I am not a hoarder by nature.  I weed out and clean out as soon as too much clutter piles up. I even throw things away prematurely and then later realize that, “oops! I needed that.”  Oh well, God is working on my impulses.

My house is fairly clean, most of the time.  You can open closets and not have them overflowing with stuff.  You can sit down on any couch and not have to move things over.  If I send you to get something out of my bathroom, you generally will be able to find it, I know exactly where it is.  I am not bragging, but I have learned to become organized in my outside appearances in my life to run it effectively.

But what about the inside of me, how is that organized?  Do I allow things to get piled up on the inside—bitterness, offenses, unforgiveness, anger, frustration, or hatred?

If you were to ask me this question years ago, I would be ashamed to admit what was on the inside of me.  I held onto much anger.  I had a lot of resentment towards my husband because of my own lack of knowledge.  I did not know how to make a relationship work.  I knew how to do many others things, but having a successful husband and wife relationship I knew nothing of.

My husband and I got married while we were young.  We were in love, enjoyed having babies, and the world was our oyster.  Throughout the years, we continued onward having babies—just because we enjoyed them!  We had many.  Life rolled on, bills came, issues came out, life happened.  Arguments and fights would occur and never be completely resolved.  I am not one to confront easily, I’d rather smile and move on.   But little seeds of bitterness would  start to form on the inside of me and when my husband would say something, I would begin taking offense and getting hurt.  I was beginning to put up walls towards my husband.

Life continued, we still had babies, there was never any doubt that we didn’t want a bunch of them—but life got stressful at times.  Even though we put ourselves into these positions, God can work EVERYTHING out for our good.  Our hearts really did want to do whatever God had for us, but our bodies sometimes looked at the things of this world and distracted us.  When we would have arguments, I would just want to get up and leave!  But wait, where was I to run to?  Where was I going to go with 10 children and a 15 passenger van.  Was I going to just leave everyone behind—my sweet little nursing baby?  No I couldn’t.  Would I just leave and get a job and put all of my children in school and daycare?  Oh my goodness—we would never be able to afford any of that!  After mulling over irrational decisions in my brain, finally God had me where He needed me—quiet and listening.

Quiet moments  in our own life is when God can talk to us and we can hear him clearly.

I’d pray and seek God to work on my pride.  I’d ask Him to reveal to me where these roots of bitterness and anger were coming from and then I started to work on myself.  Me!  Not my husband, myself.

In Exodus 15:22 it says the bitter was made sweet.  This is the story of Moses and the people grumbling and complaining about their “lot in life.”  They got up to the water hole and took a drink and said, “We need a new water hole, this one is bad!”   Some of us may think that when our marriage is bad that if only we had a new husband, all would be better.  We can just throw this one out and get a new one.  Get a new fix in life.  Just as we get a new home or a new car.

But guess what?  Those new homes and new cars, break down too.  They get old and worn, just as our marriages can.  Don’t be ready to just throw stuff away so quickly.  We have to maintain our marriages just as we do our things.  God may put you in these situations, even though you may have put yourself in some of these by past decisions.  You might of made mistakes, they might of made mistakes.  You have to believe what God’s word says.  He can make them sweet.  He does it, I personally have experienced it.  But we have to do.

These verses say when the people grumbled the Lord showed Moses a tree.  When he threw the tree into the water, it made it sweet.  The tree is represented as Jesus.  When we put Jesus into our lives first, that is when the Lord can make things sweet.

When I look to the Lord to help me become a better person, a better wife to my husband is only when it happens. I can try my best on my own, but will fail miserably.  My first thought would be to get a new husband.  My husband would be able to say the say thing about me–I am  not perfect.  But we are both willing to work on things to become stronger together as we should.

What is my “quick fix” for getting a new husband?  Getting into God’s Word daily to help MYSELF work on areas that need to be turned from bitter to sweet!

Be blessed as you enjoy your day!  Amy

P.S.  I am happy to say that my husband and I will be celebrating our 20 year anniversary this year!  Marriage is work.  Probably harder than having 10 children–work!  Even though we have struggles and we have issues, at the end of the day, my husband is my best friend.  He has my heart.  He will defend me and love me more than anyone can.  Life is what YOU make of it.  You can choose happiness or you can choose bitterness.  What’s your choice???

 

When I started my blog 2 1/2 years ago, I did it because I wanted to encourage other women who were in the same situation that I had been in.  I was home all day long with babies, doing household work, and not getting much encouragement in my own life.  Some days were pretty hectic, some were dismal, and others I can’t even remember.  It was hard to find time to read my Bible, paying attention to a sermon was difficult, and attending a church fellowship meeting was impossible.  I had many babies and they all demanded Mom’s attention.

Looking back, life could have went smoother, if I would have had more encouragement and teaching.  I had many things from my past that I was allowing myself to hold onto and that manifested itself in my life.  When things got dark, I just let that dark magnify and I would think on all of the “bad” in my life.  It was not a good place to be.  The bible says in Proverbs 27:17 that “iron sharpens iron and so a man encourages or sharpens his friend.”

Our lives are not meant to be downtrodden and full of sadness.  God desires so much more for us.  The problem is that we are not willing to take it.  We question and doubt all that He has.  We think that because it happens it must be the will of God.  I know that I did.  But what if what happens is because of our own choices and decisions?  What happens when we don’t diligently seek out the Lord’s will?  Then we blame God, we question Him, we wonder why, we doubt, we get angry, we settle, and finally we  accept.

I’m here to share that that is NOT the way that we have to live.  God did not intend for us to live that way.  Why are we doing that?  Out of not knowing, not trying and not wanting more out of life.

If I could tell you that you don’t have to live with depression, anxiety, doubt, and fear would you believe me?  Why would we want to live with any of these things?  What makes a person NOT want to change?  Why have we come to accept that this is the “will of God?”  It is not!!!

When I used to have “bad days” my husband would ask me what is wrong.  My response was that I felt like a “cloud of doom” was encircling over my life and I did not know how to get out of it.  I can look back now and know that it was depression from all of my past hurts, fears, and anxieties.  At the time, I just could not decipher what it was.  When we go through things it is much harder to see them ourselves.  How we react to things, our decisions, our personalities are all based on the way that we were brought up or the way that we deal with things in life.  Most are based on hurts and failures.  That is why we have a lot of people that are offended.  Many who can’t trust fully.  Many who just accept that this is their lot in life.

My heart is to help women. Women who are in bondage to past sins.  Women who think they don’t have a voice due to submission to their husbands.  Women dealing with hurt and pain from things that they can not let go of in life.  Women who think that God might have forgotten them.

“When the storm clouds roll in,” was written out of a love and desire to see women changed and set free from all that Satan has led us to believe is “the will of God.”

Over the next few weeks we will walk through the areas that are causing the storm clouds to start brewing in our lives.  These areas include:

• unforgiveness
• offenses
• control
• devaluing ourselves

Think this is not for you?  If you can answer “yes” to any of the following questions then this book is a MUST for you:

• Do you cringe when someone speaks positively about someone who has hurt you in your past?
• When someone brags about someone whom you know is living a lie do you feel the need to say something?
• When your husbands calls in the middle of your hectic day and asks you to do something, do you get offended?
• When your friends don’t include you on an outing, are you offended?
• When your friend speaks on how much weight she has lost, and you haven’t do you get offended?
• Do you feel the need to control what your husband does every minute he gets home from work?
• Do you not allow your husband to go off and have some “man time” because it isn’t fair that he goes over you?
• Do you have to pick and choose what you do as a family as far as outings, movie watching, and meals because your husband doesn’t know what is best?
• Do you have all the say where the finances have to go because you are the saver and he is the spender?
• Do you ever lay in bed at night and question if you chose the right man to marry?
• Do you ever covet when your friend gets a new vehicle or a newer house and your stuck with the same old broken down things?
• Do you complain to your husband that you need more money because he isn’t making enough?
• Can you look at yourself and be truly happy where you are at in life?
• Do you constantly have a prayer request or a need for yourself personally?
• Do you feel the need to share all your personal problems at the ladies prayer group so that you can get some sympathy from others?
• Do you like to share how badly your husband treats you so that others will comfort you?
• Do you limit food or purge food because it makes you feel better?
• Do you do things in secret that you would be ashamed if others knew what you were doing?
• Imagine if someone came into your home and observed your life for a day or even a a week without you knowing and wrote it all out for the world to see, does that make you nervous?

If you can answer “yes” to any of these questions then keep reading.  Stay on this journey with us as we find the contentment in the midst of the storm.

Be blessed, Amy

**Don’t want to wait for this series each week?  Then buy my book in it’s entirety for yourself or for your group study.  You can buy it here and get it immediately as a download or you can click here and buy it from Amazon.  If you are looking to buy it in bulk for group study, contact me for special pricing.

plainandnotsoplain@gmail.com

Desire more out of life!!!!

part 2–as a mom I’m dying a little each day