Pulling out the unexpected from the marriage box.

DH had to travel in the wee hours of today and so the day naturally progressed rather slowly, DS and I slept till 12:00 noon- no kidding- well, I wasn't sleeping, we initially woke up at about 8am but went back to lie in bed after brushing our teeth so HE slept off whilst I laid in bed doing some catch up reading my favourite blogs.

I was also preoccupied in thoughts.

I had earlier reached out to a friend who'd been going through some troubled times. Someone had called me earlier in the year ( or was it at the end of last year? ) to tell me about the ordeal she'd been going through and I was torn on whether it was okay to reach out or to just keep quiet and pray it all blows over. I chose the latter but kept seeing her put up dps suggesting that she was going through something and so I reached out to her and she came clean with me: her DH had taken to hard drugs and as a result, the family as a whole had suffered- they had both nearly lost their lives too, himself merely escaping death due to an overdose and herself having survived the very many forms of abuse he had unleashed on her.

I felt really sad to learn this especially having seen first hand how gripping drug addiction can be and having seen people whose lives were brought to absolute nothingness and who themselves became empty husks of who they used to be, human shells, due to years of living under the shackles of drug addiction. I kept asking myself, "Why her?". It also made me realise that marriage is really not easy and both parties sometimes keep evolving- sometimes for the good and sometimes for the bad.

It's one thing to marry a person with one known bad habit and another for that to snowball into a whole new dimension you  do not know how to deal with.

But I still know that God is the author of marriage and I believe that He is interested in the union between believers who have given their union over to Him to perfect. No one is perfect but as long as a couple (separately as individuals and then jointedly as a couple) are yet to fully submit themselves to God to perfect His work in their lives, their union will just not be peaceful. Marriage is not easy but to be married to one who doesn't have the fear of God is quite the burden.

One with the fear of God will refrain from a lot of things: cheating will be out, going out clubbing and to strip joints will be out ( I know some people will just not want to agree with this point but it is the plain truth ), smoking-drinking-gambling-closeted sexual perversions- all of that will be out and so many other things. Now the issue is that people don't often know what is good for them and go out "experimenting" and don't realise that "just one hit" can have you chained down to something you never imagined yourself capable of becoming controlled by. All of a sudden, "a little thing" becomes such a big issue in your life that you begin struggling to let go of.

A lot of times, this is really how addictions come about and eventually spirals out of control- and even when one becomes a believer, it doesn't automatically change them from their bad habit- it takes a combination of  a concious, everyday awareness that you do not want to be bound by that which has hitherto had you in a bind and  a willingness and decision to live a life that is pleasing to God, to eventually overcome it- you will have to fashi Grace for now and realise that your own grace is in deciding EVERYDAY to walk in obedience to God and seek to please him whilst letting Him do His work in you.

Thankfully, the husband in question has realised the error of his ways and has surrendered himself to God. He's done a full rehabilitation, is now detoxed and is living drug free whilst they, as a family, are taking it one day at a time and letting God reign over the situation. I hear he has actively started seeking God's face and I truly pray that this is the catalyst for change in his life and in their family as a whole.

I pray that this is the catalyst that has been used to draw him out of the misleading lure in the world and to place him firmly on the path of life, that he becomes the focused family man that God has called him to be- a role model to his children and able head of his home.

I pray that in a few years to come, people who knew him and even his former ilk can look at him and say, " Nna, na so the guy turn pastor and e be like say God jus dey use am well, well- weda me sef fit turn born again o".

I just pray the best for this family and pray that out of this seeming challenge, God will draw out something so beautiful that the world will be in awe of the beauty that is their union: that they be like a phoenix rising up from it's ashes, new and with renewed strength.

In Jesus' name. Amen.

Until we meet again,

Love Always,

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