SDecker's journal

Don't Quit!!!!

Stephanie — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 12:57:27 GMT

Well, God has done amazing things in my life and in the life of my family. I feel an urging and an obligation to encourage others crying out to God for help during this Love Dare process. Though I finished the first dare and am working my way through the year long Love Dare book, I still cry out to God each day (several times a day) to continue to change me into the woman he has called me to be. I thought it might help even one person if I shared some of the lessons I learned while going through this. Some felt great. Some made me want to quit and some made me feel so very ugly and sin-filled. But I guess that's the point. When you put precious metals into a fire to purify, there is heat, there is purging and then what emerges is something more precious, more rare and more beautiful. God brought this challenge into my life to purge what needed to be. I had to willingly go through the fire however. I hope you will take the precious gift of free will that our Father has given to each of us and chose to let Him purge you through this process.

Here's some things I learned along the way:

1. Tell someone you are doing it. Ask them to pray for you and reach out to them when you want to quit~ BECAUSE I WANTED TO!!!! several times :)

2. Go into the book asking God to change YOU. MEAN it!!! I began truly believing that Eddie was the one who needed to change, but amazing things happened when I looked at the log in my own eye as Luke tells us.

3. Reach out to your heavenly Father every single day. Pray, Cry. Pour out your heart.

4. Have faith. Jesus rebuked his disciples in Matthew for not having faith. Have faith that God loves you and has a plan for your life. Put your plans aside and put your life in HIs hands. Have faith that HE has wonderful things in store for you.

5. Never stop. Long after day 40, seek God's face each and every day. The book shouldn't end our process. It did start me on a journey to spend time with God each morning.

6. Pray for your significant other. I began this by asking God to change Eddie. I learned to pray that God would draw Eddie closer to Him. I prayed for things I saw him struggling with knowing that God loves him even more than I do and wants wonderful things for him. I learned to be a "suitable helper" for Eddie instead of a second mother to him acting like he needed me to mold him and discipline him like I do to our kids. I learned to respect the husband God gave me and to treat him as such.

I don't know any of you out there, but I will pray for you. I know God knows you and loves each and every one of you. I will pray that God does amazing things in each one of your lives.

Saying "I do" again

Stephanie — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 10:29:01 GMT

I am packing to leave for the South. Eddie and I are taking the kids to meet my brother and his wife on a beach in South Carolina to get remarried!!!!! (My brother Frankie is a pastor of a large Southern church).

I am so in awe of God's power and love. He took something and two someones who were very broken and healed and renewed . It feels so right to be back in the place where I always should have been. I have learned so many lessons about obedience and submission to God's will and not mine throughout these past months. I am learning to love Eddie how God loves me. That was such a huge defecit in our first marriage. I thought I was doing marriage right, but I really didn't get it. I viewed marriage like a bill of rights not like the covenant that God intented it to be. I didn't feel like I was getting my needs met, being treated like I deserved to be, was with someone worthy of ME. I am ashamed even writing this how I let Satan get a little bit and then a bit more until he had such a stronghold on my heart that I couldn't even hear (or would not listen to) that still, small voice of the Holy Spirit. But God continued to love me and as he promises, to provide a way out for ME.

I thank God for the gift of Eddie and our family and I comitt to re-enter marriage using all the tools and truths I learned in the Love Dare, and I promise to work everyday on my relationship with God and on my marriage and my children. Please pray for me and for us. I am so completely thankful for this second chance. Our God is a god of Second chances.

My go to prayers

Stephanie — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 13:31:22 GMT

My counselor gave me a simple prayer a few months ago. A friend who had gone through a similar situation gave me one 6 months before that. These two lines of prayer, just one simple sentence each, became cries out to my Father in Heaven in a time when I didn't even know how to ask for what I needed.

I clung to these prayers and to God's love during the days when I felt like my life was in ruins and hope of happiness and restoration seemed bleak. If one of the gifts of going through tough times is our ability to encourage others afterwards, then my prayer is that these simple prayers might encourage someone else.

Prayer from a woman who divorced her husband, remarried, was divorced by that man and remarried her first husband :)

"God please do something because I have no idea what to do."

Prayer from my counselor:

"God please make something beautiful out of this mess as you have so often done."

Source of Strength

Stephanie — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 13:16:05 GMT

Not sure what day I'm on. I completed the first 40; Bought the year of Love Dare devotionals a week or two later and am on day 9 of that book.

