The so Prince and I went on a 30 day
fast over the month of March, which is our anniversary month
at the end, on the 30th, 12th year.
Woop woop. And my understanding of the fast
was that we were fasting for the foundation of our marriage.
If you go back and listen to part four of my interview with
Rod, you'll hear more of my testimony around my marriage.
And it was a really difficult fast, not just digestively, if
you will, because I was doing only juice, tea and coffee, no
eating at all for 30 days. I didn't chew anything but
Communion and Prince on the other hand, was was had
incorporated nuts. But that's besides the point.
It it as we were going through the fast every night we would
have these conflicts. And now 12 years into the
marriage we have decided upon the truth that God is always
dealing with our hearts in conflict.
In the beginning of marriage we often saw conflict as God.
If you would just fix my spouse, everything would be great.
But as we matured and after our our marriage nearly fell apart,
it became rather clear that no matter how much I pointed my
finger at my husband as the source of my issues, God's
response to me was consistently Carly, let's look at your heart.
And the Bible does say the issues of life flow from the
heart. At the end of this life, it's
you and him. It's me and him.
It's not me and Prince and Jesus, right?
And so as we journeyed through this and we kept having to work
on these serious and unresolved conflicts in our marriage, we
became abundantly aware that we had bitterness and resentment in
our heart towards one another individually.
And we went into this time of lamenting and mourning.
Prince said, four or five days we are going to read the book of
Lamentations. And the objective is to lament
the state of our hearts towards one another.
And that rang really true because because of what we'd
been through in the last four years, which was like I said,
really God being like, stop telling me to fix your spouse
and let's look at your heart, right?
So we went into this time of mourning and one of the pivotal
moments for me was God let me know that I had an idol in my
heart. I have a teacher named Todd
Edwards who teaches the Bible studies out of Bride Ministries
and he had said a few weeks ago that defensiveness and offence
are the fruit of us protecting wrong identity and protecting
idols. So when you are offended by
something, if you become defensive over something, that's
the fruit of an idol, that's the fruit of a wrong identity.
And I lived that out because what God pointed out to me one
morning is he said, Carly, you continually indict me on charges
of not being good because your idol in your heart says, until
my marriage is perfect, God's goodness is called into
question. His intent for my marriage is
questionable. And that was a really hard thing
to deal with because while he's right, he was right.
That's exactly what was happening.
And I ended up just telling the Lord I was even questioning my
theology as I was saying this to him.
But in in the throes of lamenting, I, I just let it rip.
But I had said to him, Lord, I don't, I don't want to be
married to Prince anymore. You be married to Prince through
me. Let this be your marriage to
Prince, because when I'm, when I'm the one married to Prince,
I'm so selfish. I'm, I'm selfish.
It's, you know, I, I expect too much.
I, I, I expect him to always meet my needs.
And it's just unrealistic. As as much as he may want to do
that, it's unrealistic really to expect that our spouse is going
to always show up perfect for us, be in the perfect mood,
respond to the secret things in our mind, intuit our our
expectations. Just it's not realistic, you
know, And by the end of of the fast, we came to a a little
cottage in Wisconsin and we were just hanging out.
You know, we're going to break our fast at midnight.
I was so excited to choose something Boy ended up having a
really important heart to heart where we were able to talk
through some of the things we'd we'd wanted to say to each other
over the years, but never really did.
And I've talked in the past about the importance of
vulnerability and the the depth of the truth of the value of
being willing to be vulnerable. Is it hit me in a new way
because when we withhold ourselves from our spouses now
I'm not talking about the kind of relationships that are
clearly abusive. That's, you know, I'm talking
about just standard dysfunction. When we withhold ourselves from
our spouses, when we we we don't share our inner thoughts and
feelings. When we we manipulate situations
instead of being forthright about what we're seeing and what
we're experiencing. When we when we take it upon
ourselves to put up a wall so that we don't have to be seen or
heard or understood and we don't have to really see, hear or
understand our spouse. We are actually becoming a
stumbling block for their walk with Christ because he said two
become one. Now it doesn't mean that I no
longer have my own mind. It just means that me as a
person, I benefit his walk with the Lord.
And if I withhold myself from him emotionally, mentally,
spiritually, physically, I am inhibiting his walk with the
Lord because who I am benefits who he is because Christ in me,
right? It's Christ in me.
And so I just want to encourage, I just want to encourage you
that that self reflecting with the Lord and in the areas of our
heart that are hard to look at is a is very fruitful.
It is good. It's good for your marriage,
it's good for your family, it's good for you, it's good for your
walk with the Lord. It's not easy because when we
deal with idols, it's not a quick process.
There's a lot of grief that comes out when we realize we've
put something above the King of glory in our hearts.
But he reveals to redeem. He chastens those he loves.
He's a good father. He prunes the vine, and it's
necessary the.