Has Your Marriage Disappointed You?

There have been numerous seasons through out my marriage when I have been deeply disappointed. Times when my marriage has left my heart bleeding and my hopes crushed. Being married to a man who has had an addiction to porn hasn't been my idea of the life I would have planned for myself. But, don't we all have things in our lives that aren't as we would have planned?

I believe there is a little girl in all of us who desires for our husbands to be the perfect prince we used to dream about. But let's face it, that's just not happening. Life is not like the fairy tales. It's full of challenges, difficulties, and disappointments.

The great news is, those things do not have to destroy us or our marriages. Not addictions and yes,  not even adultery..... 

God has a better way...a divine plan that will take each and every heart break and use it to create in us a beauty that nothing or no one can take away.   

Maybe if we would quit striving to please ourselves and let go of the mentality that life is all about our own happiness, we wouldn't set ourselves up for so many disappointments along the way.

The world portrays marriage as something you do for your own happiness. Therefore, if your marriage partner fails to make you happy, you divorce and find someone else who will. After all, it's all about you.

Contrary to popular belief, I believe happiness is a benefit that we get to 
experience but it should not be our goal. Actually, we are not even promised happiness, only joy, which the world will never understand, apart from 
Jesus.

As "christian wives" we disguise our selfishness and unmet expectations to make us sound more spiritual. How? By trying to justify our choices and attitudes with these kind of thoughts;

"He is not the spiritual leader I thought he would be"

"I wasn't saved when I married him so it wasn't meant for me to be with 
him anyway"

"He is holding me back from what God has called me to do"

"He is not who I thought he was" 

"We are unequally yoked and so God can't bless us"

Because we feel unfulfilled and disappointed in our marriages, we soon talk ourselves into a pit of despair. We start by believing that we deserve better, that life is so unfair. We become so "me" focused that all we have is a selfish love. We begin thinking of all kinds of reasons why God surely would NOT want us to experience so much pain, problems, and disappointments.


Or would He?

Could it be that purpose of your marriage is not about making you HAPPY, but making you HOLY?

God's Word tells us to count it all joy when we are going thru trials and troubles. Why? Because it's those kind of experiences that will create change in our hearts and cause us to look more like Him. Your love for your husband will begin to resemble God's love and it's that kind of love that will change the world.

If you have weathered any kind of storms in your marriage....Just think about this for a moment; As a woman of God are you:

less selfish than you used to be?

Learning to forgive as Christ has forgiven you?
Learning to have more self control?
More kind and patient than you used to be?
Trusting in Jesus MORE?
Learning that love is a choice and not a feeling?
Learning to walk by faith and not by emotions?
Finding that no pain or heartache is too great for God to heal?
Recognizing more and more your need for God's grace in your own
life?
Becoming more Christlike?


So, what was it that caused these changes? 

My dear sister, Do you see it? He is creating in you a pure heart that cannot be attained by any shortcuts.

Please do not allow your pain and disappointments to be wasted.  A heart of bitterness can never be a heart of peace.  Allow God to bring beauty out of what satan intended for evil.  Jesus has a much higher purpose for your life and your marriage. He wants you to radiate the beauty of a bride who has lovingly been prepared for her Groom, for an eternal ever after!

James 1:2-4

My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.

1 Peter 1:6-7

In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith--of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire--may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.