Control Freak. Those words either resonate with you or they don’t. And of course there are various levels to the madness in which control can manifest in a person’s life.  It’s a sneaky little fella that’s for sure. Dressed up and disguised as just wanting to do the right thing … kind of trying to make others do it too Sometimes disguised as good goals until they feel like they are going to kill you. Other times being driven and not driving this life we live. Some people want to control their weight, for some their environment (everything being perfectly in order to feel in order), others controlling situations so others can’t hurt them. For me it was wrapped up in love … I could even put a pretty bow on it and call it passion, probably even convince you of it.

When the Lord began shining the beacon light of His truth on this little culprit at work in my heart, exposing the places it had tainted with it’s lies, he used this memory to show me something about myself and reveal His truth.

A couple weeks after I gave my life to Jesus while living with my Aunt and Uncle I got a kitten. Oh my goodness the cutest little black and white kitten I’ve ever seen. I went with my Aunt and cousins to pick a kitten out of litter of kittens born on a nearby farm. I told my Aunt I wanted a cow-cat (a cat that is black and white like a cow), she knew I needed something to love and went and found them for me. I spotted the one I wanted right away and crawled under this old tracter and pulled the little guy out by his tail. I was at a place in my life where I felt all alone and somehow that loneliness disappeared in the companionship of that adorable kitten. I loved that kitten and he loved me. I named that cute little cow-cat “Dude”. I would walk into the room and say, “What up Dude?” and he would strut his stuff right over to me. I loved that kitten so much that I would start petting him and holding him so tight that he would start yelping in high pitch sounds. I loved him so much that I would literally hurt him with all my love. I couldn’t help it, I would just squeeze his little body so tight. If I could tuck him inside me I would. I just couldn’t get him close enough to me.

A few years later while in Bible College, my boyfriend (husband to be) and I broke up after dating for a year and a half. I was devastated. It was my first real Christian relationship and I put so much pressure on it to be perfect. I would get so hurt when it wasn’t. Just like that kitten I would squeeze so tight, I loved too hard that I was actually pushing the one I loved away. I tried controlling our relationship so I wouldn’t get hurt. I served the fear of being hurt until the very thing I feared the most came upon me. When we broke up we both walked away with very little hope we would ever get back together. I was crushed, having thought I heard God and holding broken dreams of the future in my hands.

I remember laying flat on the floor in my apartment crying mascara stains into the carpet, crying out to God to heal my broken heart. He showed me my heart and it had three thorns in it. He said if I would let Him pull the thorns, they would bleed and hurt initially (we had to go back to some hurtful memories growing up) but then they would fully heal. I would face the fear head on with God and on purpose feel pain instead of devising plans and controlling people so I would never have to control situations again. One by one God and I revisited memories, dealt with pain and the fears that hindered me from giving and receiving love in freedom.  The Lord sent me to India, Argentina, and New Orleans on missions’ trips to serve Him with my whole heart and to share with others the same love I had received from Him. Six months after our break up Yuri and I got back to together and were married within six months. My husband told me how the Lord had told him the old had to die, so the new could live.  Eleven years later, I’m still thankful for the work that God did in our hearts during that time.

This year our church started off the year with a 21-day devotional called, “Let’s Go!,”  I started to read it and the Holy Spirit began speaking to my heart and His words shined like a beacon light again exposing where that little culprit of control had set up camp. He said, “For others this may be “Let’s Go!,” but for you this year is about, “Letting Go!”

We have four boys ranging from eight to three years old. I’ve home schooled the oldest two and kept all my boys really close to me, desiring with the entirety of my heart that they know and serve God their whole lives without having to experience things I went through.  So here’s this picture of me squeezing that poor little kitten again until it’s yelping for relief, except this time the Holy Spirit shows me it’s my children. The fear is that they won’t turn out to love God, they’ll make the same mistakes I made, they’ll hurt and I’ll have been the one that hurt them (that’s as real as it gets from this Mama’s heart.) I began to cry and repent asking the Lord to reveal His truth. Under all that I did well, hidden was a motivation of fear. I realized if I kept squeezing I was eventually going to produce the very thing I feared. I love that the Lord is faithful to put us right back on His track fueled with His truth when we are quick to repent.

The Holy Spirit began to talk to me about the hand posture of letting go, how it is the same open palm posture of giving, receiving, surrendering, praising, and worshiping. The hand posture of closed fists is associated with squeezing, clinching, fighting, striving …  all expressions of lack of trust. Even holding, as when I pull in one of my boys and hold them my hand runs flat across their back, we in openness give and receive love. Everything is open and nothing is closed. In my heart I wrote my children’s names on my hands and lifted them to the Lord.

I prayed, “Lord, I let go of my children and surrender them to you. I let go of trying to make them love you and know you in all my own strength. I let go of the false control I thought I had. I repent of serving fear and making it an idol in my heart making provision for it by not trusting you with them. I give them to you and receive your grace to steward these gifts that are yours. I praise you with them written on my hands in my heart worshipping You because in every way You are good! I partner with You to parent them, lead me by your wisdom for You know them better than I do. Teach me how to gain their hearts. You have always been faithful. Lord, I will trust You!” Amen!

For me it was my children, what area in your heart is the Lord shining His beacon light and exposing where control and fear have camped out? Sometimes it’s really scary to step out and trust the Lord especially because we like that feeling of “being in control.” But the truth is: if He is not in control, we were never really “in control.” Whatever it is I encourage you to let go! Shake those hands out, loosen up the grip, open up your hands and give all your pain as well as fear to the Lord and receive all the freedom he desires you to walk in.

I’ve decided to live my life hands wide open, I encourage you live like that with me!

With hands wide open and Great Love!

Quote from ~ NEMO (Disney/Pixar)

Crush: ‘Let us see what Squirt does flying solo.’

Crush: ‘The little dudes are just eggs. We leave ‘em on a beach to hatch… and then, coo-coo-cachoo, they find their way back to the big ol’ blue.’

