Grounded in Grace

I was incredibly overwhelmed by the response I got to my last blog post on “What is Love”.  I wanted to touch a little more on marriage and the importance of including God in your marriage.  It is key to realize that the enemy comes to steal, kill and destroy.  He is not looking for couples that are involved in adulterous relationships, or marriages where lies and deception are prevalent.  He is looking for marriages that are strong, happy and successful.  There is absolutely no need for Satan to focus on marriages that are already self wrecking.  He is looking for marriages like mine.  The marriages that seem to be on course for success.  We were completely blindsided when we realized that our marriage was under attack.  The harder we worked to have a successful marriage, the harder Satan was working to ensure otherwise.  That is why we have to choose to make a conscious effort everyday  to armor our lives and our marriage with Christ.  Lance and I have met with several couples through a program at our church and also friends of ours that have had struggles in their marriages.   We have often used the analogy of wearing armor.  When you think of a knight in shining armor you think of a knight clothed in thick metal armor that cannot be destroyed.  That is the way Lance and I have decided to look at our life and marriage.  We have to pray at the start of every day and ask God to empower us with HIS armor and also keep our armor shiny and new.  When you do not polish metal it will eventually rust, and as the rust grows, a hole will eventually form.  We have to keep our armor polished with Gods word each and every day.  The moment we stop, rust will begin to form and eventually there will be the smallest of holes that allows  a prime opportunity for Satan to creep in and begin breaking you down again.  We almost allowed that to happen even after our reconciliation took place.  Everything was back on track and in the blink of an eye we were headed back in the direction of failure.  That is when we realized daily prayer was not an option.  We have to make sure our armor is polished each and every day.  We had to begin to put into practice the principles of Gods word and yield to what God instructs in the Bible about marriage.

Marriage is a covenant and God is included in that covenant. Successful marriages do not just happen; they must be developed. One of the studies on marriage Lance and I have done stated, “You can choose to love your spouse the way God commits to you OR you can just do your part as long as the other person keeps their end of the bargain.”  In order to truly have a marriage covenant and include God in our marriage, we only had one option.  That was to love each other the way God commits to love us.  There are always going to be trials and difficulties in marriage.   You have to make the choice each and every day to choose to love unconditionally.  We now believe that God allowed our trials to happen in order to grow us and use us as an example to others.  We know that we will never have a perfect marriage, however we serve a perfect God.  We have learned that it is all about allowing God to use us through every situation, no matter how big or small it may seem to us.    We have learned that we must grow ourselves which in turn will grow our marriage and our relationship with God.  Most of all we have learned to be transparent which is allowing us to share our own testimony and be witnesses of Gods love.

I am so honored and blessed that God has called me to write this blog.  As I said at the beginning, I am overwhelmed at the response I got from being transparent and sharing my own personal struggles.  I pray that God will continue to use me to help others, to be a friend to those who may need encouragement in times of trouble.  Thank you for taking time to read my post.  Please share them with anyone you know that may be going through similar struggles and please feel free to email or message me if I can pray for you personally…and remember….Keep yourself armored with GOD!!!!!

Serving him,
~Laurie

 Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.   ~Ephesians 6:11