Day 19

Today's lesson was hard to find. To be completely honest, I think I've been running from my problems, and therefore, also from any progress since I woke up this morning. There is quite a bit going on in the next few days, so it's been easy to let my focus drift toward that and miss the opportunity to let God teach me. The most ironic part is that be more I run, the less distance I cover. This thought pattern led me to the story of the prodigal son. Read it again with me in Luke 15:11-32.

WE ALL NEED GRACE
It is so easy in the position that I am in to look at Husband with harsh judgement. No matter what mistakes I made in our marriage relationship, he did far worse to me. No matter how many times I said I was sorry for failing him, I have yet to hear a sincere apology from his lips. He deserves to feel the pain he has caused others. He deserves to pay for his mistakes every day for a very long time. He deserves whatever guilt comes his way as a result of the chaos he brought in to our lives. He deserves to end up alone, with out the companion he put before his vows and his children. But I can't ask God to give him what he deserves.

I need God's grace, too. And the best definition I've ever heard for grace is getting what we don't deserve. I am a sinner. I deserve to be punished for my sins. The wages of sin is death, according to the bible. So I deserve to die for the lie I told yesterday, the gossip I spread in high school, or the way I so often put worldly things above the one true God. I deserve hell. Eternal separation from my maker and the lover of my soul. I have disgraced His holy name, and there is no reason I should be saved. No reason but grace.

And I beg for that grace on a daily basis. God's grace sent Jesus to live on earth and die on the cross to pay for my sins. AND- to pay for husband's. The same blood that covers me and washed me clean covers husband and his filthy pile of wrongs that have now become public. I should be praying for the day that he, the lost son, will go running home into the arms of his loving father. I should be asking God to have mercy on him as he continues to run away from God just the same way I did by spending my time on fruitless tasks just to get myself through another day.

"While the son was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt sorry for his son. So the father ran to him and hugged and kissed him. The son said, 'Father, I have sinned against God and have done wrong to you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.'" Luke 15:20-21
--None of us are worthy, but God still has mercy on each one of his children. Humbling ourselves is an important step toward receiving the grace our Father gives. I will pray that Husband will do this very thing.

"My son was dead, but now he is alive again! He was lost, but now he is found!" Luke 15:24
--Are the people we're working to forgive lost? Are they so spiritually dead that they no longer even realize how far they have fallen? Shouldn't we, then, learn to pray that they will once again be found and become alive in the Lord? I know it's hard, but I want this for every person on earth, so that must include my offender. Help me, Jesus, to find a way to pray for Husband with a sincere heart so that he may see the truth and receive your love.