Broken Labels

So it's been a little bit since i wrote :) I am happy to say that i am OFFICIALLY Mrs. Scharf !!! I know, i know! Exciting stuff! Yes i DID get a marriage licence & yes..........we are LEGAL. I wanted to discuss some of my thoughts, about after marriage today. Being a pretty intelligent YOUNG woman (i can't get over how young i feel no matter WHAT my age is!) I know that marriage isn't a "fix-all" by any means. The same things you struggled with before, you most likely will carry into the marriage. I was really kind of frightened by this. I want to be better, i want to grow & i want to be the best wife/mother/step-mother i can be! I struggle greatly with realizing it isn't just ME anymore. I have a helper! I have a husband to help me bear the weight of this sometimes crazy hamster wheel called life. I also have Someone bigger, God. I think God has been reminding me of this lately. During the wedding preparations, i forgot. So many questions, all directed at me, so many moving pieces & parts. I couldn't maintain my emotions, i snapped at people, i cried, i was incredibly stressed out! It caused me to lose my joy in the very event that should have been my most enjoyable day! I can't go back & change it, but i CAN learn from it. I can learn to PRAY 1st, ask my husband for help 2nd & breathe deeply 10xs before talking! I needed to step away from it all & gain my composure, but instead i took on more & more responsibility. It is OK to ask for help, especially from God. He probably was laughing at my insane ability to always try MY way 1st, & was simply watching & waiting for me to realize, it's HIS way anyway! Now i want to get to the part that probably most people wouldn't go into. Before i was right with God, obviously, i had 2 children. Yes i know, sex outside of marriage is wrong. Having multiple relationships sexually is even more wrong. Continuing down this road, when you know it's wrong, yea.........WRONG! I am not proud of my mistakes. I am not glorifying it in anyway, but i AM glad God brought me through it with some understanding for others. I allowed people to tell me some serious lies when it came to myself. I was told "no man wants a woman not a virgin anymore. no one will marry you since you have kids to another man. your stained & broken for life". Our church began a series this month called "Real Housewives of the Bible". In this series, we studied the "sinful woman". She was a prostitute (my 1st instinct was "well I'm not THAT bad!") that came to the house of religious leaders of her day to see Jesus. She came even though she knew she wouldn't be welcome. She received such a look of love & empathy she broke & began to cry. Her tears washed the feet of Jesus & she dried them with her hair, then poured perfume over His feet. As i listened to the story my heart cried out to God. Even though i have never sold my body for money, did i not sell myself for physical & emotional gratification?! I felt ashamed. How could i even begin to expect my daughter to look at my example & NOT follow it?! I allowed the lies that someone told me, to color what GOD told me. He tells us, if we repent, He is Faithful & will forgive us our sins. So long i have carried the labels of Broken, Single, Worthless, & Lost. I had a hard time letting an amazing person into my life because of it. I felt in some ways i deserved to feel this loneliness, the emptiness of being a single parent, far from her parents with no one to help. I felt like it didn't matter if i continued to sin, i had already been "soiled". Ladies, please listen to me. I can't pretend that i am somehow better off now myself then i was, but i am better off by Jesus's blood than i was! I CAN be clean again! I am washed by the Blood! How freeing it was to realize the chains of those labels don't match up to the Power of Jesus's sacrifice! This brings me to where i am going with this. My new husband & I had not been living with in the parameters of the Bible when we first met. I was on my way to living a more Spirit-filled life, but as we all know some habits die hard. We began a physical relationship after awhile, even though i was so shell shocked from previous relationships. I did attempt to keep it from going down that path, but i was doing it in MY own power, & i never once asked God for help. We began attending church together & my husband came to know God. We began meeting with counselor's because we were honsetly interested in marriage & becoming closer to God. They never treated us differently, never looked down on us in any way & i love that about my church home. They did however make it clear that a physical relationship before marriage was wrong. They were quick to clarify that that didn't make our ENTIRE relationship wrong, but it was an area we needed to get under God's will. We made the decision together that we needed to stop. We were able to do it, with God's help, but it WAS hard! I am soooooooo greatful we did now though! People tell you that marriage is just a piece of paper, but they are wrong. It is a covenant before God & people. The day we made that covenant was amazing! I no longer feel that touching my husband is sinful, or somehow wrong. I can enjoy our intimate moments & not have feelings of remorse or regret later. I can have JOY knowing this time, I can plan to have a child with someone i will spend my life with. I am thrilled i will have a helper, someone to help share parenting & no painful seperations from my child. I can not fix the pain of that for my older kids & it causes me heartache daily. I cry because the fruit of my actions are why they have fathers that are essentially not part of their lives. How gracious & amazing is it, however, that they can have the love of a father figure within their lives now?! THAT IS GOD'S LOVE! He CAN help. He WILL Help. All you have to do is follow His plans for you! How are you not following God's plans today?!! ASK HIM TO HELP :) I promise it will bring you so much MORE Joy than you could ever know!