Let's Talk About Love...

First chapter of my book...

Let’s talk about love...love is the most powerful gift you can give to anybody, and it is the most difficult thing to do to everybody, it is a lesson to be learned in difficult circumstances. Although God freely gives it to us everyday we don’t always freely give it to others, we sometimes choose who we would rather give it to in so doing we become a respecter of persons. Not loving everyone unconditional we then put stipulations on who can receive our love or who we give it to. But in those cases God in his sovereignty places us in situations where we begin to learn the meaning of agape love, his type of love and compassion for others. So we can become a vessel that he can pour his love to us and through us to others especially those that are un-lovable. Especially those that persecute and despitefully you or insult you and lie on you. Jesus faced all these things even while he was hanging on the cross he was still loving us, even when we were saying “crucify him” he was asking the “father to forgive us for we know not what we do.” It is the same story when we faced situation that causes our flesh to be nailed to the cross because the one that is being used to do it, sometimes do not know what they are doing.

            These are times that cause you to wonder about what you are going through and how to handle it because the problem that comes to challenge us is real! It does not always feel good and it makes us see what is inside of us but one thing I found out is the bible does not lie...all things most definitely works out for our good, especially when we love God. I want to share with you how God taught me how to love through the most painful circumstances in my life. It not only broke me but it molded me to become a better person. Although in the midst of it I experience every type of emotion imaginable to mankind. I became depressed, oppressed and suppressed! I found myself in the wilderness with nothing but barren sun beaming down on me with no water in sight just the illusion of water and sometimes refusing to drink from the brooks God had sent to give me nourishment. Simply because I was angry and bitter because of the blows life had dealt me due to a lack of wisdom and knowledge and most of all obedience to God’s leading. I had lost my faith and trust in God because of what I was going through. Allowing my pain to guide me instead of his love and trusting in his word to see me through. God in his sovereign loved me in spite of myself and gave me manna from heaven and refused to give up on me when I had given up on myself. I had failed God and therefore I believed in the lie that I did not deserve his love nor his forgiveness. I felt unworthy because I put my hand to the plow and I did not look back I just stopped plowing. I had lost my zeal for the Lord and could no longer pray my direction was misguided and I had become stagnant and at a stand still. No where to turn so I looked up and called on the name Jesus! And he sent his anointing through those who did not judge me but loved me right where I was at. It was God’s love working through others to reach me, he was being my shepherd and restoring my soul, leading and guiding me through the valley of the “shadow” of death. I was surrounded by the shadow of death, death in my spirit, my mind was hazy and confusion had set in...but God’s love came and gave me what I needed. Everything I had lost seemed less important! The material things are only a temporary happiness but the creator of all things was “true happiness” that I had longed for and needed. I was the woman at the well looking for the “living water” to quench my thirsty soul and give me what I needed to continue on with living.

            The experience that I had endured made it all worthwhile to be able to share with you how he brought me through the most difficult place in my life. Not everyone can travel this journey and after reading some of what I had to go through you may call me crazy or a fool but I call it a journey of choice. Like the book of Hosea, God’s choice was to love us in spite of our unfaithfulness to him and how we may have acted or treated him. We have all wandered away from God in some way but he still loved us. God said while we were yet sinners Christ died for us! This is what God was teaching me how to die to myself and pray and love someone who was being unfaithful while facing rejections. The word of God says “love covers a multitude of sins and I had my part in the sinning also but I was learning the meaning of forgiving those who sin against me. And how to love someone for better or for worst, till death do us part! A vow that I had made before God and man! Did not know the cost of these vows but now I had to learn how to pay them. But God would give me his strength to go through it and because of him I did, but not without rebellion, anger, self pride and all other negative emotions imaginable. The greatest thing God taught me and the most priceless reward was “love” and how to give it “unconditional”! Through all my trials that I have encountered this one was sent to teach me how to love the way God loves us.  Love covers a multitude of sins and that is what I had to learn to do in my life towards others especially my late husband.

            It was a beautiful summer morning we had just spent the day together the day before. We went to several places laughing and talking, really enjoying each others company. Something we had not done since losing our home to foreclosure about four months ago. Just out visiting his grandmother and doing laundry while riding around town. A couple of months before this day my husband had a massive stroke that left him unable to total care for himself. His life had changed drastically and he was different because of this. He lived with his mother to help take care of him. Because of this his independence was affected and it was like taking the life out of him. He was discouraged and I believe he was losing his will to live because of this. He was always a carefree and lively person to be around. He had a magnetic personality that everyone he came in contact with was drawn to. I loved this about him at times, but sometimes it would annoy me because wherever we went he would find a friend instantly and will talk to people as if he had known them for years. I would just sit there and be like I am ready to go can you please hurry up...lol. I guess you would say I would run out of patience when these things occurred.We had a lot of good times together as well as bad. It was in these times that I would remember the wedding vows we made to one another...for better or for worst. I took those vows literally to stay and work through things no matter what. I just believed that God could fix anything no matter how bad it got. Now don’t misunderstand me because that type of faith did not come overnight nor without trials. This type of faith was birthed through a marriage that stood through numerous infidelities and verbal and emotional abuse. I went through these trials not in my own strength but in the strength of God.

