The Lord IS so amazingly gracious and kind to me. So very much!
My last entry discussed my lingering emotions for Kay...my issues with rationalizing and reasoning over us - what could have been, what should be, what isn't. And then the Lord did the miraculous and used Tim Keller's "The Meaning of Marriage" to completely blow up all that reasoning and bring me back to the center of God's will for my life.
It is right - very right - for me - for my Father in heaven - for Kay - and for our future lives as spouses - to have ended the relationship as I did in July. It was right.
The chapter I opened to was the one on Sex in marriage. How eye-opening. What a revelation.
My unrest was necessary, because I was uniting myself to someone who was not my husband. Sex, as God desires it, is a uniting force - the thing the Lord uses to both seal and reinforce the covenant relationship between Himself, a wife and a husband. This uniting is not altered when you have sex outside of marriage. It's still there - but with it comes the angst, fear, trauma, distrust, and all the negative stuff attached to having sex with someone who is not committed to you in the way that God ordained married couples to be.
There was this amazing quote from C.S. Lewis that I will hang onto for the rest of my life: "Sex before marriage is like eating a gourmet meal without swallowing or digesting it." It's incomplete, and ultimately unsatisfying, and cannot do the full work of helping two people become one in covenant with God - or - through that oneness, draw them closer to the Father and the persons He desires them to be. Sex is part and parcel of the unique bond that exists in a Godly, Christ-centered marriage. And it is the only way that I desire to have it going forward.
That's why it's SO important to remain celibate before marriage. To not defile the marriage bed. To save yourself for the one who will cultivate and care for that part of you that you only make available to them - who you can be vulnerable with in Christ.
However, to do so - to remain celibate - a person must be CONVINCED that this is the thing to do. That this is the great sacrifice and offering to the Lord, who did ever more in His sacrifice of Himself for us.
Tim refrenced Jane Eyre. And it spoke specifically to my situation with Kay, for Mr. Rochester who is also still married to a woman with whom he no longer has a true marriage relationship, asks Jane to remain with him, as his mistress, as Kay has asked of me.
Jane, like myself, wrestles with her longing for him and her desire to please God - to remain convinced that to deny her desire for Rochester, will serve the greater good for them both and truly glorify the Lord.
She is convinced.
Of course, Jane Eyre provides a nice ending for Jane. Though she runs off and almost dies in that escape from a broken heart. The Lord eventually brings them back together -- however, Rochester is now a broken man - blinded by the fire that kills his wife (and ultimately the tie to a broken marriage, entered into for unGodly reasons (he was tricked into it by the woman's conniving brother and father - and his lust for her, not Christ-centered love).
My desire is to be completely free of Kay - and yet, I remember that prayer back in 2010 - those 7 days of declaring that I would meet my husband at the end of that period, and indeed, my mother coming home on that 7th day declaring "I have a husband for you!" - that person being Kay.
So, is the Lord about to work a work in Kay's life, similar to Mr. Rochester. Will my walking away, as I've done, moving forward with my life (even having someone quite Godly enter in who would possibly entertain making me his wife - as Jane's cousin does, when she retreats from Rochester) - will all that allow the Lord to do things in Kay's situation that will free him from his wife, but break him also of his pride, his striking independence, his questionable view of how to live life, his distance from the Father and accountability to other believers - will he come out broken, with new vision through Spiritual eyes, not a vision that is based on the lust of the flesh, but also a softened man - vulnerable, willing to be cared for as he has cared for others?
This last paragraph just came to me as I reflected on Jane and Rochester. I did not see it last night. I don't know. My one desire right now is deeper relationship with the Father, and if He deems it proper, a Godly marriage, where I am being used of Him to bring truth and encouragement, support and love into my husband's life. Both are mysterious works that only the Lord can bring to pass.
Reading this entry again on Friday, January 13th, my final thoughts are totally not of the Lord. I desire Kay's brokenness, so that he falls back into the arms of our Father in heaven, but in no way do I desire for us to be reconciled in a romantic relationship. There were memories that came to my mind last evening that reminded me of how NOT compatible we are, or honoring he was to me as a woman, as a child of God (and I allowed that dishonoring - and also dishonored him, and above all, the Lord, through my compromise).
ReplyDeleteHis transformation must be first for the Lord and then for his existing wife and family - and if not Tanya, then someone else that the Lord can bring into his life when he steps back into a consecrated relationship with Him. My prayer continues to be that we will be able to co-parent Jonathan in a cordial and respectful manner. No animosity, no regrets, just kindness and goodness. I thank you Lord that you are enabling that to come to pass.