Part 1-Strongholds

This is the day for heavy blog posts I guess. My friend and sister at Loop De Loops and my other friend and cousin at Spinster have posted very thought provoking blogs. Moms the word has asked me to tell you all a technique I learned in counseling on how to break down strongholds. I guess I will do that, but it will have to be in parts otherwise it would be a really, really long post.
First, a little something about myself would be appropriate. I am married to a man who has 3 children from a former marriage. I also had a former marriage, but no children. I married a young man who was in Bible school at the time to be a youth pastor, he was also a child of a missionary. I think that I just went with the flow of the dating thing figuring that I wouldn't date someone or have the opportunity to date someone unless he was "the one". We married and had plans, and his parents didn't like me and I was a little afraid of them(because they argued very loudly-a lot/ but I later learned that's how they talked all the time), and I had only met his sister once in 7 years. When we first got married, he got a job in Colo Springs as an assistant youth pastor, and because I had 2 years of early childhood ed. I was given a job as a 1st grade teacher. I was not qualified and had no idea what I was doing, it was awful! He went around a year and than had some trouble ( never clear to me at the time) and the pastor and principal decided along with my husband that he should finish his education. We moved to Missouri to attend BBC. I worked at Cox and he schooled full time. During the 1st year he had only what I can say was a major asthma attack/nervous breakdown. After that his drive was gone...he started failing his studies (he didn't need them you know ) and we ended up moving back to Colorado. With a large student loan. He than was able to get a job as youth director at a really nice church in Pueblo, Co. It was alright for a while and than he started having problems with the authority he worked under. Let me say this, he never had a job longer than a year, at first it would be the best job and than slowly something would go wrong, and it was usually the boss' fault, or the boss didn't like him(never his fault) I didn't see the pattern for a long while. We changed church and helped the YP at that church by teaching the Collage class. We moved to the Springs, again, and he worked at a gas station, and I transfered to the Sears up there. Again... I always had to have a full time job because he was in the ministry and couldn't work more than part time- if that. Feeling a little resentment? I was getting fat. 120 to 180 in 6 years. I was becoming his mother ( who I didn't like), he would say "your just like my mom" Yuk! We lost a cat to cancer and than in just a few days we had the "talk" . He loved me still, but he was disgusted by me (fat), couldn't stand to touch me and he just knew that he was going to have an affair, just knew it was gonna happen.(Forgiveness before fact?) He wanted to separate to go live with a work buddy for a while. I said he would still have to help pay bills and he didn't know why. I asked him what he thought was going to happen to us, and he said we would separate for a while and after about a month of so we would get a divorce. So me being who I am said that if that was what he wanted to do, just do it and quit waisting out time if it wasn't going to get fixed. He didn't want counseling. There is a lot more details that I haven't put in here, he battled depression and wouldn't get help, he didn't care. He had to have an account of all of my money and pay checks, yet I never knew what he spent his on. He openly flirted with co-workers while I waited in the car to drive him home (glass window), and than didn't know why I was mad at him. My mom and I read a list from Ann Landers about the signs of an abusive husband and he had all of them except the hitting. Did he commit adultery? I don't know. Did I? No. Was there a Biblical reason to kill the union? Probably not. Was I relieved? Yes. Did I come before God with repentance and confession? Yes. Did God forgive me this horrible sin? Why yes. Do I take this lightly? Never. Do I support divorce? No. If you think that I never gave it another thought as far as the "Church" and divorce you are wrong. I thought on it a lot, I studied it, I prayed on it. This is my conclusion on divorce...Can God not forgive a murderer? A prostitute? A drug addict? Why, then would some Christians say and tell you to your face that God can not forgive divorce? I am forgiven by the only One that matters to me. The Bible says God despises a liar, yet how many people tell lies on a daily basis? Preachers never tell lies. Right? You don't need to leave a comment unless you want to, because I will continue this on my next blog. I am going somewhere with all of this personal info. otherwise I wouldn't be sharing at all. Some final thoughts...I was left with feelings of disapointment, resentment, anger, abandon, and they were all toward God mainly, because He didn't fix things, He wouldn't fix him when I prayed and begged and demanded and pleaded for God to help me and us. where was He? Im in my childhood bedroom wondering these things, and I wondered for a long time.