Renewing of your Mind & Spirit for Marriage

Mind & Spirit Being Renewed For as long as I can remember, I wanted to be married although, my Mother and Father never raised us to be wives but to be independent, in fact I am the only sibling that wanted to be married. At the age of twenty-nine, I was still unmarried, and there were no potentials in sight. In February 2005, I made my first visit to Life Church. During this visit, it was prophesied by Pastor Terry that God was going to teach me how to be a wife and that my husband would be in the ministry. I thought to myself, what does that mean? Teach me how to be a wife? I really didn’t know what that meant but I knew anything that God had for me was good and especially if it had to do with me getting married, I was game! I was anxiously awaiting some big change to come over me from heaven. I knew that I was what some would call “really single”. I would come home and go straight to sleep, coming and going as I pleased. (Single women know what I am talking about!) Weeks passed after this was spoken to me and I was still waiting for a big change in my life. In my mind, being a wife meant cooking, cleaning, raising children, and having a house on the hill, a boat on the lake, and a home with a white picket fence. To add to all of my original misconceptions, I also believed it meant always having a date and being able to have sex legally—that was it! After about a month of expecting something to drop from heaven (which didn’t happen), I began to pray and asked God what did he mean about teaching me how to be a wife? And when was He going to teach me because I was ready to get married. This was just the beginning of my journey on renewing my mind and spirit for marriage and it did not occur over night. I begin writing this book in March of 2006, and since then, there have been several instances of rejection, disappointment, failed relationships, and long periods of loneliness. I pray through reading about my journey you will be blessed by what God has taught me about being a wife and about relationships in general. I also hope that your journey to marriage or whatever it is you desire from God, will not take you as long to receive it as it has taken me, due to lack of knowledge. It is my sincere prayer that your mind and spirit will be renewed before marriage. Chaotic Relationship We all know what a chaotic relationship looks like. If not, let me paint the picture for you; its driving pass his or her house to see if another car is parked in the driveway or to see if they are at home. Going by the place where your mate said they were going to be to make sure their there. Getting the code to their voice mail (of course without their knowledge) and checking their voice messages, text messages, calling back phone numbers. Some have gone as far as getting GPS on their mates phone and tracking their whereabouts (again, without their knowledge). Doing all this to feed their own insecurities, while driving their mate crazy. If you are truly seeking a healthy relationship then you have to leave the drama behind. A lot of drama is caused by the misconception of what makes a relationship work. The world’s theory is that you have to live with the person before you marry them in order to know if you can live peacefully together. It also promotes sampling the sex beforehand in order to know if you will be compatible in the bedroom. You must be able to discern a healthy relationship from a chaotic relationship. Also be aware of certain attitudes and behaviors that lead to chaotic relationships and attitudes and behaviors that lead to healthy relationships. If you are in a chaotic relationship, you must first examine yourself and then situation. If it is you, then you need to work on you, but if it’s simply not a relationship that can grow into anything good, you must be willing to let it go and move on. Sometime things that we continue to do such as not trusting him or her or double-checking everything he or she says can become life time habits that are hard to break. When you get into a relationship that actually has potential, you may bring bad habits from that chaotic relationship into the new relationship. If you are ever going to be happy in a relationship, you must leave the drama and bad habits behind you. You must free your minds from those things. So that you are able to have a drama-free relationship and help your mate reach their goals. Renewal to Get to My Promise In all that I have said, please remember that there will be trials, tests, triumphs and failures, before you get the blessings of God. But anything worth having is worth waiting for and working for. It’s almost comical to me when you are trying to do the right thing and live right, seems like the people around you, people who can care less about doing the right thing are getting the very thing that you want. While others are progressing in their life and relationships you seem to be taking the scenic route to get to your heart desires. But God is still good. In fact, I have come to realize that because God took you on the scenic route to work things out in you your union, your blessings, whatever it is you are believing God for will be greater than you imagined! I believe because God took the time to prepare you for the blessings you will enjoy and appreciate them more. That said, I have to confess that I sometimes get upset when I see couples coming together all around me and I think to myself, I am more prepared to be in a relationship than they are, but God has a way of bursting our little bubbles. Let me give you a few examples. One of my friends recently got married. Her and her guy dated a long time ago and then got back together about a year ago. They moved in together and were dating exclusively. Neither of them was attending church services or thinking about having a relationship that was pleasing to God, but they were happy and were talking about getting married, which they did eventually. Another one of my girlfriends met a guy and had only been dating him for about four months when he started talking about marrying her. They went out looking for rings. Now, she was saved (although not actively going to church), but he wasn’t. From the way he talked, I am not sure that he even believed in God. He ended up proposing to her, and soon after they were happily married and moved to Atlanta. Consequently, I thought, okay, God, something is wrong with this picture neither one of them are seeking you like I am seeking you and worshipping you like I am. They weren’t even going to church! Lord, I know if they can get someone, I should be able to get someone and not have to go through this long process of learning how to be a wife. Neither of them went through it and they do not know what being a wife is all about. What I learned is if you are asking God for His best, then you must be right to receive the best. He will not give His pearls to pigs! He will not give His best to a person who is not fit for the best. (Although, God can do whatever He wants to do, because in the Bible, He did have a man of God marry a prostitute, but God still got the glory!) After I saw my girlfriends continue to get engaged and married, I started comparing myself to them, and of course, I thought that they weren’t ready for marriage- I, however, was. We sometimes do not see ourselves or recognize our hidden issues—our attitudes, bad habits, hidden unforgiveness in our hearts, our strongholds. At thirty years old, I was unmarried, not dating, and growing impatient. So I started praying and said to God, “If Terrance ( this guy that I liked) is to be my husband then he has to come and get me or else I am going to be the last to get married, if ever.” He and I were not working out the way I had hoped. I decided to go into fasting and prayer for him because I thought the problem was with him and not me. I thought God had already done the spiritual work in me to be a wife and although I had