Though Eddie and I are reconciled~still divorced but working towards remarriage, this gets so hard sometimes and I wonder........Why did this happen? How? REALLY? US ?! How can we not only survive the damage, the gossip, the people, the debt, the neighborhood, but how can I even think that we could be strong again? could inspire other couples? outlast the storms? There are days when I feel so confident then I fall so hard, so unexpectedly and as I lay there face down in the dirt just wanting to quit~a voice asks me from somewhere inside my very broken heart if I'm relying on God. or am I relying on myself? Am I seeking my comfort and security in Him or in my relationship or in Eddie? Have I prayed today? Have I opened my Bible? Do I believe God is sufficient?

I need to pick myself up and unplug from the world and plug into the source of my strength. I need to feel awash in God's unconditional love and let him be enough.

Being Vulnerable

Stephanie — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 00:30:53 GMT

Eddie and I have been learning how to better communicate with each other with the help of our Chrisian counselor. It amazes me how some concepts are so simple yet have been so far out of my reach. She has encouraged us to be vulnerable with each other during this process and to ASK each other for things we need. I seem to be especially learning so much from this bit of simple but invaluable advice.

I have been the boss of absolutely every corner of my life and even of my own parents who because of choices and illness pretty much turned the reigns of control of the house and my siblings over to me when I was just a kid. Vulnerability or.....better said for me.....laying aside my pride was really tough. I can see now how destructive my pride was in my marriage and how my pride deteriorated me personally as a woman. I never asked Eddie for what I needed. I ran the roost. I treated him like my fifth child, and I never reached out to him when I was scared or overwhelmed or in need of reassurance. I saw it as a sign of weakness and from a very young age, I learned that the weak don't survive.

But, I have been asking Eddie for what I need and in my vulnerability, he makes me feel safe and reassured. I'm learning to reach out to him when fear or doubt creeps in. I'm trying to lay my pride down when those bad feelings of our time apart and with other people try to plant seeds of division in my heart. I am so grateful for the advice in the LoveDare to lead my heart, and allowing myself to be vulnerable and to ask Eddie for what I need has been leading my heart for me.

How to you rid your relationship of the "other man or woman"?

Stephanie — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 13:19:49 GMT

I haven't written in a while. It's not because I haven't been working everyday on the Dare. I have. It's because God has been doing such a powerful work in me and my family that my time has been consumed with nurturing the new beginning that God has allowed. I am on day 42 :) Since my last entry on day 8, so much good has happened. Eddie and I began Christian counseling. We have been really talking through everything that happened and how to make sure we Fireproof our marriage in the future. We plan to remarry! The sticky part is the knowledge and pain associated with the reality that we both entered long term serious relationships very quickly after separating. God has totally changed my views on the covenant of marriage and though society sees nothing wrong with dating after separation, I now see it as a weapon Satan uses to rip families apart. If we distract ourselves with "pain relievers" aka new partners, we never do the hard work of healing our marriages. We become infatuaed and distracted by the feelings of these relationships and turn our backs on our vows to each other and God.

My struggle today is dealing with Eddie's ex girlfriend. She lives across the street from me! There are gifts and memories and neighbors who were friends of "their union" and sometimes I feel like those walls are closing in on me and us. Eddie has the same struggles. The man I was with is a very public person and Eddie often runs into him. He also deals with the ghosts of that relationship. I can honestly say that this is our biggest struggle. Has anyone endured anything like this? Can anyone give advice or insight into handling this? Please pray for us.

Is it too late?

Stephanie — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 12:52:08 GMT

I found the Fireproof movie and Love Dare book on a bookshelf last Friday night. Judging from the inscription, my brother had given it to my ex-husband for Christmas of 2009. The movie was still in the plastic and the soft leather of the book new. I watched it that night.

Hidden in a secret box in a corner of my heart are snapshots of the past few years. They are predictable, tragic and raw. They tell a story that should have had a much different ending.

I dropped the movie off on his porch that Sunday night with a note telling him that I still love him and asking him to watch the movie. He sent me a text the next day telling me that he has always loved me but has too much pain and hurt to watch the movie. He also has a serious relationship with a woman who lives directly across the street from me.

My story is complicated and heart-breaking. There are four children who are so hurt and sad. My ended marriage lay charred in ashes destroyed by a devastating fire. I lit the match.

But I gave my heart to Jesus years ago and though I have sinned and grieved God greatly, I believe that God is greater than all and that he wants to see families and marriages restored. I'm divorced, but I'm on day 8 and I have placed my life and my family in God's hands. I'm just hoping it's not too late.