moving toward peace

i can't believe how dennis and i have been the last month or so. after seeing john and having him tell us we need to get to the place where we love the other person more than we love the idea of getting our own needs met i felt great conviction and selfishness. i decided i was going to "try" it out and be more interested in him than in my own neediness. things have been really good. marriage encounter just sort of helped things slip into place - things that were SO hard in the past. i can by annoyed and not move away from him (emotionally or physically), i can express my feelings and be ok with whatever his response is. we laughed together the other night and it felt SO good. just silliness, but we never let our guards down enough to be silly and we really need to. someone asked me if things were better because my dad lives with us. seriously, no. but i'm glad we finally got our act together so we are at peace with him in the house. i truly feel love for him that i haven't felt in a very long time (if ever, to the degree i wanted to be in love). he is so much less defensive, more loving and patient in his responses to me, more patient of my aches and pains of arthritis. does it take everyone 7 years of therapy to "get it"? not sure, but i guess we had to experience each of those days in order to be where we are today. i'm kind of excited (for once) to see john next week because the last five weeks have been so transforming. i'm working on establishing better communication between me and God now too - i want to know when He is speaking to me and learn to listen. jen finds out friday if she is matched for an internship, brett is taking his cpa tests (hard), kimmie is deciding what to do with her life and experiencing God more and more and matt is applying to nnu. so many things to pray about! the wedding is less than 3 months away! i am blessed.

the stuff in life...

i am so burdened for my brother and sister-in-law. equally if not more burdened for their boys. they are in crisis. so many things going on right now it's hard to know where to start even thinking about helping. mom told me 8 years ago to "look out for Mary Jo". Mom was her spiritual mentor and knew she would struggle after mom was gone. well, for 8 years wally and mary jo have been so offensive to be around that i've not even wanted to approach them let alone try to help them. i would just sit back in my judgemental mind and think "they are ruining those boys", or "they need to get their act together before it's too late." lately though God has been directing me to Mary Jo. talk to her, try to help her, let her know you love her and are her friend. so, as things have spiraled down wally has gotten scared and more serious about getting help for himself and the boys and i asked mj to go to dinner with me last night to talk. she was very defensive when i got there because she thought i was going to do an "intervention" on her. after listening for awhile and learning that i had no motive other than care - she opened up. in my humanness i thought there is no hope - but i know that with God there is always hope and i'm praying for their healing and the boys protection through it all. i'm going to continue to reach out to her.
in other news...i connected prayer and counseling together in that we were talking in ss about why we would need to keep praying for the same thing over and over - like, is God going to suddenly change his ming? i thought, no, but just as in counseling the counselor (and God) never change their answers, opinions and advice, but in the process of continually praying (or continually going to counseling) OUR minds change and we are continually seeing things clearer and as we see things clearer we have a better understanding about what to do etc. i'm not sure i can explain it well. but it helped me. i've always been mystified by prayer and frustrated by counseling. during our time of praying over and over we are learning and allowing God to change us, internally and/or by circumstances to be able to see his answers. in counseling the subtle direction of the counselor as we bring the same old stuff in session after session eventually brings us around to new thinking and being able to see answers for ourselves where we would never have seen or understood if we were just told to believe something.
rambling i know.