Lysa TerKeurst | 2012 February

Wednesday, February 29

3 Marriage Lies

I know the heart-ripping hopelessness of a relationship unraveling. The coexisting. The silent tension. The tears.

The first five years of my marriage were really hard. Two sinners coming together with loads of baggage, unrealistic expectations, and extremely strong wills.

There was yelling. There was the silent treatment. There were doors slammed. There was bitterness. There was a contemplation of calling it quits. There was this sinking feeling that things would never, could never get better. That’s when I first started hearing the 3 lies:

I married the wrong person.
He should make me feel loved.
There is someone else better out there.

I believed those lies. They started to weave a tangled web of confusion in my heart. All I could see was all that was wrong with him. I became so blind to his good. I became so blind to my not so good.

And I wasn’t shy about sharing my frustrations about the whole situation with my friends.

Many nodded their head in agreement with me, making me feel ever so justified. But one didn’t. She said, “I know what you think. But what does the Bible say?”

Ugghhhh. The Bible? I didn’t think her “religious suggestion” would help me. But over the next couple of days, I kept hearing her question about looking into the Bible replaying over and over in my mind.

Reluctantly and with great skepticism, I tried it one afternoon. I turned to a couple of verses she suggested including 1 Corinthians 13. As I read the list of everything love is supposed to be, I got discouraged. My love didn’t feel kind, patient, or persevering. The love in my marriage felt broken.

I closed the Bible. It didn’t seem to do anything but make me feel worse. So much for that.

Then a few days later I heard an interview on a Christian radio station where a couple was talking about these same verses. I wanted to gag and turn the station. What do they know about how hard love can be? That’s when they said a statement that grabbed me, “Love isn’t a feeling, it’s a decision.”

Wow.

I went home and flipped to 1 Corinthians 13 again. This time instead of reading it like a list of what love should make me feel, I read it as if I could decide to make my love fit these qualities. My love will be kind. My love will be patient. My love will persevere. Not because I feel it — but because I choose it.

At the same time God was working on my husband’s heart as well. We decided to make some 1 Corinthians 13 love decisions. Slowly, the cold stone wall between us started to come down.

It wasn’t easy. It wasn’t overnight. But slowly our attitudes and our actions toward one another changed. And I stopped believing the marriage lies and replaced them with 3 marriage truths:

Having a good marriage is more about being the right partner than having the right partner.
Love is a decision.
The grass isn’t greener on the other side. It’s greener where you water and fertilize it.

Maybe you’ve heard the marriage lies before. My heart aches for you if you are in a hard place in your marriage. And believe me, I know tough relationships are stinkin’ complicated and way beyond what a simple blog post can possibly untangle. But maybe something I’ve said today can help loosen one knot… or at least breathe a little hope into your life today.

I know marriage pain and I know marriage redemption. Building a bridge between those two realities isn’t easy but it is possible.

Our bridge was the culmination of a lot of little love decisions. Like the one I saw my husband make yesterday when I left my workout clothes in a pile on the floor in my bathroom.

This used to be such an aggravation to my man… me and my messes.

But look what I found when I got home… a love decision.

Note from Art

What love decision might you make today? Let me know in the comments below.

A complete waste of time

Brooke got in the car the other day and sighed. It was one of those sighs that said, “I’m going through something, but unless you ask me, I’m not freely revealing this information.”

I casually inquired, “Tell me the high from your day and your low.”

“Mom,” she groaned letting me know she secretly loved that I was asking but all the middle school in her was making her play it cool.

I waited quietly knowing she’d eventually tell me. And she did. Something hard had happened at school that day.

I put my hand on hers, “I’m sorry sweetheart. I know that makes you sad.”

To my surprise, this normally emotional child said, “Actually no. I’ve decided sometimes being sad or mad over stuff like this is a compete waste of my time.”

And just like that she smiled and was ready to get on with her day. No tears. No tirade. No lamenting and wearing herself out with a tidal wave of emotion while over-processing this situation.

Just a 13 year old’s decision that this wasn’t worth all that. The child turned tutor. The young one doling out wisdom.

Sometimes being sad or mad over stuff like this is a complete waste of my time.

I’ve mulled her statement over in my mind a hundred times. It’s good. It’s truth.

Indeed there are things to be sad about… but so much of what pulls at my emotions isn’t worth the time and energy I give it.

I love this verse from James 1:19-21 in the Message:

Post this at all the intersections, dear friends. Lead with your ears, follow up with your tongue, and let anger straggle along in the rear. God’s righteousness doesn’t grow from human anger. So throw all spoiled virtue and cancerous evil in the garbage. In simple humility, let our gardener, God, landscape you with the Word, making a salvation garden of your life.”

Is there something you’ve been sad or mad about that maybe is a waste of your time? Ask God to help you have a different perspective. Leave a comment today letting me know how I can pray for you… it would be my honor.

Am I ugly?

I read a disturbing article over the weekend about a new trend among teen girls. Teens are posting videos on YouTube asking the question, “Am I ugly?”

This broke my heart on several levels.

One, because many people leaving comments for these girls were horribly unkind.

Two, because had YouTube been around when I was a teen, I could have been one of these questioning girls. I remember what it was like to feel different. Unaccepted. Not pretty. Desperate for someone to validate me.

Craving acceptance from friends and attention from boys. Because that’s what I thought would fix me.

And that’s why I partnered with Shaunti Feldhahn to write Made to Crave for Young Women that moms can use with their girls to address this exact issue.

Unlike the original Made to Crave book, Made to Crave for Young Women, goes beyond just addressing cravings for food. It addresses three major longings of a young woman’s heart and explains how God is the only true source for getting our “soul needs” met.

When writing this book, Shaunti and I asked a focus group of girls some very direct questions about their needs. We found it interesting that they all agreed God could meet their needs. But when we asked “how” everyone remained silent.

One girl broke the tense silence by uttering, “I know God can meet my needs. But I just don’t know how to get closer to God and really learn to rely on Him in this way.”

I think a lot of Christian teen girls feel this way. They hear at church that God is the answer. But they don’t know how to apply that knowledge when their hearts feel desperately insecure.

Moms, Made to Crave for Young Women, is the tool I’ve been wanting to use with my girls. And when I couldn’t find it, I wrote it.

I’m determined to do everything I can to equip my girls spiritually and emotionally against some of the most common pitfalls teen girls face:

Thinking that right boy will fix all their wrongs and fill up their insecurities.
Struggling with overeating or under-eating.
Relying on material possessions to make them feel noticed.

If you want to be equipped to really talk about these issues in a way that will resonate with your daughter, sister, niece or any other important young woman in your life — Made to Crave for Young Women is now available.

Today, I’m giving away 3 copies! All you have to do to enter this give away is leave me a comment below telling me who in your life could benefit from reading this book.

And by the way whether you’ve had a shower and are looking good on this Monday… or if you are sporting three day old hair like me — you are beautiful, treasured, and adored. God says so.