Nana Holds-from Coffee Hour @ Chicklit Power
Coffee Hour @ Chicklit Power…
Oh, it’s so good to be having coffee with you as we return to Nana Holds, a true-life, transforming series that really does have an ending – well, sort of. I think it will be followed by Nana Prays, but anyway, I’m delighted you could join me today as we resume this series and hopefully wrap it up in the weeks ahead! Grab your coffee and let’s go refresh our memories of where we left off.
Our last coffee hour together in this series left you with a question: Have you ever felt awash with the emotions that tend to flood our hearts and minds and take over our whole being when you are disrespected by your husband, not listened to or validated by your husband? Well, that’s where we left off so now, having moved way beyond that, I must prayerfully consider how to resume this part of the series.
Obviously I was in the midst of what felt like the biggest and most difficult emotional tug-of-war, and with more than one rope. In fact, I think there was like a three-rope tug-of-war going on, three separate principles fighting to pull me from the fruits of His Spirit in me, pulling hard and zapping me of strength, pulling the plug on my joy and peace and as I literally watched it drain from me, my feet became unstable for my ground was shaking.
First there was the tug-of-war between flesh and Spirit. The old me kept popping up like that toy, Pop Goes the Weazel, tauntingly chiding me and the progress I’d made thus far, reminding me I could leave any time. Just walk away and be done with it. Christ in me kept my hands on the rope and my heart and mind stayed on the truths I’d learned and the revelations I’d received up to this point, reminding me of the covenant I had entered into with my husband all those years prior.
If truth is an unveiled reality, then that was the second rope in this vicious game of tug-of-war: on one side my unveiled reality wanted to be heard, loud and clear. I wanted my newly-learned truths to become his truths and I was resisting the urge to scream them at him and not cram them down his throat. He, on the other hand, viewed my desire to be heard and understood as a rope trying to control him, and like a horse with a bit in his mouth, he bucked and refused to have anything to do with my leading. As he should have! Maybe not in the way he did, but hindsight is 20/20 and the way I was trying to communicate my unveiled realities to him would have sent a man scurrying from any desire to face an unveiled reality.
The third rope twisted in this incredibly long and gut-wrenching tug-of-war was the need to be loved and accepted by my husband, my step-son and to maintain that very gift I had recently obtained from this precious little boy, B.
That reminds me of something that I need to share with you so let’s come back to the present for just a moment: For reasons I’m not at liberty to explain, I need to actually put some fiction in here but only as it relates to the names of a few of the main characters, so the one Nana Holds will now be named Johnny , and my step-son is now John. Looking back, I probably should have done that from the beginning!
As I look back on this tug-of-war, and I try to pick out what is now some of the most important things to share that truly transformed my life and hopefully will speak to yours, I’m thankful for the break we took, because time, combined with life lived based on truths learned does change things. Marriage is NOT all about happily ever after and we do our kids a great disservice by trying to portray that. God uses marriage to teach us about ourselves, and in the process, we get glimpses of happy, and revel in them, allowing them to cheer us on in the process.
Staying in my own lane and in my own car has saved me from many near-death emotional crashes as well as preserving my most important covenant of marriage. I’ve said this before: just because we feel a certain thing, or a certain way, especially as those feelings relate to or about others, doesn’t make it absolutely right.
My role as a lover of Christ is to use words that build up, not tear down. So in the weeks ahead as we wrap up this incredible journey and George and I begin a new one involving the same people, my prayer is that I do just that: lift those involved up, writing from my heart to yours.
Join me tomorrow for the continuation of Nana Holds,
Evinda
P.S.
Are you currently experiencing any relationship struggle or conflict?
Then you will want to tune in with Steve Atkinson, M.A. and me today at
1:00 Pacific time for our online radio show, How to Love Who You Love.
If you can’t join us at 1, no worries; just click on this link and
you’ll land in our space so you can download and listen at your
convenience! www.blogtalkradio.com/Chicklit-Power
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