And the Winner is....

The winner of the FREE copy of "Winning Him Without Words" is

Brooke!!! 

Congratluations - I will be sending you an email to get your address so I can send you your copy.  And thank you to everyone who entered. 
I love being able to give away books and will try to do more in the future.  I've read a few really good books recently that have helped me in my marriage journey.  I will be posting reviews of those books - and who knows, I may be able to give out some copies of them as well!  So stay tuned because God has been inspiring me in many ways regarding my marriage lately and given me the desire to share that inspiration, hope and wisdom with each of you.

I will soon be posting more on covenant marriage as well as other topics that can benefit any marriage, regardless of what stage of the journey you are in.  Check back soon. 

Also, if you did not make it over to SUM last week to see my post on The Power of a Three Stranded Cord in an Unequal Marriage last Monday I invite you to check it out. 

Unanswered Prayers - It's NOT about me! (or you!)

A friend of mine is doing a series about Unanswered Prayers.  On Friday she did a post called, It's NOT About Me! which I found very profound and convicting.  I recommend you check it out.  Even if your husband is a Believer I think there are some good nuggets in this post for you.  Things in your husband's life, his relationship with God, where you may feel tempted to put in your two cents at times.

I can't tell you how many times I've been in the same situation, how many times I've caught myself thinking about how much easier it would be on me if my husband would just submit to the Lord.  And each time, if I listened carefully I would hear the Lord saying "it's not about you, my dear!"

How true.  I need to remember that my husband's relationship with God is between him and God.  I am not part of that equation.  I'm called to love him and pray for him, period!

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!