When Marriage changes you

“Above all else, guard your heart,

 for everything you do flows from it.” -Proverbs 4:23

As far as I can recall, I have always been a bubbly, charismatic person but beneath all of that I hated aggression with all of my heart. Confrontation has always been a nightmare to me. My little sister always felt she need to protect me maybe because she has a warrior spirit, she fought both our battles growing up. One time I remember I was playing with one of our neighbors, she slapped me and I ran home to my Dad and at some point I think my father was tired of walking me back to the playground and finally he asked me, “Why don’t you slap them back?”. Since that day I never ran back to my father whenever there was a fight, I would just cry it out and continue with life like nothing happened. Today my little sister and I laugh at my poor come backs and how poorly I still manage conflict. The truth is I am still that girl who avoids aggression but I think slowly but surely Marriage has taken out a bit of aggression in me, it has become my defense mechanism and the truth is it took a while for me to recognize this.

Life has a tendency to harden our hearts. Life is war, battle after battle we lose a part of ourselves on the battlefield. It is a given that after war soldiers either come back with post traumatic stress or missing a limb. Its safe to say they are never really the same after war. When we were children we believed we could be pilots, medical doctors. I believed with all of my heart that I was going to be a model. Since I was 8 years old, every Saturday morning I would practice my cat walk infront of the television and my mom and dad would cheer me on and shout “long legs”. Eventually I progressed into entering pageants but my dream died when I grew into puberty stage, my bust and curves didn’t quite fit in the modeling industry. I look at plus size models like Ashley Graham and think maybe my dream wasn’t far fetched. I grew up and the burdens of life weighed my dreams to the ground. My failed dreams continue to dig a deep hole of void and emptiness, and the more I grow up and realize that my time is running out, I compare my failed dreams like that of wedding rings digging into married peoples fingers because of their unhappiness and sadness.

Marriage as a lifetime commitment comes with dynamics such as In-laws, finances, trauma which often leads to strife and most times resentment. Resentment which is caused by a repetition of hurt and defeats the opportunity of forgiving and forgetting. Resentment (Unforgiveness) alone is enough to alter ones’ personality or character and can motivate one to morph into someone they are not. I think we can agree that for one to receive any type of service we ought to brace ourselves because chances of receiving rudeness with a touch of anger are high. Married women sitting at their working stations with their beautiful blinging rings, normally give the worst services. I doubt it was always the case character growing up, something happened along their life journey or marriage journey and their hearts have turned cold. 

When your heart has turned cold, without a doubt you will be filled with anger, sadness, rudeness. Your crazy laughter turns into a chuckle and your beaming smile is replaced with a frown. The Bible refers to resentment (unforgiveness) as a heart of stone. In Matthew 18:6, Jesus explained to the disciples that Moses had to grant the Israelites a divorce because their heart had turned cold. Jesus understood that a heart that is hardened depletes the holy spirit inside of us and we start living in the flesh. Galatians 5:19, “The works of the flesh are evident, which are adultery, fornication, uncleanness, hatred, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambitions, drunkenness”. Nothing good comes from a hardened heart. When your heart has hardened you can not become a good parent, a good wife or husband. You graduate from being a victim to an accomplice. If your husband cheats, you cheat back, if he physically abuses you, you throw punches back and if he emotionally abuses you you throw it back. We do not get there in an instant, gradually as the hurt builds up, trauma deepens in a split second, the soft Tiffy is slowly fading away then aggression becomes a far fetched friend but a new character. When God commands us to guard our hearts because “everything” flows from it, is the truth literally everything comes from our heart. The bible continues to say, “out if The abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. 

Hurt people hurt people, healed people heal people. Our hearts are who we are, God is moved by our hearts and in a marriage he works with individuals, he sees everything. It is important to focus on our relationship with God, work towards coming to the end of ourselves and becoming the best version of ourselves by not focusing much on what the other person is doing or react to our circumstances or environments, it is hard I know but when are healed we have the ability to heal our surroundings. When we are hurt we inflict pain. “Wives be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, when they see your respectful and pure conduct.”- 1 Peter 3:1-2.

Although the truth of the matter is, women are incubators of what they receive and Dr Myles Munroe says that a woman’s job is to produce what their husband gives them whether good or bad. As women our surroundings play a huge part in the growth of our wellbeing, spiritually , physically and emotionally. I believe the only way we can live a life of hope, abundance despite our surroundings we can not change is to always be at the feet of Jesus. God promises us peace that surpasses all understanding (Phillipians 4:6). Someone once said God doesn’t give us things we can handle because he wants us to cast all our burdens unto him, he wants us to fully lean on him and trust him so that he works on us. When he works on us and we finally come to the end of ourselves our character will be that of Jesus and we will be able to love and forgive like Jesus while our characters still intact. All this is possible only through leaning on God not on our understanding (Proverbs 3:5), if you try to this on your own unfortunately you are going to fail dismally and in the process, lose yourself to resentment m. I am writing this blog to all the women that have changed because of the fires in their marriages. I know it is not easy because I am walking through similar fires as everyone but whatever you do, fight to never change who you are and continue to seek Gods face for the direction of your marriage, trust him to work everything in your favor. A favor could be a restoration of your marriage, or God orchestrating removing you from your marriage. The only way to know this, is if you sit at his feet and remember do not let yourself go, whatever you do, do not let yourself change for the worst.

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