Marlin: ‘All by themselves?’

Crush: ‘Yeah.’

Marlin: ‘But, dude, how do you know when they’re ready?’

Crush: ‘Well, you never really know. But when they know, you’ll know, you know?’

There are times I come across someone’s writing and think, “I just can’t say that any better myself.” I recently read a devotion by one of my favorite Bible scholars, Skip Moen, and thought this exact thought. He is a man who has studied, beyond measure, the Hebraic thought pattern and choice of wording behind the scriptures, and he presents his writings from that very perspective. He is intelligent and incredibly educated, but mostly, he is a man of God, searching to know more of Yeshua and desiring to share that insight with others. I know this because my husband, Anthony, and I have had the opportunity to get to know Skip beyond his website and daily, email devotionals.

Leverage, the title of the devotion below, has so much meat, so much truth, so much “gosh, that’s good stuff”, that I knew it was pointless to try to recreate the wheel. Instead, I just chose to re-present the wheel.

“What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.” Matthew 19:6

“Joined Together – Every translation I checked has the same wording, “joined together.”  But that doesn’t quite capture the overtones of this very unusual Greek verb (syzeugnymi).  The verb literally means “yoked together.”  It is found only twice in the LXX (Ezekiel 1:11 and 23).  Both are translations of the Hebrew verb havar.  When Yeshua spoke about the purpose of marriage, he must have used this Hebrew verb.  It isn’t just about “joining.”  It’s about pulling the load together.  Joining is what I do with lumber, committees and pipes.  But yoking implies work to be done.  No one hitches two animals in a yoke without having an objective in mind.  Yoking is about pulling in the same direction in order to accomplish the same purpose.

Two people who are joined together in an agreement for mutual pleasure, protection and provision are not necessarily yoked.  To be yoked is to share the same task.  This is the purpose of marriage as God sees it.  My spouse and I must share in the same God-given objective.  Without this, we are joined but not yoked.  Of course, that doesn’t mean we do the same job.  We may both have different tasks but we have the same objective.  What is that?  It is to live in yoked harmony, recapturing what it means to be one again in a display of perfect redemption.

In case the imagery wasn’t clear enough, we might look at the homophones of havar.  The consonants are Chet-Bet-Resh.  Changing the vowels from a to e produces a word that means a company, a band (of brothers) and a magic spell.  The concept behind all three is binding, whether by association or incantation.  Altering the vowels again produces haver, the Hebrew word for friendship.  Obviously, being yoked means more than a tandem work team.  It is closely associated with the deepest kind of community.

Finally, let’s take a glance at the pictograph.  Chet-Bet-Resh is the picture “a fence around a person in a house.”  Marriage is the fence around the house.  It binds husband and wife so that nothing and no one can interfere in the exercise of God’s prime directive for “one-flesh” union.  Oh, that’s doesn’t mean sex.  The prime directive is to act as regents of the heavenly kingdom here on earth so that His name may be glorified.

OK, here’s the bottom line.  Yoked means pulling together, not pulling apart.  Yoked means deep friendship, anchored in common commitment.  Yoked means not being alone.  Yoked means holding hands while we travel the path of God’s purpose in a broken world.  Yoked means not letting go.

Lots of couples are married, inside and outside the church.  Few are yoked.  Those who aren’t know they aren’t.  Those who are can’t imagine what it would be like not to be.” [Skip Moen]

And because this has been said with such conviction and passion, I’ll leave the words to settle on your heart without adding my own.

*If you want to read more of Skip’s writings, please visit his website at www.skipmoen.com.

It was Christmas day, 1999. Yuri and I had been married a week shy of one year. We lived in alumni housing at Christ For the Nations where we had met and graduated from Bible College. Our first home was a small one-bedroom apartment with a borrowed kitchen table. We had a floral Victorian wood framed hand-me-down love seat which sat in front of a TV stand bought from Walmart and an old turn dial TV that was also given to us. We were sitting on our love seat opening the last present when I glanced over at the clock to see the time. It was then that I realized our first Christmas had lasted all of 15 minutes. I was fighting back tears and really an all out explosion of disappointment. There we sat two newlyweds from dramatically different pasts. It was kind of like city girl raised with birthday months and holiday extravaganzas meets boy raised on hippy commune in Hawaii running around surfing and exploring the island oblivious of his humble holidays. My very own Tarzan except raised by hippies instead of gorillas, thus the name Yuri Lite Star.

Since I was a little girl as far back as I could remember our family would drive out to meet our extended family in the central valley of California. Christmas day consisted of stockings first thing in the morning. We then started the cooking and grazing on appetizers (usually amazing tamales home-made by someone’s Aunt or Grandma we knew) and then there was the grand feast. Usually around noonish we had “presents time.” We watched movies, had dessert, and were lazy together. Christmas lasted ALL day long, not 15 minutes.

As I sat on our love seat I thought for a moment how special it was our first Christmas together, it held the opportunity of starting something new. I could have been grateful for our love, that God had brought the two of us together to create a beautiful new thing even though it meant that we would also have to work at it. BUT NO, I didn’t pass the content wife test. I instead fell apart in all out drama true to my thespian roots. I’ll never forget the look on my husbands face, I saw two things, first I saw what was like a confused “What the heck … I don’t get you” look coupled with his own set of disappointments mixed with a feeling of a failed Christmas. So there I stood in my first married Christmas … remembering moments where I saw the yellow caution tape showing me my boundaries yet I didn’t head my hearts sound advice and instead was left with a memory stamped and filed: DEATH BY EXPECTATIONS.

