I thought this was a well written post by Mark Gungor about endurance in marriage. If you talk to almost anyone who has accomplished great things in their life you will find out that they persevered through some tough stuff and this especially applies to marriage. I like Mark’s concept that sometimes courage is being willing to admit that you have a marriage problem, even if that rocks the boat.
What is a courageous thing you could do to build your marriage or transform your life?
As Sharon mentioned in a recent post, my mother passed away in early December which has brought on a time of reflection about how fragile life is and how none of us knows how long we have left on this earth. She had some health issues that doctors were researching but nothing that was raising emergency warning flags. She had just seen my brother, drove home a mile, apparently went to get ready for bed in the bathroom, and suffered a burst aortic aneurysm; her life over at 81. Her mother had lived until she was 98 years old, so we thought Mother had a pretty good chance for quite a few more years.
After Mother’s death, a contractor, whom I have done business with on the farm, passed away very unexpectedly at 52 years of age. His passing again brought home the realization of how young my dad was when he died of a massive heart attack at 50 years old. I always knew in my head that Dad was young but to know someone about the same age who has died suddenly just gives me new perspective.
One thing that I often think people overlook when they think divorce is going to solve their problems is that if they have children with their ex-spouse they are tied to that person the rest of their lives through major life and death events.
I felt so sad recently for a lady I know. Her ex-husband, with whom she had her children, had divorced her after 25 years of marriage and gone on with other women in his life. At his death she felt very left out in not feeling welcome to go to the calling hours or the funeral with the current wife there. She was puzzled how she was to grieve all of it appropriately. At other times I have witnessed the ex-spouse showing up at the calling hours and things were tense. Bottom line is that divorce tends to have many unintended consequences for many years.
I was so thankful at the time of my mother’s passing that Sharon and I had reconciled and that she was with me to comfort me and both of us to walk through all of the varied emotions with our children. Hard for me to imagine what all of that would have looked if we had been divorced. Times like these are good reminders to live life to the fullest and to treasure our relationships.
We were privileged to give our testimony and be interviewed by Penny Bragg of Inverse Ministries on WAPN Radio from Daytona, Florida just after Christmas. You can listen here: 01 Richard & Sharon Wildman – WAPN R. The first half is our interview and the second is call-in prayer.
Hello there. We’ve just experienced what is a blogger’s most heineous sin – not blogging in over two months. Life intervened.
We left November 5th for the St. Petersburg, Russia area. We were privileged to help with a pastors’ conference on the Leading From Your Strengths personality assessment. Our part was to show how knowing your personalities (pastor’s and his wife’s) help make a “Team of Two” that works well together to enhance their ministry to others. How his strengths cover her weaknesses and her strengths cover his weaknesses. It was well-received.
We also went to Gatchina and held a marriage seminar in the church there. Sharon was surprised to see a dear Russian friend whom she had not heard from in almost 10 years. That was a blessing straight from the Lord.
Then
we travele
d to Vyborg near the Finnish border to teach marriage coaching to a wonderful group of couples from Vyborg Christian Church. What a blessing to be with them. We also got to give testimony about homeschooling because there were several couples about to embark on that adventure and they wanted to know what it was like to homeschool “all the way through” and how our children had turned out.
When we returned from Russia we were one of several couples who gave marriage testimonies at a Marriage Miracles Conference in Springfield, Ohio. All the couples had gone through a very hard time in their marriages but had been healed and restored by God. We had worship in between the testimonies and then a wonderful time of praying for attendees at the end. It was so encouraging to all of us.
The next week we traveled to Kansas City, Missouri, where we met both of our kids for Thanksgiving in a hotel. It was the first time we had ever done anything like that, but all of us had less traveling to do and we still enjoyed the time together.
The day after we returned from Kansas City, Sharon went to see her brother officiate a Cleveland Browns game in Cleveland. The next weekend we met our son, Matt, in Indianapolis for the Big 10 Championship game where the Nebraska Huskers had a humiliating defeat at the hands of Wisconsin. Painful for Nebraska, but it was great to see Matt and his friends. It was LOTS of driving in a short period of time.
The next week Richard’s mother died unexpectedly and so we had family in from out of state and her funeral. It was a shock to all of us.
After that the kids came home for Christmas just a week later. Sharon was getting over a terrible cold and Matt came home with the same thing. So, we had a quiet Christmas Eve at home and a very sweet Christmas day together.
We’ve had year-end things to take care of concerning the farm and just trying to regroup from the past two months.
After Christmas we gave our testimony and were interviewed by Penny Bragg of Inverse Ministries on WAPN Radio in Daytona, Florida. I will upload the show in our next post.
In the future, we are planning to go back to Israel at the end of February to help with a discipleship conference and possibly do some marriage ministry. And we still continue to work with couples teaching practical communication and conflict resolutions skills and marriage coaching.
“If God wants to give you a miracle for your marriage . . .
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I have really enjoyed being involved in this blog challenge. I think the most encouraging part has been to be introduced to some new (for me), very good marriage bloggers. I am thrilled how many quality marriage blogs there are with lots of good information and help for couples. It is going to take a while to catch up on reading them.
I have been surprised that it has been relatively easy for me to come up with posts. Maybe it’s partly because I haven’t blogged much for awhile. I am not sure though that I am up for being an every-day blogger though. Probably more like two or three times per week.
I encourage all the bloggers to keep up the good work. For the readers, please keep commenting, linking, sharing, and referring. It is just so encouraging when you realize that you have helped someone.
