After a night of broken up sleep last week, I tried to nap during the day while Silas was napping.  But every time I closed my eyes God kept putting these very clear, reoccurring messages in my thoughts.

“You were the problem too. Forgive yourself, forgive them. And release it.”

You see, I always have prayed for my marriage but lately (as in the last two months) I have been praying more fervently for it to THRIVE. I’ve been asking God to change ME and make me into the wife he has made me to be. And also to heal any brokenness in me so that I would have a healthy marriage. So as I lay there in bed, hearing these thoughts loud and clear, I started to witness my behavior from the past with more clarity then ever before.  I started to recognize my own behavior first instead of theirs.  I started to see how I talked about each individual situation and always made the other person the bad guy. But last week, it became very clear that I was the bad guy too.  Who I was then was a person that lived without Jesus and the Holy Spirit to guide me.  I lead with my own selfish ways and lashed out with a lot of hurtful actions to be vindictive and to protect myself in a very ungodly way.

Do you ever only see what has been done to you, instead of recognizing what you have done too?  Do you ever analyze who you are and if you are leading with yourself or with God?

I have to admit, up until now, I still led with myself when those old relationships would come up. My automatic reactions all came flooding back in when someone mentioned a blast from the past.  How could I ever heal if I kept going back to my old ways of thinking?  I was the same as the men I had in my life. They didn’t know better.  They didn’t know there was a better way.  Our responses were one in the same, selfish.  Love isn’t putting yourself first.  The biblical sense of love is putting others before you- serving each other and thinking of each other before you think of yourself.  But immaturity and a lack of God had those relationships in complete turmoil. It was complete disparity without God.  And complete disparity without God often looks like disrespect, verbal and sometimes physical abuse, too much alcohol, and sometimes drugs.  Without God, there is darkness. “But if we are living in light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other and Jesus, his son, cleanses us from all sin.” -1 John 1:7.  In each of those relationship we lacked fellowship with each other. We weren’t living in the light. The definition of fellowship is “pursuing a shared interest or aim.”  But when you are leading with your own interest and aim, you no longer are in fellowship. This is the exact opposite of love.

Earlier in this post I posed the question, How could I ever heal if I kept going back to my old ways of thinking?  This wasn’t fair to me but the more I thought about that question, the more I realized how unfair it was to my husband!  If you know me, you know I adore my husband.  I believe in my heart I got the best one out there for me.  So the last thing I want to do is take away anything from him that should rightfully be his and in this case that’s my whole heart.  And by still leaving room for these other men- though it is a negative space- it’s still space they are taking up in my heart that belongs to Neil. I HAD TO LET THIS GO.

To all the men I loved before,  I’m sorry I caused you to sin.  And heck, half the time even led you to it.  I was not a good person on many occasions and even though I made you believe it was all your fault- it wasn’t.  I hurt you. I made terrible mistakes that have probably left scars on your heart and I’m sorry.  I will no longer keep you in this place of offender and me the victim.  You were just as much the victim to the darkness as I.  I will no longer make you stay here in my heart as the terrible person I made you to be.  Actually, I have chosen to no longer have you in my heart at all.  You are free from me and all the harsh words and things from the past.  As am I.  I hope you fly.

To the man I love now–  you are the only romantic love taking up space in my heart now.  You are free to take it all.  I’m sorry I didn’t give it all to you. But now it’s yours.

1 Colassian 3:13- Make allowances for one another’s faults. Anyone who has offended you forgive them. Remember, God forgave you so you must forgive.”