Mich Has Nothing to Say...

[Michlow]

Originally Posted by Ron

Michlow, the main thing is your relationship witb Jesus.
Forget the other things for now.

When I married my wife, we didn't sit down and go over a "Wedding Contract" about what I will or won't do.

I love her and that is the basis for why I do what I do.
Your love for Jesus and your relationship with Jesus should be the same thing.

JMHO

Praying for you.

I agree, and that is what I am trying to do.

[Michlow]

John 9:41 (NLT)

“If you were blind, you wouldn’t be guilty,” Jesus replied. “But you remain guilty because you claim you can see.


Matthew 6:23 (NLT)

23 But when your eye is bad, your whole body is filled with darkness. And if the light you think you have is actually darkness, how deep that darkness is!

These verses have been floating around in my brain for the past couple days. I have spent the past several months so worried over the fact that there are no answers, only questions. That everything seems to be in the great unknown. Nothing feels certain. But it seems like thinking that you know and see everything, is a much worse state to be in.

[Michlow]

Something I wrote elsewhere:

You are right in saying that I had for a long time a distorted view of God. To me God was always someone who’s approval I desperately needed (because I didn’t want to go to hell!), whose love was conditional (entirely based on if I proved myself worthy) and very unforgiving of less than perfection.

I can’t blame this all on my experiences in the church. Because all the things I wrote above describe perfectly my upbringing by my earthy father. A harsh authoritarian, controlling man for whom nothing was ever good enough. So you could say that I was already well-primed to view God in the same way.

It was actually two weeks ago, that I had a major breakthrough in this area, to understand the breakthrough; I have to give you a little background information.

My husband and I have been together for 10 years, married for 8 ½. I was saved about 6 months after I we got married. I honestly believe that if it were not for that fact, that I would have divorced him a long time ago.

It’s not that I don’t love him, or that he’s a bad person. The main problem is that he has Asperger’s syndrome. Asperger’s is a type of high functioning autism. Without getting into it too in depth, we’ll just say the bottom line is that his brain works differently than ours, and that how he views and relates and interacts with the world around him, is far different than the way that we do. There are many many layers and characteristics that I could describe to try and explain how this affects my life and our marriage, but in the interest of simplicity, I will say only that something like 85% of Aspie marriages end in divorce.

One of the important parts of this is that my husband has difficulty both in maintaining employment, and in handling any sort of responsibility. This puts a lot of pressure on me to keep us afloat financially, as well as handling all of the other household responsibilities.

Anyway, three weeks ago, my husband lost his job, again. Probably the 30th job he has had in the time I have known him. This was actually a record for him. He made it almost a year and a half. The poor guy was afraid to tell me. I am afraid with all the pressure on me; I usually don’t handle the news very well. Though to be honest, each time it gets a little better, and this time, I didn’t even get angry, I just cried for 15 minutes and then started making plans.

However, the next day, I did take the time to vent to a friend, who then proceeded to tell me that I was too young to waste my life on this. That surely God wanted me to have something better. After all wasn’t it more of a sin to be this unhappy? I tried to explain to her that it wasn’t like that, but couldn’t seem to find the words.

A few days later I was doing my daily hour on the treadmill (I often read and pray during that time), and I started thinking about my husband and his job situation. The truth is I have often treated my husband; the same way that I felt my father treated me. Nothing was ever quite good enough. I always KNEW that he could be doing better. If he cleaned the house to “surprise” me, all I ever saw was that he had done it wrong. If he did have a job, he didn’t make enough money. (His last job he worked part time working $600 a month), or he wasn’t working as hard as me, so it wasn’t good enough. Because he was an Aspie, I tried to cut him slack, but to be honest, my true feelings were, if you have a handicap, you simply need to work harder to overcome it.

So as I am on my treadmill thinking about him losing his job again, and his perpetual tardiness that probably was a factor, and this cycle was probably going to repeat itself over and over again. So I am thinking of my husband: he’s not perfect, he messes up a lot, sometimes it’s an accident or out of his control, other times he’s not giving it his full effort, and sometimes he even purposely does something wrong. But regardless of all that, he’s just my husband. And I love him regardless of his problems and his failings, even with knowing that he will most likely always be like this.

And then there came that split second of revelation. Where God speaks to you and in a fraction of a moment suddenly the world around you looks completely different. And in that moment, I saw and understood how God really looks at me. And how he can love me knowing how flawed I am, knowing that I am going to mess up, and keep doing the same stupid things over and over again. And how he might get frustrated with me, but he doesn’t stop loving me. He might want me to become more, but he loves me just as I am. And even if I never change, if I never do better, if I continue to make the same stupid mistakes over and over again, He’s not going to leave me, or reject me or condemn me or cast me aside.

It was amazing.

[tamor]

Excellent post, Mich. Bravo!!

[Timmy]

[Michlow]

Originally Posted by tamor

Excellent post, Mich. Bravo!!

