The Power of a Praying Wife, Part 1

I heard so much about this book by Stormie Omartian in the days leading up to our wedding, and then in the days surrounding all the other weddings/bridal parties I attended this year. Each time I would make a mental note to pick this book up, since all the telling sources only raved about how this book saved their marriage, etc., however I only recently purchased and began reading it. Two chapters in, it has transformed my self-serving mind and heart to one that is soft and receptive to my loving husband's.

It's amazing how much I thought only of myself when it came time to pray for our new life together.

Dear God,

Please change Ben to what I want.... Please make him see/do what I want him to see/do.... Please convict him the way I feel he should be convicted....

And do all these things in my time,

Amen!

Maybe that example isn't a true-to-life example of my prior prayer life, but I bet it sounds extremely familiar to God. I was very self-centered, I only wanted God to change Ben, never once thinking it was me who needed the changing. (Chapter One.... first thing to hit home... and it was not easy!) I have learned how my unspoken words will move Ben further than any of my spoken (nagging) words ever will. I have learned that my unattainable expectations for him will be the first thing to bring us down, all because I have a fantasy idea of marriage that we will never be able to live up to. I was reminded that the Bible commands the man to love his wife, and the wife to respect her husband... and oh, how easy it is to lose her respect for her husband when all she dwells on are his negative characteristics. With loss of respect quickly follows loss of love; without that there is no more marriage.

I still struggle, of course, with my selfish prayers, thoughts, hopes, and wishes... however, so far I have learned to check myself more quickly when doing so. I have also gotten into the habit of just shutting up when my mind is screaming degrading responses, nagging comments, digging remarks. I have also grown just a little closer to my Lord, because I am becoming fully dependent on Him to fulfill our marriage, to answer my prayers, and to listen to my complaints. All the above I once looked to Ben to succeed at beforehand, thus causing angry temper tantrums and hurtful word-battles. Now I'm going to the creator, and it's way more beautiful an outcome.

More to come with future daily readings and insights....

scattered thoughts / tormented dreams

don't you hate it when you have hundreds of thoughts, hundreds of thousands of thoughts that spin thru your head day and night until you finally have a moment to get them out and on paper (or web) and then... POOF! they disappear! what was it that i was thinking about just last week for hours and days on end that i wanted to, HAD TO write a blog about....? the minute i finish this blog and step away from the easy access of internet, it will creep into my obsessive compulsive mind. i won't be able to get it off my mind until i sit down to journal about it, because only then does it vanish as though it was never there. hmmmm....

i had a realization about my father the other day.

my dad is the most hopeless romantic i have ever met. he claims he always has been - since adolescence. (this i knew; this was not the realization). of course i have never had the chance to witness his charisma and charm with the woman of his affections since she passed away when i was 6... but the stories he tells! my mother never had a chance, she was to fall for him come hell or high water. no woman (meek or strong) could withstand the beguiling endearment (or so it seemed by his side of the story) of the young patrick.

i grew up hoping for a man with similar characteristics as my father - his charm, his wit, his passion, and his romantic qualities. most boys/men fell vastly short of the high bar my dreams set for them, all because i was in constant audience to love stories or tears for heart-felt sorrow that my father continuously emanated. you see, my mother has now been deceased for 17 years... a lifetime to many... and yet she is all my father can think about it. she is his yesterday and today. she will be his tomorrow whether he likes it or not because he refuses to move on. growing up i thought "that was love." that was commitment at best! how perfect must my mother have been that my father - a handsome, smart, charismatic man (now in his mid-50s) cannot, will not get over. i grew up thinking his obsession was not unhealthy, but sorrowfully romantic. i grew up thinking their marriage would have withstood the test of time since it currently does...

then came my sudden, unbeknown realization that has slowly formed in my incogitative

thought... my mother was not as perfect as my father has let on. in fact the nancy he lies awake missing nightly is probably nothing like what my mother was once like. my father has had 17 painful years of missing his beloved. 17 years to dwell on memories and thoughts, and "what-ifs." my father has had 17 years to dream up this woman... this siren who steals him from his daily activities to break into tearful memories (some of which are probably long since fabricated, thus untrue). i bet the first few years of his lament was real. he probably dealt with continuous nightmares of the most simple memories. but he also probably started to remember moments incorrectly. his mind has most likely created false memories to help soften the pain of the horrid "what-ifs." how do i know this? his last memory of my mother is of her dying in his arms. he tells the story all the time and how he's glad he was there during her last moments here on earth, even though they were and will forever be the hardest moments he has ever experienced. however, my mother did not die in his arms. she passed away after briefly waking up from a week-long coma to find my aunt kaycia sitting by her bed. my dad was in my little sister's room taking care of her. my mother whispered softly "do you hear them? do you hear the music...? it's so beautiful...." and then slowly passed away unto our Heavenly Father's arms. my father was not with her. he hated himself for that every day for years and years - but instead of succumbing to the looming depression he felt dragged towards, his mind/heart healed itself by creating a new memory. a better one. we cannot and dare not correct this memory, the fight that springs forth from the mere mention of what really happened to my father is far less worth letting him keep his dominating thought.

my father's hopeless romanticism is no longer my hopes and dreams for my beloved, benji. i hope he never has to feel the pain and torment as my father does on a daily basis. i do not want him to love me as much as my father obsessively loves my mother. the idolatry in that is beyond expression - and the insanity behind that must feel like a living death every day to my father.