Being a idealist all my life, I’ve come to learn through great trial that expectations and disappointment walk hand in hand down a isle of misery for myself and all I drag down the isle with me. I’ve learned on more than one occasion that the REAL world doesn’t adhere to “Marissa’s perfect little world” rules.  And WOW, get this, neither do God’s plans for me. I am so glad that God has come and shattered my fabricated world and blessed me greater than my own highest hopes for it. He raised the roof so to say! He started with truth, the kind that humbles and sets free at the same time. Though it had the initial sting of correction it came wrapped like a present of great love. Jesus has an amazing way with our hearts … He takes pain and disappointment and turns them into joy and blessings. I’ve learned that participating in idealism and setting unrealistic expectations is actually serving an idol that’s not real and is built on subtle lies of the enemy that are 90 percent truth mixed with good intentions and 10 percent deceptive thinking. When we build castles in the sky we set up others for failure because the plain truth is … people can’t fly. Unmet expectations have only led me to feelings of frustration and pain usually fueled by the voice of the enemy. Which is not the voice of love. Its time to train our hearts to be alert of the voices we entertain and choose Jesus; the voice of love.

It started with a self-sabotaged Christmas and went on to countless birthdays that I tried to hint and pre-manipulate out of fear my husband would somehow forget or not make it “special”. I served the fear that he would not meet my expectations, when really I never let him out of the box to rise to the occasion.  It took nine years into my marriage before I let God begin to show me what was at work in my heart. I needed to set my husband free of my expectations and live with a grateful heart letting my supplications be known to God. I also needed to trust God that he would teach my husband how to love me the way I needed to be loved. As long as I had a death grip on him, God couldn’t work. I needed to surrender him and the expectations I had placed on him to God.

Philippians 4:6-7 “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

And in true God style … miracles followed.

It was my thirty third birthday. I had no preconceived ideas leading up to my birthday … No “it’s two weeks until my birthday … it’s one week until my birthday” reminders.  To my surprise my husband who was left to think for himself planned not one but two birthday parties for me. The first was a princess birthday party with my four boys, a balloon, and a princess cake with a tiara on top. We had pizza, per my boys request (because that is what is served at all great kid parties right?! wink). They went around and told me what they loved most about me, my favorite being the compliment I received from my four year old about my beautiful eyeballs.

Next he planned a romantic dinner for the two of us at a great Sushi restaurant (and, well I have to tell you I love me some sushi) in Dallas. My best friend from high school who lives in Dallas was invited and showed up at the end of dinner and was like the icing on the cake. It was better than anything I could have planned. It showed me that he knew me and knew what mattered to me. I just hadn’t given him the chance to show me.

Dealing with expectations and the disappointments they bring takes on many different faces. Your situations may look differently than mine did, but the frustration and pain you’ve experienced may feel similar. I challenge you to allow the Holy Spirit to shift your perspective and allow you to see the people and situations in your life in a fresh new way.

So as we are going into the Christmas season amidst a ton of fun but unrealistic portrayals of Christmas, let’s take a few moments and let the people in our lives shine or even give them the freedom to not shine. May we take a moment to think how we can bless the ones we love with a gesture of kindness the way it would bless them, not necessarily us. I believe that’s what love looks like; the perfect outfit of unselfishness with accessories of gratitude; the beauty of the Son that becomes us … which is what Christmas is really all about.

Lord,

As we walk into the next few weeks leading up to Christmas may we find opportunities to celebrate your life by laying ours down for others, like ultimately you came to do for us. May the gifts we give to you be the love we give to others in our lives. May we offer them the grace to be who they are (only changed by you), extending a love that covers a multitude of faults, and hope that believes the best even in those who don’t always believe the best in us. Be the Lord of our hearts, ever changing us to see and be more like you.

AMEN!

Signed a recovering idealist in the Father’s hands,

One amazing husband, six children, one son-n-law, two grandbabies, two dogs and a hermit crab named Captain America.  Life is busy!  God is faithful!

One afternoon my daughter came wandering into the kitchen complaining about being bored.  I reminded her the dryer was full of towels so she went to the laundry room and began folding.  A few minutes later my son came bouncing down the stairs and collided with the living room. I asked him to pick up his shoes, hang up his jacket and put up some other items of clothing that were flung across the room.  Oh, if you could have seen the questioning look on his face.  He looked me straight in the eye and with a wrinkled brow asked, “Why do I have to do everything?  No one else is doing anything!”

What??? Oh no he DID’NT!! I looked straight back at him and said, “Number one, your sister’s in the laundry room folding towels for me right now.  Number two, even if she was sitting in front of the TV eating ice cream, you still have to do what I ask you to do.”

I hadn’t even finished that sentence when the Lord started talking.  I just stood there watching as my son reluctantly obeyed and listening as the Holy Spirit revealed truth.

(JOHN 21:22) Jesus said to him, “If I will that he remain till I come, what is that to you? You follow Me.”

Jesus was saying to me, “don’t worry about what happens to him, what I do for him, what I bless him with or don’t bless him with.  Take your eyes off him and get them on me.  FOCUS on Me!  Quit worrying about what he is or isn’t doing and you do what I tell YOU to do!  Quit worrying about where he is or isn’t going and YOU FOLLOW ME!”

Or maybe He was just saying this to me as I stood there receiving the download.  Looking back, I believe this could be applied to every area of my life but God took me straight to my marriage that day.

So many times I had cried out to God, “Why do I have to do everything!  He’s not doing anything!”  Each time, as I expected God to fix the situation by fixing my husband, I was amazed with what God revealed to me – about me.

This time God showed me my eyes were on my husband and not on Him – again!  See, when I focus on my relationship with God and let Him have full access to my heart, He perfects that which concerns me (Psalm 138:8).  I had taken my eyes off God and put them on what my husband was or wasn’t doing.  I knew from past experience that if I didn’t refocus, what was concerning me would begin consuming me.  I would start seeing everything from a negative perspective – again.

This is one deception I’ve always had to be aware of.  I remember early in our marriage my husband diagnosed me with Prince Charming Syndrome.  I certainly didn’t like hearing it but the symptoms spoke for themselves.  I had set our marriage and my husband up for failure on more than one occasion.  He could never live up to my expectations.  When he fell short, I wasted no time pointing it out and just as quickly expressed my disappointment.