I am so thrilled that my wife Sharon and I have reconciled. We have been back together almost eight years. I think it was also eight years ago this week that Jesus helped us make a big turn in our relationship by going to a PAIRS workshop at our church that got us unstuck.
Sharon is the one who makes this website and blog look great. I do the majority of the writing, but she gives it a more professional look. Before we were married she worked in at a publishing company. She tells me that I like run-on sentences too much and I get too comma-happy. I sure appreciate all she does behind the scenes to make my writing more visually pleasing. Every once in awhile she will ask me what in the world I mean because she has no clue and thus my readers probably wouldn’t either. Thankfully, most days she figures out what I mean without asking and makes it read better.
I gathered a lot of our resources. Unfortunately my organizational skills are a little weak. My filing system for the farm is piles of papers on my desk with Post-It notes scattered around. Without Sharon’s help, I would probably have one list of resources a mile long that you had to slog through to find anything. She has done a lot of work to get them all organized and I really appreciate it.
When Sharon does write, I think she has great posts worth reading. Here are a few you may be interested in.
Sharon is more articulate verbally than I am, so in a tense marital coaching situation, she comes up with the words to help get us and the couple over the hump.
More important though than editing skills or writing skills, what I want you to know about Sharon is that she truly loves and seeks God. I often find her reading her Bible or doing a Bible study. She has a deep desire to help other couples to not go through the struggles in marriage that we did so she encourages those who are struggling to hang in there. She also is passionate about young couples getting off to a good start.
One thing I admire about her is that she doesn’t want to go back to the marriage we had before our separation, so when in the hustle and bustle of life we start to drift into those old patterns, she is quick to get back on track using our skills.
Sharon also has a passion to help home school moms. She did a great job homeschooling our children from second grade through high school. She has made a great transition over the years from being a suburban girl to being a farmer’s wife and I am so proud of her.
Our gifts and talents really do complement one another and for that, and for being back together, I am truly thankful.
One thing I have learned from bloggers who have a lot of experience is that you never really know ahead of time which posts will be hits and which won’t. I have been surprised that one of the top Google search phrases that leads people to our blog is variations of “Wedding Rings During Separation.” Here are some of the posts that I have written on the topic.
Wedding Rings During Separation
Wedding Rings During Separation, Part 2
Wedding Rings During Separation, Part 3
Practical Considerations for Wedding Ring During Separation
One my personal favorites of the posts I have written is Shock and Awe and Then Persistence. I think this meant a lot to me because I got a little more fired up in writing than I usually do.
If you have browsed our blog, I would love to know what posts have most touched or inspired you. Thanks for reading.
I sense a reluctance on behalf of many people to get married because they fear divorce. Having watched various divorces unfold over the years, I can understand why people who have lived through a divorce – whether their own or their parents’ – might think that way. However, I believe they think that to avoid the pain of divorce they will just co-habit, and if the relationship doesn’t work out they can just go on their way with a lot less pain.
When I was leading a Divorce Care group once there was a lady who had been co-habiting long term with a man and owned a house together with him. If she had not said that this was a co-habiting breakup rather than a divorce I would have never known it, because the emotions she was sharing and the struggles she was having were almost identical to those people who were going through a actual divorce.
Once you own property with someone your legal complications grow if you want to get out of the relationship. It can be about as messy as a divorce. If you have a child with someone and the relationship breaks up, you can have many of the same legal issues you would have if you had been married and gotten divorced. And the emotional wreckage can be just as bad as during a divorce.
My hunch (I am not a lawyer) is that actually you have less defined rights and more headaches breaking up if you are co-habiting and have children and property together, than if you were married and went through a divorce.
What have your observations or experiences been with these issues?
From day one when Sharon told me that she wanted a separation I was adamant about wanting to reconcile. Even when she announced that she was getting a divorce no matter what, I still was single-minded about wanting to reconcile. Over time I started to encounter people that knew us both who tried to kindly tell me that she was done and that I should get over it and move on and not be so depressed.
I went to three Divorce Care groups and even though the DVD’s we watched were very pro-active about attempting reconciliation many of the participants were pretty skeptical. One group had actually lost the “Reconciliation” DVD and had never replaced it because they said so few ever reconcile. I really appreciated that they reordered it and watched it when I asked them to.
If you are in a situation where you want to reconcile but your spouse is not being very encouraging that way, and friends or family are making discouraging comments, I have a couple of things to hopefully encourage you.
Almost every marriage that I know that went through a major trial but reconciled, one partner or the other – it may have been the husband, it may have been the wife – drove a stake in the ground and decided they were not giving up. The issue might have been addiction, adultery, or something else, but one person just got that rock solid determination that with God’s help things would turn around.
As you read stories and biographies of victories against incredible odds whether in war or sports or business you realize that in most cases someone just decided they were not giving up regardless of the odds or what someone else said. I can not tell you exactly how to get to that place of absolute determination in your inner man, but I can tell you that if you want the victory, you need to wrestle in your own way with God until you do get to that place.
One inspiring story is from Charlyne Steinkemp at Rejoice Ministries. Her husband was having affairs and had an alcohol problem so, on her pastor’s advice, she divorced him. Later she was convicted to pray and fast for him. Eventually, they reconciled, remarried and ministered together for 25 years or more before he died. She gives a lot of excellent practical and biblical advice for those who are determined not to give up on their marriage.
So in the end, it is your life and you have to decide for yourself if you are going to drive a stake in the ground for your marriage, or listen to others who see no hope.
stubborn-pursuits.com 