. give them a chance, it could be a very healing experience Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
irishcowboy Posted November 12, 2003 Group: Royal Member Followers: 1 Topic Count: 127 Topics Per Day: 0.03 Content Count: 3,248 Content Per Day: 0.88 Reputation: 13 Days Won: 0 Joined: 03/23/2014 Status: Offline Share Posted November 12, 2003 you both are in need of assistance that you will not get from this board......sounds like both of you might have the Pride thing, all I seen was how she is doing things to you.... how that her sins would be forgiven.... what about the flip side of the coin? it takes two...... both are at fault. if you are worried about being a pastor, it is time to start ministering in your heart, seeking revival in the heart, then in the home, seeking the Face of the Lord. earnestly seeking His face.... God will give you the answer.... my advice, love her, for if you can not love her, as Christ loves us, then you can not love others..... if you will harbor bitterness or anger or saddness in your heart, there will be no room for any other, and even if you become a pastor, you will still have that...... GET RID OF IT, AND THE PRIDE AND THE CONCEIT....... we are all differant, and no one is perfect..... i found it was a waste of time to try and figure out where my marriage fell apart, for after 18 years, I could not, I searched and looked and studied what I did, and could not find the source of it, other then that I quit serving... whether or not she quit serving was not the issue at this point, I needed to find my errors, not hers. Thank You Lord for the Healing you provided.... when I went thru my divorce upto and thru it, I was bitter, angry and fault finding all the way thru, up until a short time before the end..... at which point I started seeing that it was not just her, but also me.... i refocused my attention on what I was or was not doing...... and found that it was not just one, but two........ it was not until i was going thru this that I recalled a dream a man had told me about, and now i knew the meaning of it..... basiclly about relationships.... here it is in first person.....::::: ***** I was being escorted thru a mansion, a glorious wonderous mansion.... and taken thru it room by room. we entered a dinning room, a banquet hall and it had tables upon tables of food, every thing imaginable. while there a group of people came in, their appearance was that of people starving, bloated, distended stomachs. their faces angry, bitterness could be seen thru out their entire being. looking even closer, i noticed that their arms were locked at the elbows, they could not bend them. as we continued the tour of this mansion, we came to another dinning hall, and it was much like the first, while there a group of people came in, and their appearance of being well fed, happy, singing, I looked at their arms and they also had their arms locked and also could not bend them. I asked my escort what the differance was between the two rooms, and i was told that the first one was hell, and the second was heaven.... how can that be I asked? with all that food how is it they starve? my escort said that they are so selve centered that they refuse to even think about feeding some one else, they only wish to serve them selves..... the second are servants, and by being a servant, they want to serve each other.....and that is the reason they are able to eat..... ***** a relationship is also like this, it is not a 50 / 50 thing, it has to be 100 / 100 give...... a person can not take love, it has to be offered, it has to be given... a person can not take respect, it has to be given, offered..... if neither person is a servant, then both will starve..... if both people are servants, then neither will starve.... if one is a servant, and the other is not, the person serving will soon starve for not being served, and once the servant starves, the servant weakens and then is unable to continue serving, and then the one being served will also starve for with out the servant serving, they are not being served...... something else i have found, is that it is ( marriage ) is not about me, it is not about us, it is about the Lord. and if one or both of us are not serving the Lord, how do we expect the Lord to take care of us????? if we are suppose to be servants of the Lord, and are not serving, then the Lord will not be blessing us as we want.... spend some time, ( not just a day or a few hours, but lots of time, until something happens ) in prayer and fasting... it may take a day, two days, three days, just go to prayer and stay there until something happens..... untill the Lord tells you what to do....... mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Linda Posted November 12, 2003 Group: Advanced Member Followers: 2 Topic Count: 2 Topics Per Day: 0.00 Content Count: 125 Content Per Day: 0.02 Reputation: 3 Days Won: 0 Joined: 03/01/2002 Status: Offline Birthday: 01/30/1958 Share Posted November 12, 2003 Women look for loyalty in a marriage. Talking to your mother on the phone about you suspecting that she might be bi-polar is far from showing loyalty to your wife. I hate to be so blunt:but that's how I feel much agape love Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Teri Posted November 12, 2003 Share Posted November 12, 2003 Wow helpmelord I know how hard this is. What I'm concerned with as I read this is your reasoning for your stress. You say you feel called to be a pastor and under your own roof you are living with a perhaps unsaved individual. Could you possibly get past your hurt and fear and see her as such? There is nothing you can do to stop her from leaving if she truly wants to, and if she is unsaved the real loss is not your not being able to be a pastor but her salvation that is at stake. Satan will use even the people we love the most to pull us from Gods will, and often times God will allow it to test and strengthen us. We all go through this in one way or the other and each time we are asked "WEll are you going to take the higher ground or are you going to get in their and just fault find." It can be extremely