Accepting Christ

I am now on my seventh year of living in Christ. When I gave my life to Christ, I was suffering in multitudes of ways. I knew only the one true God was able to save me.

 

I was experiencing depression to the point of underweight was a understatement.

Low self esteem caused anxiety in me all the time.

My spouse at the time, was on a whirlwind ride that was going downwards.

A lost of job left me feeling useless, fearful, and on many levels of unworthiness.

 

My two children were seven and three years old at the time. My eldest daughter suffered the most through it all. She was old enough to understand things in the home were not right. Her emotions were catching up to my emotions. My fears were becoming her fears because the worldly spirit I had within in me could not function on anything but of that.

 

With everything that I was suffering as a young wife and mother I would think;

“I’m not the best mom but at least I was never gone one night from my children. At least I’ve never made my children fear if I was coming home.”

 

I was up on a high horse thinking I was doing everything I could in my whole being to make things good for them.

 

But once I gave my life to Christ, my entire being changed. All I wanted to do was allow God to change the situations, not myself anymore.

 

Divorce proceeded even though I prayed it would not. I consistently prayed for reconciliation to overtake my home and to restore all that was lost in the marriage but God had a different plan. When divorce did happen as a Christian wife, I didn’t feel like a failure as I thought I would but instead I felt this was God’s will.

 

As I reminisced on the prayers I would pray throughout my home. I remembered the words, “Restore all that is lost”. So as I signed those divorce papers,  I was content and knew that the God I serve is faithful and restoration was on the way.

 

When ever doubt would enter I would recite the verse that I had written on the tablet of my heart and would find comfort in it.

 

“For the suffering of this present time does not compare to the glory that is soon to be revealed within us”

Romans 8:18

 

Because of hope living in me, not long after divorce and a lot of work with the Lord I was at complete peace and forgivenss. I did not walk around with pain, guilt, and regret. I was free from the burdens and pain of divorce.

 

Unfortunately, although I was free the signs of divorce was written all over my children. My youngest was having night terrors and all of a sudden needed to sleep with me every night. He was anxious to know the time I was going to pick him up from preschool everyday. My oldest daughter was not interested in school at all. She was suddenly getting bullied and the look of defeat was consuming her. She became distant. The words “Give me a hug.” gave her a look of disgust no matter who asked for it.

 

My heart was grievous and felt raw. I felt like no matter what I did for my children, I wasn’t able to help them.

For the first time in my life, I personally was a content woman of God. I was waking up actually liking myself and excited to do the will of God. Full of energy to chase the dreams ahead of me but the moment I would wake the children up, I would turn to being raw of emotion again. I would see hope failing away from them.

 

Praying for my children every night helped but still felt hopeless. I sought God and begged. Why was I receiving freedom but the innocent children were not? My cries and prayers to God was requests to break the mindset of little hope that was clinging to them.

 

The Lord spoke to me, He said,

“They are not free because you are have not freed them.”

 

I was confused by this for awhile. I did not understand. How could I be holding them back if I was a better and healthier minded mother than I have ever been?

 

I wish I could say it was revealed to me instantaneously but it wasn’t. It took many more months of prayer for my children after God had spoke to me.

 

Then one evening as my children were away with their father I realized how lonely I felt in the home. That the loneliness is also while they were home because even in their presence I would feel the walls from my oldest. Even though my youngest was affectionate, I still felt the one worded answers ceasing us from having a greater relationship.

 

I walked around the home going room to room asking God to reveal and show Himself in the home. My desire was to have the burdens and pain of my children to be released.

 

I repeated the words over and over, “Train me to train your children”. “Teach me to raise mighty warriors and overcomers”.

 

After repeating this about 30 times I finally sat to be in His presence because peace was overwhelming the home.

 

After that I would rise up every morning with a new challenge from the Lord for me and my children. Some were easy and some not so much.

 

One day it would be as simple as “Hug your daughter, even if she wont hug back, do not show it bothers you.”

 

Ask your son 5 questions you never asked him before about school and his friends.

 

Then one day, it became hard. The Lord said, “Ask for their forgiveness for the times you were once consumed with your own despair and depression. Ask them to forgive how you did not notice their needs because before Christ all you knew was a selfish kind of  love. That your pain meant more to you than theirs. Tell them you always loved them even when you did not take time to recognize their grieving before the divorce even happened.”

 

My children received it differently when I went to them one on one with this confession and requested for forgiveness. One was able to receive it more than the other. Once responded with words and affection as the other sat in silence and stillness.

Related Posts:

12 Prayers for your child’s bedroom when they are in Spiritual Warfare

How being a Single Mom made me a better Wife. 

The War Cry of our Hands.

Overcame the shame by His Grace.

 

Now five years later I look back and think about how free my children are now from the times they witnessed me as a mother without the Lord. How they witnessed me in selfish deeds that would cause them to feel lessened but its no longer a thought to them that I am any longer selfish.

 

As I was allowing God to help me develop new relationships with my children, the enemy would try to sneak in lies that I was not going to overcome this with them. That were going to become a statistic of divorce to the world. I felt shame from my past as a mother. But the promise I knew well within my soul was the promise of restoration to me and my family. I stood steadfast on that thought.

How I overcame the shame as the mother I was before I accepted Christ. #Christianparenting #truestory Share on X

It turned out to be a few years of bearing through responses from my children that I wish I did not hear or times I had to cry in my room behind closed doors because I heard cries from their bedrooms but God…..He is a faithful God. He is a restorer and in the ministry of reconciliation.

 

My children are probably the two most happiest children I know. They are servants in the Kingdom. Both of them are strong and courageous and full of peace and grace. I do not say these things to boast, I say this to show what God turned around when I allowed Him to start training me how to raise my children.

 

Taking heed to every instruction was not easy. Sometimes I found some of the tasks He gave me corny or hard but I had to make this about them not me. God gave me the instructions that He did because He knows my children better than I do. He knows what will turn their mourning into dancing. He has stitched their inner parts in the womb.

 

If you have or are experiencing a divorce with children, I prayerfully hope you seek God about restoration and reconciliation. Although I divorced as a Christian woman, it was not my desire. I can honestly say to anyone about my previous marriage that I fought for my marriage with all my might till the very end and I am honored as a woman to be confident in that.

 

It strengthened me and made me the wife I am today for my husband that the Lord has tremendously blessed me with. That once situation created in me a passion for marriage and a passion to honor my husband in Gods eyes not in mans. Search for Gods will and be confident in who you are in Him

 

Secondly I encourage you greatly to minister to your children by following Gods direction of how to raise them up in a home that finds peace, joy, and comfort in God.

“All your children will be taught by the Lord, and great will be their peace.”

Isaiah 54:13