I remember thinking everything would be great if only he would …   Now I know God had been saying, “Stacy, don’t worry about what he’s doing, you follow ME!”

Of course, I had not been obeying or following God.  How could I?  After all, I was way to busy obsessing over how to make the beautiful mural of my marriage I’d painted in my mind a reality.  This fairy-tale I had conceived and couldn’t live without preoccupied my every moment.  The more perfect the fairy-tale picture in my mind became the more imperfect my reality became.  One might say I was living in La-La-Land.

I remember times when I would come home from such powerful prayer meetings, walk in the door and immediately become frustrated because things were in disarray and I would blame my husband.  If only he …  Looking back it’s funny how the little things were so big at the time.   It really didn’t matter what I saw when I got home.  What mattered was my response to what I saw.  There were so many missed opportunities for God to work and love through me.

Again, the Lord had been saying, “It doesn’t matter what he’s doing or not doing.  You follow ME!  You obey ME!”

I was reminded of when Samuel was sent by God to anoint David.  Samuel, because he looked at the outward appearance, wanted to anoint the wrong guy.  Just like Samuel, I had been using my natural eyes and expecting to see the spiritual.  The Lord told Samuel … “For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7) God didn’t just see something good in David, he saw what He had deposited in David.  I’m excited about seeing the deposit that God has placed on the inside of my husband and watching the plans He has for us and for our family unfold.

I’ll admit it was hard for me to do what God told me to do and not see any change in the situation.  (At least not at first, anyway.)  I had to learn not to base my obedience on results.  It didn’t matter what I saw.  I had to walk by faith and not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7).  I had to take my eyes off me, off my expectations, off what my husband was or wasn’t doing and put them back on God and follow HIM!

If only I had listened to God during those years and walked in love instead of demanding my own way, I could have avoided so much turmoil.                (1 Corinthians 13:5 NLT) “love does not demand its own way.  It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged.”

How beautiful it is when we get passed those early years and God’s restoring and healing power erases the scars.  However, isn’t sharing our testimony used in overcoming the enemy?  God’s no respecter of persons and what He did for us and what He’s STILL doing for us, He’ll do for others.  Not that I want to live in the past, but I am encouraged when I look back and see God’s amazing faithfulness (even when we weren’t faithful).  I love Him so much for carrying us, loving us in spite of us, and NEVER giving up on us.

I see God in my husband more now than ever.   To look where we started and to see where we are.  God is so good and so faithful!!!  Prince Charming Syndrome?!  HA!!  I laugh at that now.  WHY?  Because, God gave me my Prince Charming after all!

“He is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we could ask or think.” (Ephesians 3:20)

Stacy is amazed at the glory of God and his faithfulness in making so many prophetic  words and dreams come to pass.  She is married to Monty, her wonderful husband of 14 yrs. They have  six children and two grand babies (God has Blessed them with the gift of adopting four of their children). Stacy loves to spend time with Jesus and journal all the marvelous things He says to her.  She has such a heart for women and cherishes those ministry opportunities. God is overwhelming.

I was chatting with some moms the other day listening to their stories about the challenges they were having with their husbands and kids, when all of a sudden the thought struck me – I HAVE THE PERFECT FAMILY!  Now you may be thinking, “she is awfully bold in making such a statement,” but hear me out on this one – If you came to my home and passed by my daughters cluttered room, saw the dirty dishes in the sink and heard the 4 year old pitching a fit from the back room you might wonder about my idea of perfect. After all isn’t perfect without flaw, faultless?  Not in my house it isn’t, perfect around here is the process and the people God is using to help us to look, act and think more like He does.  Romans 12:1-2 says,  “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” The perfect will of God, well my family is the perfect will of God for me and my life.

For example – when one of my daughters was two there was something in my heart that began to react in anger to the circumstances and situations around me and I could see the reflection of this anger in her heart as well.   I finally came to the conclusion that I could not penetrate her heart without first dealing with my own. God used this most amazing two-year-old to help me confront my anger, deal with it, leave it at the feet of Jesus and learn to walk in healing and forgiveness.  It took time, prayer, petition and great humility for me to realize that the problem was in me – I was the one with an anger issue and she was my little mirror. Walking out the next 4 years was challenging and humbling but by the time she had turned 6 both our lives were free from the stronghold of anger and a grace and delight encompassed our relationship with each other.  I tell people, “Of all the people I know she gives me more grace than others because we both had to learn to receive God’s grace to overcome the anger in our hearts.”

When my daughters approached adolescence the fear that their lives would look like mine during those formative years began to grip my heart.  My parents divorced when I turned 12 and I remember the loneliness, the emptiness, the feeling of having no place where I belonged and the road those feelings led to when I left for college.  I was fearful their lives would be a reflection of my wrong choices and I wanted so desperately to keep them from the heartache and grief I had experienced.  As we began to walk the road to adulthood God gave me a new picture of His plan for their lives and the sense of well-being that each of them would gain their confidence from their identity in Him and that it would shape the person they were becoming.  God took my broken years and past and through prayer and hard work he made something new and wonderful for my daughters – it became clear to me that not only was he giving them a future and a hope he was also giving me a new future and a hope in my own life as well.

Now the men in my life, they don’t think like me, act like me or smell like me and because of that they are constantly challenging me to get out of my box and live life to the fullest.  My husband is the perfect man for me – God knew I would need a man to pray for me to be seasoned in the Lord, a man who would not try to fix me but would allow God to do the fixing and a man who never let a day be boring – no we are on the ride of our life a daily walk in trusting the One who brought us together.