difficult not to point things out to our mates they are doing or not doing. As christians we hold the larger part of the responsibility in all these situations, and in each we need to find a way to understand that those other people are going through a serious spiritual attack. Satan goes after all marriages because they are the physical representation of the Body of Christ upon the earth. So trust me you are not alone. The very first thing I would suggest is to not engage in any verbal altercations about any of it. Fast, pray and get your mind off any and all consequences that you may suffer as a result of this, and keep praying until you can see her loss state of being. I have been through all of this more times than I want to count. Not just with my spouse but I have a huge family, some saved and some unsaved. I have five children, 28 neices and nephews, six sisters and their spouses and everyone of them have been used here and there by the enemy. I have been robbed, my car taken, horrible lies told to my mother about me. All manner of things and in my early walk I got in there and tried to fight with my mouth and I at times wanted vengence and I wanted results now. What I have learned and am continueing to learn is all the things they are doing is not the point. The point is am I in God's will every nano-second of it all and many times I'm not. I can say all kinds of christian things with my mouth, but what is the true intent of my heart. Is it self pity? No matter how I want to turn it and explain it that in itself makes me wrong. What I always have to come back to is create in me a clean heart oh Lord, and then I can see things a bit clearer. With the christian relatives I have the hardest time because I put expectations upon them that they are not living up to. I can remember a few times of actually stomping my foot at God when that still small voice said come on Teri step up to the higher ground. I have said God it isn't fair, why do I always have to be the strong one? Why can't you tell them to be the bigger person this time? And He says come up, you'll feel better once you get here. And you know what I always do, and I always give in to His authority because, well because He's God. In Yeshua's love Teri Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest helpmelord777 Posted November 12, 2003 Share Posted November 12, 2003 Mr&Mrs Parish, if you are worried about being a pastor, it is time to start ministering in your heart, seeking revival in the heart, then in the home, seeking the Face of the Lord. earnestly seeking His face.... God will give you the answer.... Please believe me I have! I'm not "worried about being a Pastor", I know I am called to the pastorate. I don't treat it as an idol. I have taught for 2 years and when we are struggling i always step down top heal our home. you both are in need of assistance that you will not get from this board......sounds like both of you might have the Pride thing, all I seen was how she is doing things to you.... how that her sins would be forgiven.... what about the flip side of the coin? it takes two...... both are at fault I guess I failed to mention in my post I have numerous times in the last few days begged the Lord to forgive me of my unloving heart towards her and what a failure I have been in this so far. But, believe me when I say this I have been to here over and over to ask her to forgive me, to pray with me, seek counseling all of which she is very unwilling. Of course it takes 2, but the dividing difference is that one wants to operate in the spirit and resolve this the other is turning there back on God. my advice, love her, for if you can not love her, as Christ loves us, then you can not love others..... if you will harbor bitterness or anger or saddness in your heart, there will be no room for any other, and even if you become a pastor, you will still have that...... GET RID OF IT, AND THE PRIDE AND THE CONCEIT....... I do love her, have shown it, have served her, have been there for her. I have no anger, bitterness, or conceit, I don't know why you said that. at which point I started seeing that it was not just her, but also me.... i refocused my attention on what I was or was not doing...... and found that it was not just one, but two........ Of course its 2! But one is wanting to work on it with the Lord's help the other is running away. I never blamed her for the fallout. The problem is her unwillingness to want to make it work is my concern. Linda Talking to your mother on the phone about you suspecting that she might be bi-polar is far from showing loyalty to your wife. I hate to be so blunt:but that's how I feel I appreciate that, but my mom knows people with the disorder and my wife shows signs of it and I needed help how to cope and what to do. I wasn't gossipping about her. I needed answers. My mom has been saved 25 years has been in ministry and gives incredible wisdom when needed. Yes it was a mistake but not enough to divorce me! How would you have handled it? Teri I thank you for a God inspired post! Yes you are right, I need to be concerned about her salvation first. I have failed in so many areas. It hurts me that after a few years, no abuse, adultery or anything she is packing up! I believe she wants to go home and this is a golden opportunity to villify me. She has major depression from being homesick and will not share her struggle with anyone for fear of looking weak. I HAVE PLEADED WITH HER TO COME FOR COUNSELING,my minister friend even intervened a few months ago and she refused to come into the church. She is very rebellious and stubborn and I really struggle tremendously with, yes, Mrs Irish, loving her like Christ loves the church, when she stands in my face and tells me Im worthless,a hypocrite, should never be a teacher and a big mistake! I have tried everything. She says the end of the month her apartment will be ready and she is moving out. I will wait before I try again to bring it to my pastor to see if she is really serious. I will pray, fast and the like. Thank you Teri, great post. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts