Topic: How do I know someone is truly sorry?

Good morning friends:

Thank you for all your responses last week to my question "what keeps you stuck and unchanged". I’ll talk some more about that next week but today I thought I’d try something different. I’m going to respond by video to the question asked by The Good Wife in last week's blog responses. If you want to read her question in it’s entirely, just scroll down to last week's blog and responses, but in essence she asked:

Question: My husband has had numerous affairs. He says he’s sorry. He says he wants our marriage to work. But his actions don’t really demonstrate a commitment to healing the hurts he’s caused or working on the root problem of why this happened in the first place. How can I know if he’s truly sorry and whether our marriage has a hope for genuine restoration?

Answer:

Topic: Peace over productivity. I want to hear from you!

Hello sweet friends,

I’ve done two different blogs today but I wasn’t happy with either one. I’ll give it more time this week and post one of them next week. But my new mantra given to me by the Lord this very day is “Peace before productivity.”

God showed me when I start to get anxious or impatient, I am losing peace at the expense of productivity. My body tells me it is time to reprioritize and put first things first.

You know this year has been one in which I wanted to walk with the Lord more closely. My verse for 2011 is “And so I walk in the Lord’s Presence as I live here on earth.” (Psalm 116:9).

One of the first fruits that walking closer with God ought to produce is peace, not frustration, aggravation, or impatience. So friends, pray for me. Pray that I learn to let go of my agenda and live more peacefully in the moment, even if it requires that I do less.

Now it’s your turn. I’ve been curious about who you are, why you stop by, and what you’d like help with? What are your biggest needs or deepest hurts in your closest relationships? Where do you get stuck or hindered from living the life you want to live? Like me getting stuck in busyness, anxiety and impatience, what holds your heart (body and mind) in that unchanged place?

That’s all for today I’m off to pay Uncle Sam! Hope you got a refund.

Take a moment to respond. I’d love to hear from you.

Topic: Do I forbear or confront when someone offends me?

Hello everyone,

What a beautiful day we have today. It’s been such a cold, dreary, winter. The sun is out today, the temperature is beautiful and I have begun a new adventure. My husband has always loved riding motorcycles. After our children were grown he bought himself a Harley but I always felt afraid riding on the back of it. It was too loud, too fast and I would pound on his back telling him to slow down. One day I told him I thought I’d do better if I could drive my own bike.

Well, he took me up on my offer and I am now a motorcycle mamma. Well, that’s not quite true. I’m a scooter mama and here I am with my new vespa. I took it out for a tests ride yesterday and loved it. Today we both rode for about 45 minutes. I never got above 30 mph but right now, that's just about right.

Today's Question: I never know when I'm supposed to speak up or when I should just forbear and forgive someone. Can you give me some guidelines that would help me discern when each one would be appropriate?

Answer: Thank you for your question. Sometimes it can be confusing and it takes wisdom to discern. Jesus said that we’re to be known by our extravagant love for one another. Even more challenging is Jesus’ command to love our enemies and to forgive those who mistreat and hurt us.

But how do we balance these commands of Christ with the biblical mandates to speak the truth in love, to be the salt and light of the world, to confront sin, and to admonish the unruly? It isn’t always clear when we should simply put up with one another’s weaknesses and be patient with him or her, or whether we should confront a person directly.

Here are some guidelines that I use to decide when to forbear and when to confront.

First, forbearance is a very good discipline to practice. Jesus reminds us to take the log out of our own eye before we try to remove the speck in our brother’s eye. We all need to learn to live graciously with one another’s weaknesses and faults.

But forbearance isn’t simply being passive, or quiet when someone does something wrong or hurts us. Forbearance actively works to understand, accept, forgive and let go of an offense, without ever talking directly to the person about it.

I’m afraid that instead of practicing biblical forbearance, we often choose outer silence but nurse inner discontent, anger or bitterness. By keeping quiet, we may preserve an illusion of peace, but it’s not a biblical peace and often results in further conflict and alienation.

Second, confrontation isn’t merely blurting out your thoughts and feelings at their moment of greatest intensity without any regard for the well being of the other person or the relationship. I liken that practice to vomit. Vomit feels better getting it out, but it belongs in the toilet and not on a person.

Below are three reasons that confrontation may be the better choice in your relationship with someone.

1. The matter dishonors God. (1 Thessalonians 5:14; 1 Corinthians 5:11,12; Romans 2:19-24)

When Queen Esther was told of Hamen’s wicked plan to have all the Jews exterminated, she knew that it was a not time to forbear but to speak out. She didn’t do it rashly, but prayerfully and thoughtfully. (Read the OT book of Esther for the story). She was afraid but she knew she had to confront.

2. The matter hurts the person (James 5:19-20; Galatians 6:1)

We are to be faithful to our friends and friendships and that means that if we observe someone caught in a repetitive harmful sin or habit, we need to speak to them gently about it. Do you have a friend who is flirting with disaster? Tempted with an affair? Playing with drugs? Abusing alcohol?

So many people have told me they wished someone would have come along side of them and lovingly warned them before they fell of the cliff. Hebrews tells us to encourage each other day after day lest any of us become hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

3. The matter has damaged the relationship ( Matthew 5:23 Matthew 18:15 Proverbs 16:28; Proverbs 17:9)

When someone repeatedly or grievously sins against us, this is not the time for forbearance but for talking. Matthew 5 and l8 tell us that if someone has sinned against us, or if we have something against another person, we are to go and make peace first before presenting our offering. Sometimes the relationship has been hurt or damaged by something someone has done. We can’t just forbear or forgive. Even if we’ve tried, we can’t let it go. We must talk about it or the relationship will deteriorate further.

How? Just like Queen Esther we need to have a plan.

To see my free article on how to have a difficult discussion with someone, go to http://bit.ly/hVGXFS.

Topic: Can I leave an abusive marriage if my pastor says I should stay?

Happy Monday Sweet Friends,

I had a wonderful weekend ministering to the ladies in First Church of God in Shippensburg, PA. Thank you for allowing me the privilege of sharing God’s message with you. I am busily working on the April newsletter. If you have a problem moving past your failures, you won’t want to miss it. Look for it next week.

Today’s Question: I’ve been a Christian since I was a teen, I am now 52. When my husband is mean and upset, it feels so overwhelming, I feel I could have a breakdown. He scolds me and criticizes me constantly. I try to stay composed but it takes so much emotional energy to listen to him and take it again and again. I’ve told him numerous times in our 24 year marriage about how he’s hurting me but it keeps happening again and again.

I’m afraid of him. I wanted to leave him once, but he said he would kill himself, so I didn’t leave, but I’m getting to the breaking point. I’m exhausted from having to deal with his mean words. He swears at me and looks at me with hatred when he’s angry. We’ve tried counseling but he refused to continue.

I wonder if the only solution (besides praying and getting godly counsel) is to leave? I’ve talked with our Pastor numerous times. He believes me, but he doesn’t think I should leave. However, nothing changes.

My husband is always sorry later after he is mean and promises to be different, but it doesn’t’ last. I’m scared that leaving him will cause my family to fall apart, but maybe it has kind of fallen apart anyway. I’ve tried to be nice, but I just can’t accommodate my husband the way he wants me to. He wants me to pay lots of attention to him, but even when I do that, he still is mean if I made some kind of mistake like not having dinner ready on time when he gets home from work.

It’s very hard to be affectionate with someone who’s been so harsh with home, and then he gets in a rage when I don’t want to be affectionate with him. People tried telling me before we got married that he was abusive but I just didn’t see it then.

I know God will help me, but if I stay with my husband, I’ll continue to be bullied. There is no way to escape. He doesn’t’ care even when I ask him to stop or when I tell him he’s being mean. It feels so painful, so sad and I feel ripped apart. I’m also tired of what I’m living with and I think I’m getting ready for some changes.

Do you think I can leave even when my pastor advises me against it?

Answer: This question is actually the blend of two different people’s questions. One has to do with the reality of the abusive situation this woman finds herself in and the second question is from a different reader who wonders why women allow their pastor’s to have the final word as to whether or not they should leave an abusive marriage.

I want to address both concerns because I think these dilemmas are so common for many women in abusive marriages.

First, should you leave your husband? From what you wrote, I think you are already leaning in that direction, for good reasons. However it is important for you to realize (as well as those of us who are concerned about you and others in your situation) that no one can tell you with absolute certainty that you must leave this situation or for that matter, that you should stay.

It’s tempting for those of us who are people helpers (pastor’s, professional and lay counselors and marriage mentors) to step in here and advise you what to do). We want to help, we care, we’re afraid for you, or want to remain true to the scriptures so we all have our opinion on what’s best for you.

However, only you can make that decision. In fact, in order for you to grow up and get healthy, you must make that decision for yourself. You’ve been used to having your husband make all the decisions and you doing what he wants (or suffer his wrath). If you just “do” what the pastor or counselor wants you to do, you are still not taking responsibility for your decision or taking the necessary steps to decide what God is saying to you about your particular situation.

I believe each person should pray, consult with others as well as consider the risks and the consequences of staying or leaving. In other words, what will it cost you and your children (emotionally, spiritually, relationally, mentally, and physically) to stay and what it will cost you to leave? Leaving may be warranted but it is not without perils and suffering. Staying has a high price too.

You are suffering. You see your children hurting and growing up under the mindset that men get to be mean and treat women disrespectfully and abusively if they are angry and don’t get their own way. Since you have sons, this is very worrisome indeed and you’re concerned even now how your oldest son is treating you. Research on abusive men show that many of them grew up in abusive households watching their father abuse their mother. As little boys they didn’t like it. But as grown men they see it as normal.

It also sounds like you’ve tried talking and telling (your pastor) with no change or movement in your husband. You’re right to realize that leaving will either create the crisis for your husband to change or give you a different environment for you and your children to live in. But you and your children and your husband are the ones who will live out the consequences of your decision, therefore I don’t think it’s wise to give another person the power or the responsibility to make that choice for you.

Share with us: How have you handled going against the advice of your pastor or church family and what’s been the result?