Changed by Christ

Healing for your hurting marriage

Your marriage can be restored no matter the problem. God can heal all wounds whether they were caused on accident or on purpose. If the two return to their first love, Jesus, then they can be restored to their second love, each other. A partnership must be reformed and their marriage must take top priority forsaking all others.

I am going to write a brief overview of restoration in marriage. Every situation is different and every relationship heals on its on time and in its own way. I encourage you to seek godly counsel both for yourself as an individual and also as a couple; you will not be able to navigate through this just making it up as you go along (been there and tried to do that). So take these words as what they are meant, to encourage you that your marriage can be restored and you can find the healing you need. You can always contact me for advice and counsel; however I want you to look around your current set of friends and trusted relationships, God has them there for a reason.

The first step to restore a marriage when there seems to be no hope is to reaffirm together the covenant between you both and the covenant made to God. God did not give up on the marriage covenant, He still sustains it and will continue to strengthen it. If you are not at the point yet where you both are able to reaffirm your covenant to each other, at the very least acknowledge the covenant that still exists between you and God individually. Eventually you will need to come together and reaffirm your covenant with each other; you both just need to get to the place where you can agree to allow God’s help in restoring and repairing the covenant with each other. Do not walk away which is so easy to do right now; do not let the hurt and emotional pain continue to wear down and break the covenants you both agreed to when you were married. Once you have come to the place where you are both willing to fight and focus your efforts in rebuilding instead of tearing down, then you are ready for step two.

The second step in healing and restoring your marriage is to become transparent with your spouse. And that level of transparency needs to be discussed during counseling. There are some things that could have happened that would cause more pain if exposed and examined without the help of godly counsel being available. However, the mandate to become one flesh and withholding nothing still remains; so some level of transparency is necessary in the healing process as well as in a normal healthy marriage. What got you to this point is that one or both of you have locked each other out for whatever reason and are no longer intimate (emotionally and spiritually) with each other. The intimacy must return. It is a process and will take time but you have to start letting each other back in to the one flesh design of marriage. Forgiveness can be immediate, and we are to forgive just as Christ forgave us. Trust will take time to rebuild, but you must allow each other the opportunity to rebuild that trust and not prevent it by setting difficult or impossible goals. Again this is why counseling or at least having someone spiritually mature sitting with you as you walk through the items that come up.

The intimacy I am discussing here is not something sexual, but it is trusting and releasing control over to the other that should have been there all along. If you are NOT vulnerable and transparent to each other in all areas, then you are not being one flesh. This is a critical part of marriage that is a must have and not a nice to have. I could go on for days about one flesh and the keys to it and how important it is, but that’s for my book *grin*. Just keep in mind that this covenant that you have to God requires transparency and clinging to each other which brings out the idea of exposing yourself and actually becoming stuck to each other, inseparable.

As you walk through these first two steps you are well on your way of restoration and healing for your marriage. You will get through this and you will become one again. As you start walking on this journey together, consider it a second marriage, another opportunity to do it right all over again. Praise God for allowing us to come to Him broken and be restored. He will do the same for your marriage.

God Bless you as you walk this journey with me, with the many others who have gone through difficult marriages and with God.

-Matt

One final note: The problems in many marriages stem from a selfish seclusion and alienation of one or both people that puts up walls and refuses to merge into one flesh. – I pray that anyone struggling with oneness or starting to drift apart will wake up and realize the destruction that is heading their way.