He Has Me In Stitches

Today's post is kind of a continuation of yesterday's post. Not that it's about exactly the same thing, but in that we choose our perspective, and often when it comes to our spouses, we choose poorly.

God has been speaking to my heart about this a lot lately. Very frequently, I feel like a dunce when it comes to God's lessons in my life. If He taught me the lesson yesterday, why do I have to learn it again today? 

As I soaked up His lesson for me today, I realized that I'm thinking about it wrong. God doesn't just plug up our holes all at one time; it's more like stitching together a tear...slowly. He uses the thread of His Words and Wisdom and slowly but surely, He mends our hearts.

I suppose I've stalled enough...onto God's stitching for today.

Last night I was hurt. Josiah didn't know I was hurt; I didn't tell him. Why?

Because we've been over this before.

Here's the gist of the issue - if you've read, or know anything about, Gary Chapman's book, The Five Love Languages, then you can probably guess what my primary love language is: Words of Affirmation. (As a side note, if you haven't read the book, I highly recommend it). Most people also have secondary love languages; mine is Physical Touch. Josiah's primary language is Physical Touch. So that works out right?

Not as much as you'd think.  

You see, you often give and receive love with the same love language, just like an actual spoken language. Words of Affirmation is like four levels down for Josiah, almost at the bottom of his language pool. 

I'm wordy. He's not.

He and I have talked about this before, and from what we've discovered, this is what our exchanges often consist of internally:

See what's happened here? He's communicating with me, but because our love languages are different, I'm not capable of receiving the messages he's sending.

This isn't a new problem, and we'll both continue to work on it. That's not the moral of the story. This is:

I get to choose how I react to this problem.

After this all-to-familiar exchange, Satan (or my own sinful, nasty nature - whichever you prefer) had a hold on my thoughts like you can't believe. Wanna know how it went? Here ya go:

Why won't he tell me the things I want to hear? We've talked about this! I need words. Where are my words. Well, I guess since he doesn't say I'm pretty anymore or tell me I'm beautiful, I'll just assume he doesn't think it anymore.

Doh!!! Did you catch that last part? Praise God, I did. He's teaching me, and I'm growing, and by His grace with the Help of the Holy Spirit, I was able to bring that thought under submission.

We demolish arguments and every pretension 

that sets itself up against the knowledge of God,

and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

2 Corinthians 10:5 (NIV, emphasis added)

What I was thinking was destructive to my marriage and myself, and therefore, I needed to demolish it.

If my husband is loving me, hugging me, and behaving as he always has, why on Earth would I choose to believe he thinks something different now than he used to?!

I was choosing the wrong perspective - choosing poorly. What would my motivation for that be? Getting back at him, probably, through my bad attitude and my body language. Expressing to him my dissatisfaction, even though he tried to give me everything I wanted yesterday and more.

Here's the thing - every day, every moment, we are making perspective choices. 

The world sends out a message that we should be discontented and self-centered, always wanting more, believing we deserve more.

The Bible says the exact opposite. Jesus says we should be less...want less, think of ourselves less.

We are to be content in every circumstance, praising God simply because He's blessed us with the opportunity of one day entering into His presence. 

In my quiet time this morning, I looked at the following Bible verse:

Therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, 

I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice,

holy and pleasing to God; this is your spiritual worship.

Do not be conformed to this age, 

but be transformed by the renewing of your mind,

so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, perfect will of God.

Romans 12:1-2 (HCSB)

These are familiar verses to me. I highlighted them like that because that's how they're highlighted in my Bible. I came upon these verses separately, highlighted them separately, and tended to think of them separately...until today.

Today, I realized that the way we present our bodies as a living sacrifice to our God is by transforming our minds. We have to (1) take those thoughts captive, (2) transform and renew our minds so we can discern His will, and (3) banish the worldly ones that go against the His will and His Word.

THEN, through that process, we are presenting ourselves to God as a living sacrifice...daily.

This is for every aspect of our lives: the food we eat, the way we take care of our bodies, the way we treat our children, and the way we treat our spouses.

So, today God has stitched me a bit more. He does it every day. He stitches up the broken places in my life slowly, but that's because He can only go as fast as I'll let Him. He's perfectly patient with me.

The stitching isn't always painless. On the contrary, it's often painful, but it's a good pain - the kind that cleanses and heals.

Today, choose wisely. Take those thoughts captive - the ones that are destructive and stir up discontentment - and demolish them.

It might hurt right now, but at the end of the day, you'll be happy you did.