I had no idea I was being controlled

A few minutes in, I was still thinking that the book wouldn't apply to me.

Not because it didn't start off well.  

But, instead, because I can be pretty stubborn and defensive.  And the title said that emotions might be controlling me.  Which I really didn't like.  A neat-freak to the core, I like to think that I run a pretty clean internal shop.  I was also pretty content to think that most of the challenges I was facing were primarily someone else's fault.   

When that "someone else" and I read Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts (Parrot and Parrot) back in 2009, I was just as stubborn and defensive.  I thought that I was more put-together than the people the authors were offering advice to.  I didn't want to think that any of the challenging scenarios they spoke about could actually happen to me.  Our marriage would be better than that.  We wouldn't need conflict-management strategies because we simply wouldn't have any conflict.

Ha.

I've, since then, become far too aware of my mess.  Which is good, because it has made me far more aware of my need for Jesus.  

So, as I read what has ended up becoming one of the most impactful books I've ever held in my hands--Enemies of the Heart by Andy Stanley--it happened.  I felt like my heart started to shrivel.  I was convicted to the core.  

I started to see places within myself that were being consumed by EACH of the four emotions Andy Stanley talks about in this book.  Not just one.  Not even two.  But all four.  Talk about humbling.  

He discusses four emotions:  

1. guilt, 
2. anger, 
3. greed, and 
4. jealousy.  

He talks about the destructive power that they have, and about how easily they can get hidden in our hearts and begin to damage our lives from the inside out.  

If I had been humble enough to think that I might have really needed advice for potential conflicts in marriage, I might have listened more intently to the pre-marital counseling book I was supposed to absorb in 2009.  Maybe I wouldn't have provided such a wide-open door for these powerful emotions to take their toll in my life.  In my marriage.

But, maybe those emotions were already at work.  And maybe they were actually so deeply ingrained in me that it took until a year ago--when my marriage actually started to fall apart--for the walls to come down far enough for them to rear their ugly heads.

Andy Stanley talks about how each of these four emotions has a "debt" tied to it.  

• With anger, it's "You owe me."  
• With guilt, it's "I owe you."  
• With greed, it's "I owe me."
• With jealousy, it's "God owes me."

 HUGE eye-opener:

"The common denominator in all your relational conflicts is YOU," (p. 162).

My favorite thing about this book is that it doesn't just convict you and then leave you hanging and hopeless.  It provides practical ways to confront each emotion, and biblical direction to help you fight against them.  For example, he talks about confronting anger with forgiveness because "forgiveness is the decision to cancel a debt," (p. 123).  

I love this: 

"In the shadow of my hurt, forgiveness feels like a decision to reward my enemy.  But in the shadow of the cross, forgiveness is merely a gift from one undeserving soul to another. . . When I accept forgiveness from God, I'm set free from the penalty of my sin; when I extend forgiveness to my adversary, there's a sense in which I'm set free from his sin as well, " (p. 129).

He gives incredible advice that applies to real situations in our lives and is easy to put into practice to move forward.

I've may have mentioned that I like clean things...  Sean says that "clean" is my primary love language.  As such, I was especially fond of Andy's illustration of how he has spent each of his kids' lives working with them on keeping their hearts empty of the destructive things that get lodged inside of them.  He made a routine of asking his kids questions like (p. 193), 

• "Is everything okay in your heart?" 
• "Are you mad at anybody?" 
• "Are you worried about anything?" 
• "Did anybody hurt your feelings today?"

When I learned that Sean doesn't owe me anything, I started giving him the benefit of the doubt and I was able to believe the best about him.  When I learned that I don't owe Sean anything, I was able to start to shatter the idol of perfectionism in my life.  It has come with SO much freedom and peace.  It has come with so much agreement, so much forgiveness, so much LOVE.

As it turns out, a lack of conflict wasn't the recipe for a happy marriage, like I thought for so long.  When pride really did come before a very hard and disillusioning fall, I learned that genuine humility is one of the FIRST ingredients in a healthy and thriving marriage.

The new blog and shop are almost ready to launch!  Watch for ToChooseJoy.com, opening late October, 2015.  

It wasn't supposed to be like this

I've had scores of dreams throughout my life.  They've encompassed everything from athletic feats to artsy careers to creative projects to grandiose business opportunities to jungle mission fields.

Well, that might be a stretch.  The jungle part.  I'd like to think that I'm brave enough for the jungle.  I'd be more honest to say, "tropical mission fields."

I work hard at every dream I dabble in.  I do all of the research.  I put in the practice hours.  I imagine every piece of my life in perfect order around my position within the dream.  I play the part until I hit a roadblock.  I'm devastated when I don't get an A+ (for at least my effort).  I don't give up until the next grand endeavor brews its way through my constantly stirring mind.

I've failed countless times along the way, but I usually pull myself back up by my bootstraps and set off a-courting my next dream.  I stick with few things long enough to become truly good at them, but I work hard enough to hide it.  And, if I really can't master whatever I'm knee-deep in, I just put on a face that looks confident enough to get me through.  You may think I can get by as a ballerina, but just ask to see a video of me tap dancing.  I was always terrible at tap.  But, in every performance, I made sure to have the biggest, boldest smile on the stage so no one would look down at my feet.

