Is It Chatting,Cheating or Tujuane?

I am a techgal,I love technology, am a fan of  social media but there’s just a limit to what it can do in terms of corrupting our virtues.

Facebook Is Just one of the many social media sites that has given us a new way to communicate with others.  It Is used to keep up with trending topics in others lives in a quick and creative way.

Unfortunately, sin and temptation lead us beyond appropriate relationship boundaries using these social media sites as a means of intimate communication with people outside of our marriages.

Let us be careful how we use facebook and other social sites.  Talk to your spouse about boundaries and keep each other accountable to the exclusivity of intimacy in your marriage.

I love facebook! I have up to date pictures from my friends, prayer requests,my former classmates talk to me about what college their attending and so much more fun stuff. I have met very good friends on the platform.I love all that fun communication!

I also don’t like facebook. I don’t like when someone writes something distasteful, or posts pictures that are not appropriate, I dont like the gossip or negative ethnicity but most of all I don’t like what it does to the marriage institution.

”””””””””””””’

A few months back James came home from work and told his wife,Rita, about how he had asked the wife (Essy)of an old high school buddy if her husband (John) had email(on Facebook). Essy soon told James they were divorced but it didn’t end there. She went on about how she was abused and abused by him .James told his wife Rita all of this conversation.  She told James to be careful, because she was giving too much intimate information and she could be trying to suck him in to her life.

The husband, feeling very secure in their loving wonderful marriage of 12 years said she was right and he would be careful.

Well unknown Rita the conversations kept going and going.  Her husband James says he thought he was helping her by listening. She just kept pulling him in by heaping on the personal information.  After a while Rita started having this strange feeling that something wasn’t right. She had her husband’s password to his account (due to trust and  accountability) on facebook. So about 11:30am during the weekday(with a strong feeling), she logged on his account and looked at his messages.  What she didn’t realize was James was chatting with her right then! She stopped breathing for a second, she felt her whole world spin out of control.

This is what she read…….

“I’m sorry you’re hurting” her husband , James 

“I hurt all the time, people have said they love me but they don’t really.” Ess

“I love you” James

“I wish I was with you” Ess

“You are my everything. I want to make everything alright for you.” James

“I wish I would have met you earlier, you are a gentleman” Ess

“Me too. xoxoxo” James

She was angry , devastated. She decided to call him and confront him on his friendship with Ess.She was still in front of the computer and as she was talking to him he wrote to her…

“I got to go somehow my wife found our conversations.I will have to delete them. I will talk later. Love you.” James

Ess wrote “Uh oh, you’re in trouble now.”

James told Rita he was coming home. She had twenty minutes to think. She started packing. Her stuff and her two kids stuff. She was shaking and crying. She thought their marriage was so good. They love God, they love each other they love their kids. They go on dates, they talk to each other, they share, they hold hands, they do things for each other. How could this be? She warned him! How could he do this to God, her, to them, to their kids?

James came home and they talked and talked (Ok, she yelled and yelled). He said he thought he could help Ess feel better without getting involved ,He said he thought he was strong enough to handle it. That he was a strong enough Christian to help her. He thought because he loved his wife so much he couldn’t get sucked in. He could just be a friend and help her.

This had rocked her marriage to the core,trust was broken,their marriage vows shaken,the wife he was supposed to protect and shield was hurting.God holds him accountable for his marriage He begged, pleaded, and most of all he learned a huge lesson.

No One Is Strong Enough!Marriage couples must stand in guard in Christ,lest they too become lured by the strong pull of the world.

………….

It still hurts

SHE SAYS…….

We all have them. Those things in the past that cut deep. So deep that when we think about them now, we start to feel the same emotions well up in us that did when we first experienced the hurt. As women we tend to interlink our life experiences with our emotions. So our past hurt can stir up emotions we thought for sure we had dealt with.

In marriage as well as in life when we dwell on the past, we tend to live in the past. Our hurts can threaten to stick us in one place but on the other hand it is vital in that they teach us many lessons and allow us to grow.

So how do we balance learning from the past and letting go?

• He can’t change the past, so stop expecting him to.

The things he has said or done cannot be undone. This does not mean that he is not accountable for his actions but that our God forgives  when we come to Him with a broken and contrite spirit. Sin is no longer a stronghold on him but in God he is redeemed.