Originally Posted by Timmy

Thank you guys

[Ron]

Originally Posted by Michlow

Something I wrote elsewhere:

You are right in saying that I had for a long time a distorted view of God. To me God was always someone who’s approval I desperately needed (because I didn’t want to go to hell!), whose love was conditional (entirely based on if I proved myself worthy) and very unforgiving of less than perfection.

I can’t blame this all on my experiences in the church. Because all the things I wrote above describe perfectly my upbringing by my earthy father. A harsh authoritarian, controlling man for whom nothing was ever good enough. So you could say that I was already well-primed to view God in the same way.

It was actually two weeks ago, that I had a major breakthrough in this area, to understand the breakthrough; I have to give you a little background information.

My husband and I have been together for 10 years, married for 8 ½. I was saved about 6 months after I we got married. I honestly believe that if it were not for that fact, that I would have divorced him a long time ago.

It’s not that I don’t love him, or that he’s a bad person. The main problem is that he has Asperger’s syndrome. Asperger’s is a type of high functioning autism. Without getting into it too in depth, we’ll just say the bottom line is that his brain works differently than ours, and that how he views and relates and interacts with the world around him, is far different than the way that we do. There are many many layers and characteristics that I could describe to try and explain how this affects my life and our marriage, but in the interest of simplicity, I will say only that something like 85% of Aspie marriages end in divorce.

One of the important parts of this is that my husband has difficulty both in maintaining employment, and in handling any sort of responsibility. This puts a lot of pressure on me to keep us afloat financially, as well as handling all of the other household responsibilities.

Anyway, three weeks ago, my husband lost his job, again. Probably the 30th job he has had in the time I have known him. This was actually a record for him. He made it almost a year and a half. The poor guy was afraid to tell me. I am afraid with all the pressure on me; I usually don’t handle the news very well. Though to be honest, each time it gets a little better, and this time, I didn’t even get angry, I just cried for 15 minutes and then started making plans.

However, the next day, I did take the time to vent to a friend, who then proceeded to tell me that I was too young to waste my life on this. That surely God wanted me to have something better. After all wasn’t it more of a sin to be this unhappy? I tried to explain to her that it wasn’t like that, but couldn’t seem to find the words.

A few days later I was doing my daily hour on the treadmill (I often read and pray during that time), and I started thinking about my husband and his job situation. The truth is I have often treated my husband; the same way that I felt my father treated me. Nothing was ever quite good enough. I always KNEW that he could be doing better. If he cleaned the house to “surprise” me, all I ever saw was that he had done it wrong. If he did have a job, he didn’t make enough money. (His last job he worked part time working $600 a month), or he wasn’t working as hard as me, so it wasn’t good enough. Because he was an Aspie, I tried to cut him slack, but to be honest, my true feelings were, if you have a handicap, you simply need to work harder to overcome it.

So as I am on my treadmill thinking about him losing his job again, and his perpetual tardiness that probably was a factor, and this cycle was probably going to repeat itself over and over again. So I am thinking of my husband: he’s not perfect, he messes up a lot, sometimes it’s an accident or out of his control, other times he’s not giving it his full effort, and sometimes he even purposely does something wrong. But regardless of all that, he’s just my husband. And I love him regardless of his problems and his failings, even with knowing that he will most likely always be like this.

And then there came that split second of revelation. Where God speaks to you and in a fraction of a moment suddenly the world around you looks completely different. And in that moment, I saw and understood how God really looks at me. And how he can love me knowing how flawed I am, knowing that I am going to mess up, and keep doing the same stupid things over and over again. And how he might get frustrated with me, but he doesn’t stop loving me. He might want me to become more, but he loves me just as I am. And even if I never change, if I never do better, if I continue to make the same stupid mistakes over and over again, He’s not going to leave me, or reject me or condemn me or cast me aside.

It was amazing.

Michlow, that is both very profound and also very applicable to us all.
While the people we meet with or interact with may not have Asbergers
they all (including myself) have faults and failings.

Yes it is both amazing that God can love us as we are, and it is even more amazing on how God can give us the Grace to love others as he loves us if we will let him.

Great Post!

[Michlow]

Originally Posted by Ron

Michlow, that is both very profound and also very applicable to us all.
While the people we meet with or interact with may not have Asbergers
they all (including myself) have faults and failings.

Yes it is both amazing that God can love us as we are, and it is even more amazing on how God can give us the Grace to love others as he loves us if we will let him.

Great Post!

God has continued to use this to teach me.

For a long time I "consoled" myself to my difficult situation. Everytime that I got to the point where I didn't think I could take another day, the Lord would somehow give me the peace to go on.

To be honest, I always had this idea that maybe I was the only way that the Lord would ever be able to get through to my husband some day. But this really humbled me with the realization, that maybe my husband was the only way that the Lord could get through to me.

Mich, you have ministered to me in such a beautiful way. Thank-you

[Michlow]

Originally Posted by MrsBOOMM

Mich, you have ministered to me in such a beautiful way. Thank-you

I am always glad to share the love!