Get Inspired Into Healing

Is Marriage Worth It?

Marriage for Wrong Motives

When I was young, I dreamed about getting married because I believed it was my only chance of being loved. Since my parents didn’t love me, my husband would one day become my savior. The trick would then be to get married as quickly as possible so that I wouldn’t be starved of love for an unbearably long time.

None of my plans to get married young worked out, however, because I was hopelessly attracted to dysfunctional men. I myself was a dysfunctional woman, after all. Fortunately, I got saved at 25, and I realized that God could fill up a part of the empty love tank in my heart. I pursued God with all my might so that I could receive love, but all I got instead was church.

Churchianity Not Christianity

If you don’t know, it is an unfortunate fact that most churches don’t know how to love one another well. That’s why that command is in the Bible like a hundred times (actually it’s somewhere in the 30s, but still)—because everybody needs to hear the reminder over and over again. Therefore, my plan to get my empty love tank filled by my church family was also a bust. (There were moments of blessings, to be sure, and a handful of people who were beyond-loving, but still a lot of heartache in the long run.) That’s why I don’t judge people who left Christianity because of Christians. We are all pretty broken people and we are demonic targets to boot: not a great combination for loving one another well.

Married to Yeshua

Then, I discovered God—the real, living, speaking, relational God who didn’t jump out of a page but out of every experience I had, and every breath I took. As the real Yeshua spoke words of love and healing over me through spontaneous visions and thoughts, I began to get my empty love tank filled, and it was wonderful. I began experiencing what it was like to be the well-loved bride of Yeshua, and I concluded that I had the spiritual gift of singleness. I was able to accept what I believed to be my fate because I was receiving love for the first time, and everything is easier to accept when one is loved.

“…everything is easier to accept when one is loved.”

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Except, it wasn’t my fate at all—just a season. One day, God told me that marriage was necessary for me if I was to be totally healed. “The relationships that hurt you are the relationships that heal you,” said God. “If your family of origin hurt you, then only your new family can heal you.” Then, God put me on a 3.5 year prophetic marriage journey that transformed me and led me to marry a man I would have otherwise overlooked. (Him, too!)

“The relationships that hurt you are the relationships that heal you,” said God.

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Happily Ever… Uh-oh!

On the day I got married, my body began to shake. My nervous system started releasing trauma at an intensity I had never experienced before, whenever it wanted, and mostly out of my control. My husband held me at night while I shook and cried. He brought me food during the day when I passed out on the couch from a dissociation spell. It was not the honeymoon period we were both hoping to have.

I figured this season of healing could take few months of discomfort, and then my healing would be complete. Four years later, my healing feels like it’s nowhere near complete, and at this point, I’m beyond weary, as is my husband. He, after all, has been a caregiver to a chronically-ill wife, whose illness takes her through major changes of emotional perspective or physical activity for days or weeks until another round of trauma healing is complete. Then, we both get a break for a day or two when we can be at peace with each other, until my brain starts the next round of healing.

At this point, I can’t tell whether all of the pain of healing has been worth it. In fact, I feel like, “Marriage? Eh—I could take it or leave it.”

Being single was easier on my day-to-day life, to be sure. When I had long periods of the chronic illness wave cresting, I could do it in the privacy of my own home. I could choose to whom I showed my vulnerability. It was a lot less embarrassing for me and a lot less burdensome for others. It was also lonelier, especially as I got older. When I got married, I was looking forward to marriage being fun and, after some work, rewarding. Yet, the incessant healing that has marked my marriage thus far has robbed much of the joy out of it.

Right now, this is my prayer:

I’m not sold on this model of healing, God. You’re gonna have to prove it to me that this is better than all I could hope or imagine, because I’m not seeing it today.

“I’m not sold on this model of healing, God.”

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When the Strong Lose Strength

I’m sharing this with you because it’s important for each of us to be honest with ourselves, one another, and God about where we are at. I don’t want you to think that I have some perfect life just because I walk with God, and that if you don’t have a perfect life, you must be doing something wrong. (Those kinds of condemning thoughts are from the enemy.) I want you to know that despite knowing the all-loving God more and more each day, and despite seeing some amazing miracles and breakthroughs in my life, I still get weary, and I still lose my faith from time to time. I know it won’t be forever, but it’s where I’m at today.

I welcome your prayers.

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