When Fear Threatens to Overtake Us
I could feel the warm heat of fear flood through me. That’s the way it always comes. It always comes in hot.
The fear that I can’t trust my husband. The fear that I can’t trust my marriage. Ultimately, it’s the fear that I can’t trust God.
Truth be told, I struggle to trust God with my marriage. And quite honestly, with my life.
I hate admitting this, but there are times when I don’t trust what God is going to do with my marriage. What will God do with the hurt we have caused each other? What will God do with the questions that loom with no easy answers? What will God do when we feel more like life roommates than two people who vowed to love each other forever?
So when the fear threatens to overtake us, what are we to do?
Get Honest
Talk to God about your level of trust with Him. Tell God if you want to trust Him more. Tell Him what holds you back from trusting Him fully. He can handle it. As you identify areas of your life you’re afraid to trust God with, tell Him! He can handle our doubts and fears. Ask God to reveal more of Himself in these places.
Turn
The reality of fear and doubt is that we can trust God with it. When we recognize the sometimes crippling thoughts and feelings, we can turn our hearts toward the One who invites us to trust. “So trust him absolutely, people; lay your lives on the line for him. God is a safe place to be.” Psalm 62:8 MSG. God is a safe place to be. In the moments we question what the outcome might be, I can rest in the fact that I can bring my questions and fear to God Himself.
Dare to Soften
Even as I’m in the wake of fear’s hot sting, I sense God gently whisper, “Do you trust me?” I want to yell. “No, I don’t! I just told you that.” But He asks me again, “Do you trust me?” I take a few deep breaths and make the choice to soften, and pay attention to the prompting that He is giving me. There is a beauty in daring to open our hearts more fully to God than we have before. We can dare to soften more to His invitation to trusting Him. The result will be beautiful.
This continues to be a struggle for me. I still struggle to trust God. But this much I know, he is working on my heart in the very place where I struggle to trust him. I can lay all the questions and fears before him. I can lay the story of my life before him. He is a safe place to be.
Wife Step: Print Psalm 62:8 on a card or post-it note. Whenever fear creeps in, read the card out loud.
Amy Walkup is in the final stages of completing her degree as a professional counselor. She is passionate about sitting with others in the midst of their pain and difficulties in order to find the place where God is working to bring restoration and transformation. Amy desires to see women, men, and families transformed by the grace of God. Living in rural Minnesota with her farming husband and two sets of twins, she continues to learn more about the grace of God and how this grace allows God’s children to be made new.
I’m not who I was when I got married.
It was less than three years ago when I stood at an altar in front of a cross and said, “I do,” to vows we wrote and vows we borrowed. And in less than three years, I have become a different person.
My heart has changed. I’ve grown closer to God. And I’ve learned to love myself more. I have very different interests and concerns than the girl who stood in a white dress at 24.
My husband isn’t the same person either. His passions have grown. His friendships have changed. The goals he has for himself and his family are vastly different than they were three years ago.
Maybe you’ve changed a lot since your wedding day, and maybe your husband has too. Maybe there have been some beautiful changes and maybe some that aren’t so lovely. And while sometimes the changes are positive ones, other changes can be difficult.
Some changes threaten to steal away the promises we made on our wedding day.
When we base the commitment to our husbands on how we feel he has changed for the worse or for the best, we are putting our hope in a pretty shaky foundation.
But God. Our God never changes.
“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” Hebrews 13:8 (NIV)
When we put our hope in Him, and we plant our roots down into Him (Colossians 2:7) in our marriages, we stand on the firmest foundation there has ever been.
You’re not who you were when you got married, but God is the same God today as the day you made a vow to Him and your husband.
There are no coincidences and no accidents in God’s Kingdom. He works everything out for our good. Don’t believe me? Read Romans 8:28. He is working your marriage out for good, too.
Don’t let differences distract you from the divine gift God has given you in your spouse.
When marriage gets hard and the fights feel never-ending, we look up. When we wonder who in the world we even married, we look up. When we think maybe we should have married someone different because we ourselves are so different now, we look up.
We’ll never be the same as we were the day we wore a veil and cut a cake, but we can make a decision to hold on to the same feeling of honor and respect we had for our husbands that day. We can take those promises with us no matter how many times we change in this life. We can continue to look up as the world around us and inside us shifts. Because our God never shifts.
When we get married, we aren’t only agreeing to love the man in front of us for who he is that day, but for who he will be every day after that. Because we won’t always be who we are that day, and neither will he.
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