One of my son’s has taught me to laugh at myself, helping me to get over myself and to let joy enter my heart and life. He is a quality time child and to sit and play with him brings him great delight, I am an acts of service kind of girl and so learning to speak his love language has made me die to myself and many of my “idealistic” expectations about priorities and the stack of dirty dishes in the sink – you see perfect to me means the dishes would never be there, but love to him says “forget the dishes for a minute and let’s play a game”. I have to set aside my list of to dos and love him today while I still have today with him.

Another son helps me to stop and smell the roses; his laid back personality reminds me that all of life is not a race and that sometimes taking a few extra minutes to enjoy the journey is as important as getting to my destination.  My third son challenges me in every way – he wants to be big and then suddenly he wants to be little (big if his older siblings are getting to do something without him, little if he has to unload the dishwasher by himself) But don’t I do the same thing with God, “God today I am big and I can conquer the world, oh but that hurt so now I am little and need You to come help me pick up the mess I just made.”

Like I said, I have the perfect family, a perfect mess and perfect for me.  Perfectly able to be used by God to shape me into becoming the person he wants for me to be – perfectly able to help me die to myself and learn to love outside my abilities and let Him love through me, and you know what?  I am the perfect wife for my husband and the perfect mom for each of my kids as well, the one He called to instill into them some of my strengths, to help them with recognizing our weaknesses and letting Him be strong in us and the perfect wife and mom to love, pray and walk with them on this journey called Life. I bet you have the perfect family and you are the perfect one for them as well.

Tomi fell in love at the age of 21 with her Savior and has followed her Lord Jesus Christ since that time. She is a native Texan who currently lives in North Richland Hills with her husband, Darrell. They have been married for 171/2 years and together they have five children – ages sixteen, thirteen, ten, six & four years old. Tomi enjoys writing, teaching, reading, date night with hubby and the occasional night off to laugh with other women about the ups and downs of life and the goodness of God.

Read more from Tomi at:

http://redroseinbloom.wordpress.com

I stepped outside the box the other day. I stepped so far out that I surprised myself. I bought a bikini. The shock of this is that I haven’t worn a bikini in over 30 years. Well over 30 years. I can’t remember exactly when I last wore a bikini, so I’ll lay it out plainly. I’m in my 40s, and I bought a bikini. I stepped outside my age box when I bought a bikini.

If you live in a beach culture or European or Latin or Australian culture, you might say, “So what? What took you so long? Why would you wear anything but a bikini?” I don’t live in any of those cultures. I live in middle America, in the Bible belt, and I am planted firmly in conservative church culture. I stepped outside my cultural box when I bought a bikini.

Then there is the whole issue of body image. After so many years of covering up, I feel exposed in a bikini. When I went to try on swimsuits, I looked in the mirror and could only see the flaws in my body, like the places where my abdomen will never completely regain its shape after four babies. I’ll spare you the rest of the details, but you get the picture. I stepped outside my body image box when I bought a bikini.

This story is not about the bikini. It’s not about my boxes. It’s about the fact that I stepped outside the box and why.

It all began about a month ago with channel surfing one evening. We stumbled across the show “Marriage Today”. Jimmy Evans was talking about how romance in marriage thrives when spouses learn to speak each others’ love language. The wife needs to learn to speak the language of “man”, and the husband needs to speak “woman”.

When the man learns to speak “woman”, it goes something like this: “Honey, let’s sit and talk. I want to listen to you and understand you. Let’s talk about our feelings.” He is attending to the communication needs of his wife.  When the woman learns to speak “man” she says things like, “Hubba hubba, baby! Have I got big, sexy plans for you when you come home tonight!” To a man, this communicates love.

Fast forward a week or two from the TV show to when Mark and I began preparing for our beach trip, just the two of us, no children. He started talking about buying me a bikini. Of course I laughed and inwardly said, “Whatever.” I had no intention of buying a bikini. I was very comfortable inside all my boxes, thank you very much.

The man I love doesn’t give up easily. He mentioned the bikini several times and even got our daughters involved. They started asking me, ‘Mom, if Dad buys you a bikini, will you wear it?” Then one day on the way to church—the place where you try to be honest before God and man—he revealed his ultimate plot. Mark jokingly said, “You and me at the beach, baby, I’ll wear a Speedo and you can wear a bikini.” Images of European men in skimpy swimsuits flashed through my head, and I placed my husband in a box, thinking, “Yeah, that’s not happening.” So I met his challenge and laughingly said, “OK, honey, if you wear a Speedo, I’ll wear a bikini.”

Famous last words. He triumphantly came to me later in the day and showed me his new swimsuit we bought the day before: black, to the knees, white Hawaiian flowers, Speedo tag, plain as day. Dang! How was I going to work myself out of that hole? My resolve began to wear down, but I still wasn’t ready to try on any bikinis.

A few days later I overheard a couple of my friends talking about bikinis as we were chatting after our prayer group meeting. Yes, a couple of praying, bikini-wearing, church ladies! On some level I knew they might side with my husband, but I plunged in anyway and told them of the bikini debate at my house. They got excited and even offered to go shopping with me. One of them said, “You have a great body for a bikini!” In less than five minutes, these friends had torn the lid off of all three of my boxes: church ladies, one of them a bikini-wearer my age (who looks great in a bikini), the other telling me I had a great body for a bikini (who also looks great in a bikini.)

At this point my thinking shifted from “Whatever!” to “Well…maybe?” I told Mark about the conversation at dinner that night, and he offered to drive me to Kohl’s right then. He continued to offer over the next couple of days. He was genuinely excited about it. I made the decision to touch my toe outside the box. I called my bikini-wearing girlfriend who is my age and has also had four babies, and we went shopping. All the while, I explained that I may or may not buy one; I was just willing to try them on!

Once I began to step outside the box, it wasn’t that difficult. I found a conservative bikini that I felt comfortable in, and Mark loved it! It was uncomfortable at first, but I bought a bikini because I wanted to speak “man” to my husband. We had a great beach trip where we spoke lots of “man” and “woman”.