A downside to being a dreamer (aside from giving whiplash to the faithful ones who have joined me along the journey), is that I fall particularly hard when I think this dream is "the one," and it turns out that I can't measure up to its demands.

It's on the ground after those falls that the lies try to seep through my skin and I'm certain that I've lost everything.  The dream--it was me.  It was my identity.  It was my ministry.  It was my future.  And, for a while, I cave and let darkness set in around me.  It's easier to cry in the dark.  No one can see you there.

I'll tell you this, though:  It's hard to find your bootstraps in the dark.


From as far back as I can remember, one of the deepest longings of my heart was to be a wife.  One of my greatest dreams.  I set my eyes on Proverbs 31:12 early into my teen years, "She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life."  Recognizing that "all the days" of my life wouldn't begin when I met my husband, but rather, they began a long time ago, I determined myself that I would be the best wife I could be, starting right then.

I read books.  Countless books.  Books on letting God write your love story, and books on keeping your heart, body, and mind pure for the one you're waiting for.  Books on what women need and what men need.  Books about love languages and personality types and parenting.  I read cookbooks and home decor books and organizing books and "how-to-be-the-best-Proverbs-31-wife-the-world-has-ever-seen" books.

I made lists.  Countless lists.  Lists of the characteristics of my perfect husband.  Lists of the names of our perfect children.  Lists of the marriages I wanted mine to be like and lists of the marriages that I didn't want to mimic.  Lists of the meals I would cook in our perfect house and the schedule we would follow and the ages when our kids would be given their very own shiny lists of privileges.

I dreamed.  Constantly.  I was certain that I was going to be good at this dream.  We were going to have a perfect life together, my dream husband and I.

Well, I married the man of my dreams.  And, as it turns out, our life wasn't perfect.

I know--game changer.  Your jaw just hit the floor.

Within the first month of our marriage, I was already crying whenever we'd have a disagreement or whenever it would turn out that I couldn't check off the next box on my perfect-marriage-list.  The line that reeled through my mind, and often escaped my lips, was the very line that, years later, dragged me into a pit that seemed impossible to climb out of.

"It wasn't supposed to be like this."

I had spent so much time dreaming up the perfect marriage that I felt blindsided when it turned out that my husband and I were both real-life people with real-life backgrounds and histories and real-life junk and tendencies and incredibly real-life sin and struggles.  We were real-life people with all of the stark individuality and all of the different gifts and all of the interesting intricacies that God pieced together in His perfect sovereignty to fulfill His perfect plans in a world where imperfect people need a very perfect Savior.

When I said, "It wasn't supposed to be like this," I was saying that I had a better way.  I was saying that my way was the best way.  I was saying that this real-life didn't fit into the picture I had created in my dream-life, and that this real-life wasn't good enough for me.

When I said, "It wasn't supposed to be like this," I couldn't see the beauty in what life did look like.  I couldn't see the possibilities and the potential of the moment.  I couldn't trust that God was actually in control.  I couldn't be truly thankful, I couldn't really rest, and I certainly couldn't move forward, because I was stuck in a picture of today that I had created in the past.

When I said, "It wasn't supposed to be like this," I couldn't see the huge role that my own sin, my own errors, my own expectations, my own pride played in the conflicts in my marriage.  I couldn't see what God wanted to teach me through allowing those conflicts to happen.

When difficult life circumstances hit us, from relocations to uncomfortable living situations to the nature of raising small children to unexpected health issues to new jobs to wrestling with deep wounds from the past to disagreements about things that really matter, I want to be able to walk through them, and not to trip over them and fall into a pit that I dug with my own list of expectations for how life should be.

". . .Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us," (Hebrews 12:1).

I want to know that God is in every moment with me, and that He is always on my side, working out everything for good.  I want to be thankful in everything, to pray about everything, to love through everything.  I want to be prepared for as much as I can be prepared for, but to trust that God is the One who is really preparing me for things in ways that I may not understand, because He can actually see what tomorrow holds.

"As for God, His way is perfect: the Lord's word is flawless; He shields all who take refuge in Him," (2 Samuel 22:31).


I don't want to pretend that there are no messes in my life and put a facade of perfection on display.  I want to show off how desperate I am for Jesus--the only One who can clean my life up.

So, I'm done deciding what things are supposed to be like.  I'm picking myself back up by those old familiar bootstraps, and I'm embracing the imperfect.  Letting reality be more than I ever could have imagined on my own.

It doesn't mean that I can't dream, or that I can't make lists, or that I can't research and plan.  But, it does mean that I need to hold my dreams loosely, with my hands toward heaven, rather than clenched across my chest.  It's God's power that makes things happen--not mine.  It doesn't mean that I can't advocate or ask for something different than whatever my present circumstance may be.  But, it does mean that I need to trust that God knows what's best for me and for my husband and for our marriage, and that the answer will be for His glory and our good.

"Lord, You are my God; I will exalt You and praise Your name, for in perfect faithfulness You have done wonderful things, things planned long ago," (Isaiah 25:1).  "Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever!" (Ephesians 3:20-21).

Look for "To Choose Joy: the Shop," with handmade prints and pillows, coming soon!