            We had gotten married in July 1990; I remember it as if it was yesterday. A hot July day the weather held up nicely and we had the wedding outside in my grandfather’s yard. All of our family and friends were there to celebrate our union. When we said our vows to one another and sealed it with a long romantic kiss we were facing a new life together. We moved into our apartment now living together as a couple with different personalities trying to become one. I must confess I did not know how to be a wife, a mother (yes). At the beginning of our marriage I had made a lot of mistakes that later open up the door to infidelity to come in. Coming into the marriage with the attitude of I am grown and you don’t tell me what to do...just a real negative mind set on how marriage works. I see this a lot in marriages and relationships...nobody wants to submit themselves to one another. I believe that if you are right and the other person is wrong God will work on that individual heart to let them see the truth, you don’t have to fight it, it will come out eventually. Because of this attitude of doing things my way or the highway then that is the choice my husband took...the highway. We had now become separated after only 1 1/2 years of marriage. The word of God clearly tells us that “a wise woman builds her house while a foolish woman tears it down”! I was a foolish woman and I was desecrating it brick by brick by the words that I spoke and my actions. Not fixing dinner or barely cleaning up the house before he got home from work. The times when I would fix dinner it would be rushed and then it turn out very bad indeed. And sometimes the way he left me when he went to work in my lounge dress and hair disarray was the same way he came home and found me on the couch watching the soaps. I was just letting myself go...the things I did to get him was not the things I was doing to keep him.

            He was a hard working man who took his responsibilities seriously and cared very much for his family. He was committed in providing for us and wanted only the best for us. I took that for granted and I did not appreciate all that he was doing to make us happy and secure. With my mouth I said things that I should not have said, “especially when I told him that I loved him but I was not in love with him”! That was a blow to a man’s ego and his pride! What other way can you tear a man down by confessing something like this, especially to a man who loves you unconditionally. In spite of all that you have done he still loves you marry you still regardless. By this time he had come to his limit he had had enough of the drama I was putting him through. We sat one late night on the steps in our apartment and he said, “I love you very much and I love those kids but I have to leave, I cannot do this anymore”. Here I am thinking to myself “what”. What are you doing? We can get through this I was saying in the back of my mind. But me being prideful “I said okay, whatever you want to do”! It is too many fishes in the sea to be crying over one...so I thought. I remember the day he brought home the boxes and started packing to go and live with his godmother. I was shocked and I was trying to work it out with him but it was to late...he had to much hurt inside and could not deal with the pain. As we departed and went our separate ways we continue to see each other and do things together as if we had never separated. When we would tell people we were separated they would not believe us because we did everything together like husbands and wives do, and I do mean everything. We remain separated for 10 1/2 years before we reconcile and started living together again.

            About 4 1/2 years into our separation this is when everything started to go crazy. At that time I had re-committed my life back to the Lord and I was getting closer to him, seeking his face for directions. While I was getting closer to the Lord my husband was getting farther away from me and closer to someone else. I was deep in prayer one night and I heard the Lord speak to me and tell me my husband was in adultery. I immediately thought it was the devil so I rebuked it and kept praying, but the Lord said it again to me. So I said, “Lord if it is you speaking to me then make him tell me the truth”. God said he will tomorrow! So the next day I went over to his godmother’s house and confronted him with what I heard from the Lord and he broke down and told me the truth. This was a trying time for me, I became numb it just cut me down deep in my soul. I remember becoming angry, frustrated and confused and all types of negative emotions you can image. I remember saying to the Lord, “I want a divorce”, your word said that I can have one when your spouse is caught in adultery. Matthew 5:27, 31-32. Before I could quote the word back to the Lord, I heard him say “let him without sin cast the first stone” that “God is not mocked whatever a man sow that shall he also reap”! (Wow that was a blow to my heart?)

            Before I got married I was the other woman in an adulteress relationship I had had with a married man. I knew what it was like to be the other woman! Because of the seeds that I had sown I was reaping the harvest and for that I had repented to the Lord for my adulterous acts. I asked the Lord to forgive me and to help me to love my husband the way a wife should love her husband. At that prayer the Lord placed a love in my heart for my husband that was “unconditional” something I could not give on my own. And because of this I needed God to walk me through this and give me his strength to with stand this trial that I was about to go through. It was a long and painful journey but at the end it was rewarding.

Author's Note

Grammar problems, what do you think of the dialogue, how to make it better.

Reviews

[GelatiKING]

Hi Shaybabe,

I want to offer you a quick thought or two. Please keep in mind that none of this is meant to be mean, and it has nothing to do with the actual experiences you've had. It's simply about the writing.

I read through the first two paragraphs and thought, "She still hasn't told me anything." My suggestion is that you get to the point, faster.

The second thing I thought is that you seem to be echoing a sermon, or a collection of sermons you've heard. I'm not saying you're plagiarizing - I'm only saying that you seem to have borrowed a formula for expressing yourself from someone else. That's fine, of course, but I'd prefer to read something original, that comes from your unique voice.

Please keep writing - this is one of God's blessed labors.

Ed