Yes, I’m squirming a little to make that last statement on the world wide web of blogging. But we do live in a world that contains sexual abuse, sexual perversion and sexual obsession. I think it’s important to celebrate and learn about healthy sexuality in marriage.

If we go back to God’s original design for marriage, we can see that sex is an intricate part of the design. When God created Eve, Adam’s response (my paraphrase) was: “This is it! I’ve found my perfect match! I’m going to spend the rest of my life being one with her.” His instinctual response was sexual—he wanted to be one flesh with her. He even prophesied over marriages to come that the desire for oneness would drive a man and woman to leave their parents and cling to each other. (I wish the story included Eve’s response. Surely she thrilled at being passionately admired for her beauty.) Genesis chapter 2 in the Bible tells us that “The man and woman were both naked, and they felt no shame.” After God had created everything (including man and woman and marriage with sex), He saw that it was good. Sex is good!

Yet in our imperfect world sometimes sex in marriage is not good. Our reality doesn’t match God’s design. There are many reasons why a couple may have trouble with intimacy in marriage. My bikini story had a happy ending, but it hasn’t always been easy. There have been times when we have struggled in our sex life. (Don’t worry. I’m not going to give you Too Much Information.) I just want to put it out there that it’s OK to admit our struggle in this area. Just like in other areas of our life, if we are having trouble, we can find help. We can call a friend, read a book, go to the doctor, or attend a conference. We can pray and ask God to help us. He is so good and faithful to help us when we ask Him.

I’ve listed a few resources below for anyone who might need them. I know there are many others, so readers, please include your favorites in your comments!

http://www.marriagetoday.org

Books:

Sheet Music by Dr. Kevin Leman

Intended for Pleasure by Ed Wheat, M.D. and Gaye Wheat

So now I have stepped out of my box and out onto a limb by opening up this private topic. Yet as Will Rogers put it, “Why not go out on a limb? That’s where the fruit is.” Just don’t ask me to get out on that limb in my bikini.

It was a cold day in Utah. Bundled from head to foot, I stood on skis at the top of the mountain, ready to take a run down with my husband. As an inexperienced skier, I was nervous about how I would keep up and make it down the mountain in one piece. I took comfort in the fact that we had our six year old daughter with us, and surely no one would take her down a black diamond (experienced skier) run. As we took off, I was shouting reminders to stay on only green beginner runs (for our daughter of course)!
We got down the top half of the mountain without any problems; I was trailing a bit behind, but still standing. I won’t go so far as to say that I was having fun, but I was hanging in there, trying to learn a new sport. Before I could even mentally celebrate that I was still alive, my daughter (the little traitor) took the lead and shot straight down a small chute and missed the turn for the easy way down. I didn’t know the mountain and didn’t want to get separated from them, so I followed. They waited for me at the bottom of the chute, and as I was pointing out somewhat emotionally that they missed the turn, my husband gave me a look that was part “I’m sorry”, part shoulder shrug as if to say, “What can we do?” and part “Oh boy I think I’m in trouble”.
Mark stayed beside me and fed me many encouraging words as I tried to pick which of the two steep blues I would claw my way down (they would have been double blues at another ski resort I’m sure). Finally he had to leave me behind and find our daughter who fearlessly had gone on ahead. In between thoughts of panic, I said to myself, “I let him do it to me again! I wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t talked me into it! Why do I let him do this to me?”
Combining my best blend of snowplow (beginner skier’s painful way to control speed) and long horizontal runs, I made it down about an eighth of the run when I realized I really was not having any fun. I was cold, afraid, alone (left in the dust by a six year old!), I had a sinus infection, cramps from my period, and I had left my nursing baby at home. So I did what any self-respecting woman would do: I took my skis off and began to walk down. Scorning embarrassment, I knew I had reached my limits.
A young snowboarder stopped to check and make sure I was OK. I think he must have been a resort employee that was off duty, because a few minutes later a snowmobile showed up to give me a ride down. When I got to the bottom, my husband was waiting for me, concerned because it had taken me so long, but still with that sheepish look of, “Am I in trouble for pushing you too far?”
No, Mark wasn’t in trouble that day. Lucky for him, it was the six year old who missed the turn. I’m happy to say that over the next 2 years I persevered in learning to ski and now enjoy it. I will never be a ski racer, but we have lots of fun when we ski together as a couple and as a family.
So why did I let him talk me into it? It wasn’t the first time he had gotten me out on the limb. There was the rock climbing adventure where I cut my hand and had to work my way through real fear as he was thirty feet above me on the rock, and the only way out was to climb up. And there was our first Colorado backpacking trip where I broke down and cried because it was so physically demanding.
The simple answer is that I let him talk me into it because I love him. And yet it is more complicated than that. Years ago I read in the book, His Needs, Her Needs by Willard F. Harley Jr., that one of the top five needs of a husband is for his wife to be his recreational companion. I don’t know that I ever made a conscious decision that I would risk life and limb to be his recreational companion, but if it’s in his top five needs, I am challenged to at least make an attempt at recreating with him. The challenge is in that it just so happens that my man enjoys extreme sports.    If our love is proven by our actions, then I have many opportunities to show my love because my husband is all about action!
We have tried many forms of recreation to find out what we both enjoy. We started with what we have in common: we both love the outdoors. With a little perseverance, skiing worked well. With even more perseverance, fishing has not worked. That story is another chapter in the book, but I will say that my husband has accepted the fact that we (mostly me) don’t enjoy fishing together. He has a fishing buddy who enjoys it almost as much as he does, so that is who he fishes with. In our quest to find activities that we both enjoy, Mark has even picked up a new sport that I introduced him to. No, it wasn’t outdoor shopping, but rollerblading. I enjoyed the first two hours the most—the only time since I’ve known him that I was better at a sport than he! It was also pretty funny in a sick sort of way to watch him fall when he was getting the hang of it.
Being Mark’s recreational companion fascinates me. I have experienced many things I probably wouldn’t have done on my own. Not only have I learned to ski, backpack, and rock climb, but I’ve also tried snorkeling, mountain biking, white water rafting, cross country skiing and snowmobiling. I am better at some than others. I am not an exceptional athlete, only average, but it’s not about competition or performance, just companionship, enjoying something together. He feels loved because I am playing with him, and I have fun in new experiences.
In desiring to be my husband’s recreational companion, I have learned to face my fears on many occasions, although I don’t really like this part until the fear has been faced and it’s over. Mark has patiently coaxed, encouraged, taught me how to do these sports, and he has put up with my anxieties and breakdowns in the midst of it. He has taken me outside my safe little box and shown me the thrill of adventure. This is one of the mysteries of marriage that I believe our Creator designed from the beginning: when I stretch outside myself to meet his needs, I am transformed into more than I can be alone.
Playing together adds a joyful dimension to our marriage. We are not just business partners or parents in the trench together; we are friends. When we play, we laugh together and build memories that we continue to laugh about. Playing together also improves our love life. Could it be that God created men with this need because He knew how important play is in marriage?
The adventure continues and will continue. I fully expect that Mark will find a new way to pull me out of myself because my husband doesn’t sit still for very long. Whatever the adventure, you will find me by his side, hanging on for dear life, sometimes panicking, sometimes laughing, learning to put my love into action.

