Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things.

~Philippians 4:4-8

Sunday, November 16, 2008

God's Faithfulness

I realize I did not post yesterday, however Friday night after posting my daily Thankful Heart I came across a post I did a year ago based on an entry in my journal. You can read the post I'm referring to here on my Ang4him site, but I'll be reposting the most pertinent parts here. This has been on my mind all weekend, so I'm posting about it tonight - this is my Thankful Heart posting for this weekend.

First a bit of the backstory (or in this case the poststory, I guess). I've mentioned on my blogs recently that the past year has been both the best and the worst year for me, my marriage and my walk with God. My hubby and I have been through some rough times before, but this year has been the worst in my mind. It has been a very scary roller coaster ride. However, through it all God's been revealing His heart to me. I've come to better understand His love for me, and due to this I have changed and the way I treat my husband has changed. This blog in fact is a result of those changes (read here for my reasons for starting this blog).

I've been thankful in the past few months for what this year has brought and for the changes in myself, my husband and our marriage, as well as my deepening relationship with the Lord. I've been thankful that although it has been painful, God has given me beauty for my pain. Then Friday night I stumbled (I actually believe the Lord led me) to a post I did last year in November.

I had just recently found the Spiritually Unequal Marriage (SUM) blog and Dineen had done a post called The Most Dangerous Prayer, which spoke to me. After reading this post I wrote the following prayer in my journal and the Lord gave me the verses I have posted below.


My Prayer:

Father,
I am falling to my knees asking what I have always been afraid to ask in the past. Asking for the one thing that matters more to me than anything else aside from You. I'm completely surrendering my husband to You, trusting in You fully to take us both through whatever lies ahead. Lord, I am asking that you do whatever it takes to bring my beloved to saving knowledge of You, to a full relationship with You as his Lord and Savior.

After praying this - the Lord gave me these two verses:

Ephesian 3:16-19
I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you being rooted and established in love, may have power together with all the saints to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ and to know this love that surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Psalm 73:26
My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

I fully meant this when I prayed it but I had pushed it from my mind. I was thankful before finding this that God has used this past year to draw me closer to Him and to teach me how to be a better wife to my husband, but now I've realized that I actually prayed for exactly what happened over the past year. I may not have imagined it happening in the way it did, but I did pray for it and God was faithful and answered my prayers - in His Way and His Time. He is so faithful.

I know this journey is not over yet. God is still working on my husband, our marriage and most of all me. I find it such an encouragement to look back over this past year and realize that God was even more in control than I had ever originally thought. He has worked so many things together in my life to get me to where I am right now. We have further to go, but right now I'm exactly where He wants me to be and I'm thankful for that!

1 comment:

Dineen A. Miller said...

Ang, this is so beautiful. God is so good. And you've reminded me today to trust God not only with my hubby, but with my marriage too, even when things seem uncertain. Thank you!