"HE IS NOT YOUR DADDY"
When you don’t live in your reality, your focus becomes dim or blurry where you can’t see the vision for your life or marriage. You see it the way you would like it to be and not for what it is. Living in your reality means, living in the truth of the moment. Living in your reality doesn’t discount having faith that things can change but what it says is while you are believing for change, you are consciously aware of where you are in life and work on improving it. For instance, you desire a new car but neglect the upkeep on the car you have knowing your income does not allow room for a new car payment and it’s cheaper to keep maintenance. While you are working on getting a better income, don’t neglect the “old faithful” that has been getting you around the entire time. You attend a housewarming party and you want a new house also, instead of looking at the fact you are comfortable in your apartment and it meets your current needs, you begin comparing yourself and you begin to self-doubt. Or you see everyone graduating from college and you start thinking at my age I should be further along, not thinking your life didn’t take their path, you had to help take care of the home or your parents couldn’t afford to send you to college or perhaps you had a child when you got out of high school and that was your focus. When we don’t live in our reality, we discount where we are and we fail to see what it is we need to work on and we envy other people’s lives, their marriages, careers, etc.
Living in your reality doesn’t mean that nothing will change or your acceptance of where you are is something to be contented with as if there is no hope. But it means taking a true evaluation or assessment of where you are in life in order to develop a plan or strategy on how to improve or change where you are. A few years into my marriage, I got a reality check by the Holy Spirit concerning my husband. I so desired to have a marriage the way I saw it with my mom and dad, not really knowing how their relationship became the beautiful love affair. I didn’t realize that I was comparing my husband to my father subconsciously as I was waiting on this magical moment and was disappointed when my husband did not perform, respond or display certain characteristics as my father. I slighted him by not giving him a chance to be his true self with me and accepting what he had to offer even if it wasn’t my idea on what he should be. He didn’t have an example of what a husband was to be, all he knew was that he was given this awesome responsibility of leading 3 lives at a young age and I wasn’t making it easy by expecting him to meet up to over 30 years of another man’s image that also had to learn to become a husband at a young age with an instant family. He didn’t stand a chance with my thinking. I was quiet about it, but the thoughts, the constant suggestions and bringing up stories of how my daddy was with us was probably tearing down the image that he was trying to create with his own family.
At the time of our marriage, my father had been stricken and was unable to walk and speak with full language. There were days I wished that he could share some knowledge with him and teach him how to love me.
But one day as I was thinking those thoughts, the Lord said so clearly, “He is not your daddy, so make the adjustments”
It hit me like a ton of bricks, a gut punch to the stomach – I was grieving my father so much, that I subconsciously wanted to recreate him in my husband. That wasn’t fair to my husband, as I wasn’t giving him room to grow into the man that God wanted him to be for his family. I had to live in my reality and not in my idea. It didn’t mean I couldn’t stop praying and hoping for better but I had to agree with what was in front of me and seek God for the wisdom and strategy on how to navigate through my current situation that would bring him glory until things improved. The first improvement was that I had to change, my thinking, my attitude, my prayer and my language.
Are you living in your reality or your ideas or personal expectations of your relationship?
Evaluate your heart and be willing to be the one that is willing to change in order for your reality to change.
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