I rolled over … again … into the waves of my warm sheets ignoring the obnoxious intervals of beeps that were announcing a new day. My mind began rolling (like every other day), organizing all the madness that was waiting for my eyelids to open into what I would like to call a neatly organized to-do list. Of course being a Mom to four, I had allotted myself at least two forgotten to-do’s. Hopefully none of them would be as embarrassing as the time I forgot to put a diaper on my two-week old infant when I took him to meet some friends for the first time. There he was cute as a button dressed in his best clothes sitting in his infant car seat bathing in a puddle of pee. Wow, here meet my fourth son. I’m convinced that this kind of memory loss is just one of the side effects of motherhood that are hidden in the very fine print of the job description somewhere next to episodes of sleep deprivation. So for all those forgotten to-do’s, I gave myself grace and added them to the roll over list … again. I sensed the very familiar presence of a little person looming over me; I crack an eye-lid to see my four-year staring at me two inches away from my face. How none of my children have ever found this kind of behavior to be creepy I’ll never know. He’ll utter the phrase that I have become all to accustom to, “Mama, I’m hungry!” and like that the to-do list of the day had been activated. Hesitantly I sat up and stared down at my feet to be greeted by ten little piggies wearing last months pedicure and wearing it badly I might add. A Mental note was taken: add to reminder list … when getting dressed (hopefully before noon) wear closed toed shoes.

But priorities first … a caffeine intervention is always number one on my list … this mama needed a latte’ before she takes on a day full of “…again” moments! I scurried to the kitchen to find the company of my favorite mug while the smell of perking espresso and the anticipation of a fabulous latte’ began to brighten the morning! I began down this trail of thought before I realized my thoughts turned into a dialogue with the living God. I pondered with words “Lord even in the redundant routine of waking up tired to a mile-high to-do list and the hungry eyeballs of my toddler … again … I know one of these days is better than a thousand so-called good days without You, because I know who I was before I met you!”

You see, I knew that Mama, rolling out of bed to take on another day of being wife, mother, and friend. I knew her back when she was just a nineteen-year-old hurting girl addicted to drugs that had nothing but broken relationships stacked up against her. I remember the day when she had a life intervention that resulted in a love affair with her maker. That girl who became this Mama is my story (the only one I own). Like a super-hero Jesus reached down into my pit and rescued me from myself. No cape or super suit. No plastic six-pack or trademarked mask: Just the supernatural super powers of His love that shook me to the core. Everyday that I walked out of darkness, I began stepping into destiny … everyday felt normal but everyday was a miracle as my heart was being changed from a cold hopeless state to a place where dreams come alive. My first dream was to be married to a man I truly loved and to him be a good wife. My second dream was to have children and to them be a good Mom. Little did I know that there was no handbook for what “good” would look like. And from this place my relationship with Jesus as merely my Super-hero evolved into a friendship built on my desperate need for direction, guidance, and a whole lot of grace.

First marriage rocked my world; really by showing me how selfish I was when the love anesthesia wore off. In the process of loving this man in front of me my friendship with Jesus upgraded to BFF status as He helped me see my husband’s weaknesses but only praise his strengths … when all I really wanted to do was scream. These were the hard lessons of learning I couldn’t change him because I couldn’t get inside him and make him understand me. But, I had this best friend (Jesus) that when I kept my mouth shut and prayed had this uncanny ability to change me and the more I changed I saw my husband change. And this lesson that has taken permanent residence in my heart is one that continues to challenge and change me.

Second I had those babies I dreamt about and wanted more than anything. After baby number one I realized there was so much they didn’t tell me and for good reason. But obviously the sleepless nights, hormonal madness, and extra sixty pounds didn’t stop me from having three more. But there he was … my faithful BFF Jesus holding out his hand. It was His hand that often strengthened me and held me when I felt overwhelmed and exhausted from lack of sleep and the pressures of always being needed. I will occasionally hold their little faces in my hands and dream of the destiny the Lord has for them. Imagining the roads this life will take them down and I find myself blessed at the opportunity of having front row seats in their audience as their stories unfold.

