God loves you just the way you are, but He refuses to leave you that way. He wants you to be just like Jesus.
~Max Lucado
~Max Lucado
Every time I think, "Okay. I think I got it now," my Lord uncovers more of what I had hidden and that revealing requires that I must deal with it...more crying. I hear this phrase practically every where I turn: You have to love yourself before you can love others. You know, I really dislike that "love yourself" idea; it always sounds like conceit to me, but that is not what my Lord has been revealing to me. I discount myself, I do not allow myself to love myself, and therefore I do not fully accept that others love me either, so how could I really love them fully. And the real ouchie is if I have not really been loving others then I probably have not really been fully loving my Lord either, holding back from the Creator of all things, of me...how sad is that?
My Lord reminded me of something as I was preparing for church today. I used to have an alternative health-related home business in which I trained and consulted people. I also saw it as a ministry and I used to tell people that they did not have to work to be good enough for God, but only be willing to accept the grace and gifts God is willing and even trying to give to them. The irony of how that relates to my current state does not escape me. He is suggesting I take my own advice to stop resisting His love and just accept it, but I keep putting up roadblocks and He keeps making me tear them back down.
Another fragment off this issue, and I did not really want to admit it as I never like to confess to my vulnerabilities, is this past year has taken its toll on my the relationship between my husband and me. We went through real financial stress for over three years and that was less damaging to our relationship than the past year I think. I have felt that I cannot count on him because he is rarely home and I have extra chores to do, but when he is home I have been so burned out from his absence and homeschooling a reluctant (although she is improving) near-teen that I end wanting to be alone and letting him take charge. He would come home burned out from work, but happy with the change of pace, so he could enjoy cooking and do his chores. We would go to church together and do other things together, but we were really not being together most of the time.
After the fast, we hope to make arrangements to have the Princess stay with a friend for a night and the next day so that we can have some time to be romantic and make a good memory: a nice meal out and maybe a movie or a special place to go with holding hands, loving looks, and my husband again telling me that the reason he married me is because he could kiss me any time he wants to. I am so looking forward to it!
~ My Lord, thank you for the work You are doing within me and forgive me when I feel ungrateful. I know You are doing this for my good. Please bring my husband and I to a closer and more loving relationship than we have ever had. ~
