At the age of 23 years old I walked down the aisle for the second time. For two and a half years I prepared myself to become a wife for the first time. In my last marriage I never got a chance to be a wife. I was too busy being the wife and the husband. I had to lead my marriage and our lives which was not the will of God. But my husband refused to have a relationship with God and lead our marriage. When your out of alignment in your marriage all heck breaks loose. Eventually came infidelity on my part and then divorce later.

I read so many marriage books, searched the Word of God, worked on my heart with the Lord and sought out advice from older married women. But talking to them only confused me more when I was hoping for wisdom. I picked up Joyce Meyers book on marriage and for months I cuddled up on my couch devouring and highlighting every sentence that I felt spoke to me. I was on a mission to preparing myself to becoming a wife by doing pre martial counseling, growing closer to God, and seeking wisdom. But even after all of that I still years later had no idea what I was doing and was afraid I had once again failed.

One day my husband and I met up for lunch on his lunch break. Our daughter loved any chance she got to see him randomly in the middle of the day. We got into an argument over something stupid and that led to harsh words and my heart breaking for the first time in our marriage. As I was driving home listening to Air1 radio a song came on reminding me that when God ordains something He has a will and plan for it. In His time and in His way He takes care of it. I began to weep. So loudly I am sure the people who were driving next to me could hear me through my rolled down window but I didn’t care. I felt like my whole world was falling apart. I said out loud through my choking tears “Lord I do not know what you’re going to do but I trust you know better than me. And you have a plan.” I was barely married and the year-long honeymoon phase passed so quickly. I was trying so hard to be a good wife and mother. But I felt utterly useless. I didn’t want to repeat the same mistakes.

I knew that my now husband was my soul mate sent from God. After I surrendered fully to Him and letting Him become my focus I met my husband 6 months later at two months before my 21st birthday. But a year after we married, I had caught religion and I had forgotten who brought me to this marriage and who sent me to where I am. Because that’s what religion does. It traps you into forgetting the truth and you start accepting what is false about God. But in that moment, in my weakness, my will power failed me and I broke submitting myself to God seeking Him for truth. After asking ministers at the church I was attending to help us and counsel us only to be ignored and told no, I broke down and prayed again. I remember saying “Lord. You have given me the greatest counselor. If I cannot find anyone to counsel my husband and I will you please lead us to something that your Holy Spirit can counsel us in?” After all God knows our inner most thoughts and He created our hearts of Flesh.

Days later my husband comes home after his second job, walks straight into our room and loudly says “You need to get this book. It’s called The Marriage Builder. I was just listening to Focus on the Family on Star and they were talking about this book and I heard God tell me to get it!” I looked at him so surprised but instantly felt revelation spring forth in my heart. My husband had no idea I prayed that prayer but I knew that was God answering it through him. So the very next day I ordered two books offline and we began reading it as soon as it came. I want to share with you the one truth in that book that changed my marriage forever and made a huge difference in how we see each other today.

Spirit Oneness

Spirit oneness is normally confused with soul oneness. For a long time people, even me, have heard that we are one in the spirit with out spouses. But that is not so. We connect with our spouses in spiritual ways but we cannot be one in the spirit with them. Spiritual oneness is only for you and God. When you are one with God spiritually you understand that all of your needs are met by Him. You are loved and can love because He loves you. And no matter what your spouse does or how he or she is towards you, you can have peace and rest in the fact that God sees you and knows what you need. He can supply your every need, emotionally, physically and spiritually even when your spouse cannot.

Feeling alone in your marriage? God promises to be there for you even if it’s two in the morning. Feeling let down and overlooked by your spouse? God sees all that you do and is your biggest cheerleader. If you listen He will tell you how proud He is of you and give you that sense of achievement. Feeling lack of intimacy in your marriage? Intimacy with God is the greater than any you will ever get from your spouse. Intimacy is not sex. Sex is just a product of intimacy which I would love to share with you also in a later post.

The reason why I had to understand this important truth was because when my needs as a wife or a person in general were not being met I would go into a pit of despair, anxiety, depression, and even resent my husband. We would fight like cats and dogs because anger would rise up in me when I felt disrespected and I would lash out in vengeance. When the lack of intimacy in my marriage was in my face evident, I would get depressed and withdraw from my husband and even sometimes my friends. When my husband would not see the hard work I did in the home and would honestly sometimes be insensitive, I would have anxiety attacks and would sometimes even attack him.

But when I understood this truth of spirit oneness with God, every time I felt let down, overlooked or disrespected by my husband I would run to my daddy. Under His pinions I would  say “Father. My heart is hurting. Because Jim was so rude to me today. I reacted horribly though. Please heal my heart, help me forgive him, and help me to be a better wife.” Sometimes I would literally run right in the middle of an argument out of the room and into the safety of prayer. I ran to the nearest place I could be alone. On my porch in the summers, in my bathroom and bedroom in the winter and at night on the couch in my living room.

I sowed into my spiritual oneness with my Father by doing that. The more I did that the less I expected of my husband and the less I lashed out when I felt hurt. Now I truly could write a book about this very subject. That is why I had to break this up in two separate posts. Because on the other hand, we do have to understand what our boundaries and that is it just fine to defend those boundaries when our spouses are not respecting them. But both go hand in hand. We need to let go of high expectations of our spouses but also be able to stand up for ourselves correctly when hurt.

I would always tell my husband when he was being rude or not respecting my boundaries. But when I understood my husband’s lack of love and acceptance or attention does define if I am truly loved, accepted and seen, I was able to escape the trap of anxiety, depression and despair. And then I was able to forgive and move on truly never hoarding resentment towards him.

This helped my husband as well. But like me we are both still growing in this. We are always being met somewhere down the line with something we have to let go of and rely on God for. Or something in us that we need to change  so that we are ministering spouses and not manipulating ones. When you grow up in an abusive home like we both did, your sense of boundaries and identity is messed up or none existent. That was something we had to both come to understand as well.

Check out the book if you can. There is even more than what I wrote about. It truly is a blessing to us we are actually still reading through it 3 years later. Yeah…. each chapter forced some serious issues out of us both that we had to give time to mature in before we moved on! I will write about Soul oneness in the next post.