Can't do it on your own

I am so far from perfect it isn't even funny. There have been a lot of changes in my life lately and I can't take credit for any of them. I take that back, I can take credit for one. I gave up control to God.

My marriage was on the rocks. It seems like ever since we got married my wife and I have fought about the dumbest things and our intimate life was almost non-existent. Being newly married is stressful in and of itself. Within a couple months of our marriage I had lost my job. This was in October of 2008. The market was the worst it had been in decades (and its still just as bad). In order to get more experience on my resume I took an internship 8 hours away from our home. This meant spending lots of time away from my wife. This just added to the stress and the fighting. Both of us were selfish and just wanted OUR time and we wanted everything to work out the way WE wanted it to. Not only were we selfish but OUR goals didn't even match.

How on earth were we going to make our marriage work? WE weren't. Period.

There was no way that my wife and I were going to make our marriage work out. God was the only way. We both had to surrender control and let God take charge of our lives. Sound easy? Yeah right. We're still a work in progress but it hasn't been that long and I can honestly say that our lives are night and day from what they used to be. In the last 5 weeks everything has changed. And did I mention, 2 weeks after we started to change we found out that my wife was almost 7 weeks pregnant.

I'm not saying everything is perfect now but it is so much better than it was. This started out as a unilateral change and has turned into a complete transformation. Just as in the movie Fireproof, I started changing and had to prove I was different before my wife started to come around. I couldn't display true love until I knew exactly what it was. That meant serving my wife even when she was being mean to me and wasn't happy with me. It meant smiling and biting my tongue when I wanted to snap back. It meant apologizing for all of my shortcomings (of which there were/are many).

It means loving unconditionally just as God loves us.

We say and do hurtful things. A lot of people are what I like to think of as "Christians of Convenience" meaning that they are only Christians when it suits them to be. This may be just on Sundays or just when they are praying around the dinner table, but when they get to work they're just another one of the guys. When they fight with their wife they're just another frustrated husband. When they go out with there friends they act no different then they used to. If you really want to be a truly Godly man you have to rise above this. Its probably going to take being knocked down a couple notches. I know I had to rethink everything I thought about myself and those around me. I had to be completely humbled before I understood any of this.

Everything is a battle but if you follow God and turn to Him in both the good times and the bad you will reap the rewards. Let go of control and realize that YOUR vision for your life probably isn't God's vision for your life. Did I ever think I would be living in a 650 square foot, one bedroom condo when I found out my wife was pregnant? NO WAY. I thought I would be living in the area I grew up in, with a nice house and a great job when I finally was married and having a kid. Reality... I just started a new job, my wife was put on bed rest as soon as we found out she was pregnant, we have credit card debt and housing is so expensive where we live I'm not sure how long it will be before we can get a place of our own. And I couldn't be happier. Things may not be easy but I finally know what is it to truly love and since I gave up control to God I couldn't be happier.

On a lighter note:

I'm pretty sure the only people who are actually reading my blog are my family and friends of my mother's. I appreciate all the support I have been getting from everyone. Feel free to follow the blog by clicking on the link. That way it will actually make it look like people are reading this.