• Look for God’s Footprints

Matt Redman’s song “Never Once”, says that

“Kneeling on this battle ground, seeing just how much You’ve done knowing every victory was Your power in us. Scars and struggles on the way but with joy our hearts can say, yes, our hearts can say: never once did we ever walk alone, never once did You leave us on our own. You are faithful, God, You are faithful.”

 So look back and see God’s faithfulness, choose to remember  that.

• Focus switch

It is always good to find something else to focus on. Other than pray and talk to God is to seek His word on what he wants for YOU as a wife.

HE SAYS…….

The past doesn’t always stay neatly in the past. When past hurts, pains and doubts creep back into marriage you have a choice. Fight or Surrender.

The other side of hurts is the side of the forgiven. That is when we have been forgiven for wounds caused, mistakes we made and sins committed.

• Wave the white flag.

When the day comes that an old doubt, fear or hurt crosses your wife’s mind its natural instinct to defend yourself. It is important that we fully surrender and choose to say again, “I’m sorry I hurt you” and “I love you”.

Taking a posture of surrender is not natural for men.Guilt,shame and sadness are not  emotions that any man will voluntarily choose to feel .

• Your wife is NOT GOD

When God forgives He removes that sin from us as far as the east is from the west. (Psalms 103.12).This is God’s nature but it’s not human nature. Your wife is striving to get there but from time to time the sin comes up from the past to influence her present.

Understanding this will help you love your wife during such moments.

..May we strive to get there.

Love your wife and You love yourself

He’ll never forget those eyes, dancing above the rim of her glass the moment he walked into the room, the first dance of many . . . wild and wonderful.

Two years later (An eternity, he said!) they exchanged their vows before God and their loved ones and purposed to spend their lives as one.

As he lay across the bed from his beautiful, lovely Bride during their honeymoon, those dancing eyes held his gaze, grateful to God for such a humble and loving spirit.

Time. Suddenly all those years without her seemed lost.

Drinking in the moment’s wonder, his fingers fell lightly, high upon her cheek, he had prayed for a helpmate but God is full of surprises, He gave him a gift, a thankful spirit and love. What kind of woman did God give him? The very, very best. She is the most willing servant of God.

“Why didn’t I meet you ten years ago? Where were you? Look how much time we’ve missed being together.”

But life is like that, isn’t it? One day we wake up in an oasis wondering why we wandered around in the desert for so long. Why we took 40 years instead of 40 days to find that purpose, but at the end of the day God was sharpening us like iron.

He purposed right then and there, laying on the bed in their room, he would cherish this woman, his bride, this breath-taking gift from God, every day of his life. He will first be a servant of God, then a good husband and a loving father.

How great it would be to report that he loved her perfectly.

He reaches out to let her know how much she matters to him. She knows this – that it’s serious business with him. She is his priority because Jesus Christ made her his priority – and He expects to be obeyed. He wants him to love her as He loves His Bride.

Jesus is the example for every Christian man to know how to truly cherish his wife.

Wait a minute, Jesus isn’t married!

But He is (or soon will be). His Bride is the Church. And Christian men are instructed to love their wife as Jesus loves His – Ephesians 5:25

If you are a cherished woman, it’s likely no one would ask you. The lightness of your step and the radiance of your countenance are a dead give-away.

For those who are not, it’s especially tough. Not only is the wrongdoing against you ever present, when you’re in the valley of neglect it’s difficult to believe that God has just as much to do in you as in your spouse.

An 80 yr. old friend (ma granny) once told me, God has far more to do in you than through you. How true this is for every husband and wife. We forget that the refining work of our Lord doesn’t happen in the full light of the sun on breezy days but in the hot crucible of the Refiner’s Furnace – in the dark valleys of our journey. But, the intended refining only happens where the metal will yield to the severe, purifying heat. And, that’s tough for any wife who isn’t cherished.

I have a question for the husbands: Is your wife a cherished woman? If you don’t know, find a quiet moment to ask her, “Do you feel cherished by me?” and “How can I cherish you in a way that you truly feel it?”

You see, being the husband of a cherished woman just isn’t optional for a Christian man. This is the call of God on your life – to preach the Gospel with the power of your love for your wife – an expression to the world of how Jesus Christ loves His Bride, the Church. The same is true of every married Christian man.

When you love your wife you actually love yourself . . . because according to God, the two of you are one single entity. And a truly cherished wife takes great pleasure in returning that love with interest.

When a wife is cherished by her husband God smiles His approval, she reflects back her joy, and both spouses receive the benefits – the favor of God and the pleasure of a highly fulfilling marriage.