temptations

 I feel like over the last month, the beautiful gift God gave as Marriage has both encouraged me, and brought heaviness at the very same time.


I hope you have gathered from little glimpses of this blog, how important I feel about Marriage, and how the destruction of it leaves a trail of issues, that doesn't just affect the two people that said "I do".


I started thinking about statistics a few years ago when it was brought to my attention, how just in our city alone, the divorce rate was painfully high, and I believe, was the highest in the State of Alabama at the time. I would cringe at the thought that one of my three friends would go through a divorce, not to mention, my marriage being apart of that statistic.

Then as life continued on, and statistics would rise, I would fight against Satan, as he would discourage me into thinking that because I watched marriages fall apart around me with peers, I should question the stability of all my family. After all, we carry a past that brings those statistics to light. And statistics don't lie...or do they?


If I were to tell you how many times I have thought about my own children's future in marriage being so completely challenging verses being one of the most precious gifts God would bless them with, then it would be embarrassing.


It started when I held on to the numbers, and the fear that they would not find a husband without a deep past, and baggage for them, started to weigh me down. I realized that fear, was a sin that was being used to distract me from the tools I could be using to teach them because of the statistics, not in spite of them.


I think it is okay to mourn sin, and I am glad I do. But for me, it was when the mourning of sin, became the fear of it, that caused me to not hold on to the truth that God's perfect will for my children's life was indeed perfect. Or that His Son's death on the cross, could redeem any situation. 

And isn't that just the very way we got those statistics in the first place, by questioning God's will for us, and not believing Christ's blood could redeem?


This very knowledge in the depths of how much we crave control and happiness in our lives, was brought to me when I heard a teaching on Adam and Eve. We have all been taught, from a young age, about the disobedience that occurred in the garden; but that is where I thought the sin took place. My eyes were truly opened, when I was shown and realized, that something had to happen before the disobedience occurred. Yes, the serpent tempted Eve, but before she took the fruit, she questioned God's perfect will for her life. She had to have actually thought, that there was something better for her if she took it. And so she did,  and I so often do the same.



In Church, we just finished the series I shared about in the post I did on The Talk. It was designed to target singles, but it encouraged me so much. It strengthened me with the encouragement to continue to persevere in raising my children with purpose. God does have a will for their life. God's will for them is good. It is perfect. I shouldn't fear it, whatever it may be. I should trust that it is far more then I could ever hope for, because He loves them far more then I ever could. And I should pray for His will to be done in their life, not mine, not theirs, but His.

We aspire to raise our children in truth, in believing that what He has for them, is what is perfect for them. Even in tough times, even in the depths. Because what He will do with it, will bring joy to their lives, and fill their souls, if they just believe it to be true and hold on to it; instead of sacrificing it to the mundane, temporary happiness that the world offers them with a piece of fruit.

May we rest in His will for our lives, and flee from the temptations to question it.



To God be the Glory.