As you read in the last post, God made it clear to me that He brought a wonderful man of God into my life to help me grow more into His likeness. That's exactly what He has been doing.
It's been a whirlwind these last few months. Alex and I spent many nights talking and praying with much intention to get to know each other in very deep ways. There have been so many wonderful lessons God has taught me and many moments when the love that God has for me was deeply expressed through Alex.
Alex proposed to me on March 15, 2015 under the stars beside the Hudson River. It was so very beautiful and a surprise to me even though we knew we would one day be married, I don't think I truly believed it.
During the next few weeks, (we chose May 2 as our wedding day), we learned a lot more about God and ourselves and the importance of having a firm foundation for marriage.
Now, just a mere month and a few days into our marriage, I write this with excitement to share all the things that God has shown me about Him, myself, and the culture we live in. Mostly good but some difficult things also. However, the difficult things are the very things that mold us into who God wants us to be. In this culture, we are obsessed with doing whatever we can to keep ourselves out of pain and trial thinking that if we are in pain there must be something wrong. But the Bible promises that trials will come and through persevering we will become more like Christ.
James 1:2-4 -
Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
Being born with love for the country, it has been interesting to adjust to the city. I take more walks with Mama than I have in a long time which is actually a good thing. It can be hard though, not having a lot of privacy because of so many people also walking around and always having to keep Mama on a leash. But we are adjusting to the new lifestyle. Alex loves Mama very much and expresses it to her a lot which is completely adorable and I appreciate it a lot.
Having to adjust, however, in many ways hasn't been that hard. Learning his habits and making new habits of my own is all a part of this new life. I suppose that because everyone's personalities are different, some things may be harder for other people than they have been for me but I have to say that I am very thankful for the person God made me to be. The personalities He has given Alex and I mesh very well and it's a wonderful thing.
Of course there are moments when my pride gets in the way and I discover how selfish I really am, but then I learn what God desires to bring out of me and can therefore ask Him to change me. It's a very good thing. Is it always easy to learn how selfish and prideful I truly am? Obviously not, but understanding that and allowing God to refine me is exactly how we grow, and I want to grow!
As God continues to teach me things about Him and myself I hope to write more with the intention of helping you understand more about yourself and what God desires in your life.
The lesson I will share in this post, I believe is a very important one given the culture we live in.
We are told that you can freely give yourself away to whoever you want, whenever you want with no strings attached. With no worry of emotional distress and no commitment. Even the most seemingly committed unmarried couple is not guaranteed to never break up. I also know that just because you get married it doesn't necessarily mean a forever commitment even though it should. I believe there is a very skewed perception of marriage in our culture which is why there are so many failed marriages. But I won't get into that right now.
The heart of what I want to share at this time is that about a week ago I was reflecting on my life and the joy of being married and I remembered the way I felt in the past when I was involved in unhealthy relationships.
Deep down I desperately wanted to connect with someone. I wanted to be emotionally and spiritually intimate with someone but neither the guy nor I knew how to do that nor did we really have intention to do that anyway. I looked at these men as someone who was supposed to complete me, understand me, and fulfill my deepest longings. This was an impossible expectation for many reasons. We weren't in a relationship with God, we were not married and we lacked deep communication and transparency with one another. See, even our best intentions to be committed to one person lack something if we don't choose to be married to them but wish to live in the lifestyle meant for only married people.
Again, the desire for a deep connection in my past was reflective of the longing I had for intimacy with Jesus and then also with the man He brought me to marry. The attempts I made to force commitment and intimacy apart from the way God designed it to be, never worked. It was only until I realized my need to make Jesus my Savior and not any man, that I experienced a true commitment and deep intimacy.
So, as I thought about these things, I realized that I had always wanted to believe someone would choose me out of all the other women in the world and desire such a commitment with me alone. Now that I am experiencing that, God has given me so much freedom. The freedom to be myself, to mess up, to cry, to express emotions, to question things, to reveal my insecurities, to give myself away, to hurt, to have joy, to be silly, to burn the eggs or forget to pick up the mail, and the list goes on. That doesn't mean it's easy when I fail or make mistakes but what I've come to appreciate is, as I said, the freedom to know that this person isn't going anywhere. He is choosing to be by my side no matter how much I fail.
I remember the fear of failing I had when I was in those bad relationships. I was afraid that when I would fail to perform the way he wanted in any given situation he would surely walk away from the relationship. Therefore, I was always on eggshells waiting to see what the last straw would be before he decided he didn't want to deal with me anymore. There was never any transparency or honest communication. I was constantly trying to perform for him so he would hopefully want to keep me around. It never worked and I was always rejected, left behind feeling like a broken and worthless failure time and time again. This only magnified the worthlessness I had felt to begin with.
I think about the people in this world that choose to live as though they are married to someone and the sadness they might feel (perhaps not all of them, at least not for the moment), and I think about myself when I did the very same thing. I thought I knew what I was doing. That I could choose my own path, live however I felt I wanted to and never end up broken. How blinded and lost I was.
Now as I am within God's design, experiencing the fullness of how He intended couples to live, I am nothing but thankful and overjoyed at what He has done in my life. The sense of permanency that comes with being married is incredible. And again, as I reflect on the way I chose to live in the past and the deep longings I had, it is beautiful to understand that this is what a healthy relationship should be. This is what God intended. He didn't create us to go from one person to the next looking for someone to be perfect before we decide to commit. We end up numb to any emotion because we give ourselves to so many people and then never commit anyway for fear that we will realize the person isn't perfect and we will have to run to another with hopes that the next person will be perfect. It's a vicious cycle and our culture is constantly feeding it to us. I fell into the trap and it is only by the love, mercy, and grace of God Almighty that I got out of the pit and can now understand the errors of my ways and the lies I was believing.
I don't have all the answers, and would never tell you that I have it all together but I do know this: my life is a testimony to the grace of God and I know without any doubt that apart from Him I would never be where I am today.
My encouragement to you dear friends, is that you would choose God's design. He wants what's best for you and as the Creator of everything, you can rest assured that He knows what He's doing. Think about this, my sister was asked by someone whom openly expressed her promiscuous lifestyle, what she thought of that decision. With God on her side, my sister asked, "How does your heart feel?" The person thought about it for a while and then responded, "I never thought about that, I guess I don't really feel anything anymore."
God's design is set in place for a reason. I understand what it feels like to be numb, to feel like I could never be redeemed, like my life would be a constant pattern of guy after guy after guy without any true commitment.
You can trust God, He has your best intention in mind. As He has given me the privilege of having an earthly husband, my hope is that you will also choose His way.
You can trust God, He has your best intention in mind. As He has given me the privilege of having an earthly husband, my hope is that you will also choose His way.
He can and will redeem you if you would only turn from your sinful ways and ask Him to restore you and give you a new life. Only then will you be able to truly experience the joy and blessing of His design.
With Love in Christ,
Mrs. Kuhl
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