Spiritual Sundays blog

Spiritual Sundays

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I have been asked to participate in a meme
These are the thoughts of the current day.
May they support and hopfully inspire.

I think that the length of my husbands illness with the thyroid I have found myself now going "oh no wonder!" to all of the idle and seemingly lazy days when I could not get from him the help I needed and just pulled it up out of me. Now I see that it was his illness that was being so, not his heart. I now have a much greater understanding of what I/he was dealing with. I found myself at times angry at him...
The things of many a marriage that is the basis for that line in our vows
"In sickness and in health" Wonder how many marriages are lost in The effects of illness in relationships. I know coming out of the nightmare of abuse recovery that this man of mine more than respects those vows that he made some 27+ years ago.

The Book of Common Prayer

I, take thee,
to be my wedded ,
to have and to hold from this day forward,
for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer,
in sickness or in health, to love and to cherish,
'til death do us part,
according to God's holy ordinance;
thereto I plight thee my troth.
(Thereto I pledge my love).

Recently while attending a meeting of several Believing Christians I was very nervous of concern over judgments and was uneasy after I had shared about my journey. Silly I suppose. Many times over my long life span in churches I have been very wounded by pastoral staff who had no or little personal understanding of such things and I think I just sorta remembered (in feelings way mainly) how I must of appeared to them.(that based solely on a limited understanding of the blank stares and such) I know that what God thinks of me is most assuredly the truth.
I thought of how beautiful all of them looked , so well cared for...I really have not taken time to care for myself due to the responsibilities I have. So I took some time. :) Now my hair smells like sulfate (I colored it myself) yuk will be glad when that goes away. I like my hair better now. I have tried so hard to grow out my bangs in part to save our family funds. This is a tight time for so many of us. We lost our 25+ career 5 years ago and have managed to keep our home. Keep the kids cared for. Last year alone we had over 14,000 in out of pocket medical co-pays. I know of a fact that we are not alone .Needless to say God provides we are just really working hard to meet goals of staying debt free and being able to raise the kids with needs met.

I have a great deal more optimism's than my spouse and dealing with that pessimism is very wearing on me. Every day I see Gods hand directly meet our needs. My husband however every day is panicked and freaks out over finance. I have so been reducing everything I can to be able to see my husband be able to have some of his/our dreams of travel , means for our retirement, kids education and future met. He gave up so many dreams fulfilling my/our dreams to bring the children out of Russia. I am struggling to get more and more independent and live as simply as I am able. I grind flour, grow a large part of our food, raise a few chickens, cook every meal from scratch, and tend two special needs children and right now an ill husband . Just tired, just tired.

Sorry I ramble.
Sorta just opening my heart

You see if we share our weakness we then can pray for one another.
So hear...The I am .

I am open real and raw. Worn and trusting and waiting seeing/to see the glory of His working all these things out.
I see my sweet man feeling a little better this morning well not feeling but he sounds better. We both have horrid headaches. We both love and trust God.

Men however real men who care about the future of their families care about providing for them and the future needs. Some men just take it all on and find themselves fearing the future. This is the case of so many many men (and women) right now in our times.
Our men (and women) need our support and prayers our encouragement and our commitment to help in every way we can to that end. Yes of course trusting in Gods provision is right and imperative.

Ladies/Gentlemen come on lets us all pull together as do our part in the provision and be as Ruth and start gleaning those fields unashamedly!
This worldly view of shame is robbing us all blind. It makes us judge one another and ourselves. We look down upon those of us who out of necessity need to do so...We all ought to do so out of simple respect.

The temptation is to look at ourselves as if we should be embarrassed for getting off the wheel of consumerism. We have to call it "GOING GREEN" or "ECO FRIENDLY" we ought to have been green and friendly all along and not need some excuse to do so without shame. So now under these titles we can find a sense of pride...What about these efforts being made under a sweet humility?

We make excuses and give our self permissions to disrespect our means that God has provided through the income that he has provided and the jobs we have are taken for granted.

It is but by the grace of God that any of us even have what we have.
Humbly please respect the blessed lives we are so very privileged to live.
No it will not be easy...Being debt free takes great humility, even in the circle of the church. Debt is the excuse to save face. Just hold that face up high Yes it is hard it really is! I must hold my face up high.
Non of this..."I deserve to splurge" yet even in that the balance can be hard to find if rigidity sets in as it is temping for me to fall into.

Sober minded means looking honestly...If I go to tea is it within the budget? It was for me if it were not then I would have to say no. If we need to say no we need to be able to do so without being pressured into doing things we ought not.
So I hold you/me accountable to support one another in doing what is right. Make it easy and less temptatious to your fellow and to yourself...

choose what is right
:)