You see there have been MANY days I have questioned if I was a “good” wife … if I was a “good” mother, wondering if my “good” was “good” enough. Through these times of questioning and uncertainty what had been holding hands with Jesus quickly turned into a death grip. Truly because I was holding on for dear life needing His life in me to be real and not just a song I sang at church. I needed to know He was with me. I needed to know that because He was good and lived in me … I could be good. I was in a particular situation; really a season of trying to train a child who’s strong will felt stronger than mine. At times it was like the UFC version of train up a child in the way he should go and well … we’ll see. I was crying out to God asking what does being a “good Mom” to him look like anyway? I was in a room full of woman at church at a special session put on by our church’s freedom ministry department … when the speaker asked us to close our eyes and listen to Holy Spirit speak to us. I took this opportunity to lift this situation that weighed heavy on my heart up to the Lord. He spoke, “I trust you.” “Wait, What?” I replied and continued asking as tears began to stream down my face, “How do you trust me? You’re the God … I’m the people, remember … I trust You!” He began to expound, “ You see I’ve got one hand with you where you are in the present and one hand with you over here in the future … you see we’ve got this Ris … you overcome! I can trust you because I see what you can’t see … I see the outcome! There is nothing we can’t do together.” Wow, it all came to together in one moment, even though I’ve had to travel this road in intervals of 24/7, He transcends time to be with me at all places at once. He was with me when we first met drawing me toward today and today He is with me drawing me toward a tomorrow where He already is. He was and is completely with me in all places as He is with you. Today you could have started your day similar to mine with a series of “…again moments” of being a wife and mother with a million things on your plate but also some situations weighting heavy on your heart. You may be single or married without children but that doesn’t mean that life cuts you any slack and there aren’t places in your heart that aren’t desperate for Him. My encouragement is that we serve a super-hero that will fight all odds to rescue you and show you His love. He transcends all time (He knows where you’ve been and where your going), He is drawing you toward your destiny. He is the ultimate BFF who always has your best interests at hand and can be trusted with the deepest places of your heart. He died on the cross to save the world … He is more than capable of saving us in the many ways we need to be saved daily… again. So as we trust Him together let’s crawl up in the mighty hands of the one I like to call: My time traveling Super-Hero BFF who saved the world … and that’s for short.

I sat frustrated and uncomfortably pregnant in my tiny apartment listening to the screams of my baby who was suppose to be napping in the other room. My husband had swept me away from my familiar city life to a tiny town surrounded by things that make me sneeze and a life style I don’t understand to help plant a church. We were young, but he was younger.  We had only been married for three years, and the one thing I knew was I had it all figured out. My only problem was how I was going to transfer my great wisdom on to my husband. Arguing didn’t work, manipulation was hopeless, and he never cared to even open any of the books I gave him to prove my way of thinking.

I had just finished reading Stormie Omartian’s book, Power Of A Praying Wife and hated every second of it. Maybe I didn’t finish it after all. I couldn’t see myself ever becoming so weak that I would be the one to change. I was the one who was right and my husband needed to change. He put ministry before us, he didn’t believe in living debt free, he was beginning to expect me to be responsible for all the cleaning, meals, and late nights up with the baby. Before having children we didn’t believe in his and hers duties. I never wanted to be the cookie cutter wife. I was smart and independent and an equal maybe even superior but I wouldn’t say that out loud.

Here I was once again at the feet of the Lord asking for change, for deliverance, when something began to change in my heart in His presence. Many of my frustrations with my husband stemmed from his influences rather than directly from the man I had once committed my life to. I began to see the man I fell in love with and the gifts of God in his life. We are in this thing together, partners through life rather than opponents looking to carry away a personal trophy if we beat the other.

I allowed myself to be humbled under God’s authority over me. Then He asked me to do something that has changed my perspective, changed my marriage, and even changed my husband forever.

With Travis away ministering to youth, and our baby’s cries finally subsiding I began to write a letter to the man I had committed my life to, calling out the gifts of God in him. I allowed the Holy Spirit to give me eyes to see my husband as his Maker created him to be.  I honored my spouse in this letter and I spoke life and blessings over him.

When Travis read the letter there were no tears, apologies, or a big deal made of it. I think he thanked me once. But, he put it in his brief case and took it with him wherever he went for the next couple of years. He said that when he felt down he would read it again to encourage himself.

The day I wrote the letter something began to change in me. I stopped complaining about my husband and started believing in him through eyes of faith and trust in the Lord.

The day I gave that letter to Travis something began to change in him. He began to allow me to come along side of him.

The day I wrote that letter God began an amazing work in our marriage. He sent a spiritual storm to shake everything around us and off of us that brought us both to our knees. We clung to Him and we were left with nothing but each other and our children. Travis grew to become the spiritual head of our home and his attention was turned to his family. He immediately got our finances in order as well.

Within a few years God had restored us financially and planted us firmly on a new foundation that is unshakeable. He made all things new in our personal lives and in our marriage. And how did it start? It started with speaking God’s words of life over my spouse.  It began with prophecy!

The Bible says that the power of life and death are in our words. As women, how often are we speaking death over our husband and our children in the name of “venting”? We share with our friends all of our husband’s weakness. We stand before God as our mate’s accuser. In essence, we are standing in agreement with the devil as the Bible says that Satan is the accuser of the brethren.

We are called to be prophetesses in our homes. It is our job to honor our husband. It is our job to call out greatness in his life.  And when we don’t do our jobs, it is evident in who he becomes.

“A wise women builds her house, but a foolish one tears it down with her own hands.” Proverbs 14:1

When God asked me to prophecy over my husband by speaking over him who He (God) had showed me he was, I was simply a young housewife of no reputation. I was no one special. In fact, I didn’t even realize at the time that I was prophesying. Call it what you want rather prophecy or encouragement, but the bottom line is that “love covers a multitude of sins”, “love believes and hopes all things” and love has the power to change lives. It was God’s love rather than His judgment that changed our lives. When has condemnation ever propelled anyone?!

Let’s stand up in the authority that God has given each of us and declare the works of God over our husband and our children. Let’s propel our family to greatness with our words. Then watch expectantly as God does miracles in the ones we love most and answers even the deepest cries of our heart; the prayers for our children to walk victoriously with God; the prayers for a rich and fulfilling marriage. God moves quickly when we agree with Him and declare His will and calling. So, let’s be prophetic!