Biggest Loser

The Biggest Loser has been a pretty popular television reality show for several years.  I never followed or watched it just assuming it was another shallow reality show.

I caught a couple of the last episodes last season.  The last few episodes are the episodes to watch because you get to see the before and after.  It is an inspiring show in many ways.  Extremely fat, overweight, and obese men and women are taken to a fitness ranch in California and given the opportunity to a second chance at a healthy life and a chance at $250,000.

The transformations of the people competing over the 12 or so weeks is amazing.  Most look, feel and act like new people.

The transformations take time.  The contestants don’t say some magic words and all of a sudden they are in good health.

The trainers Bob and Jillian are intense individuals who drive and inspire the contestants to achieve a transformation physically, mentally, and emotionally.  A transformation most never had the discipline,  knowledge, or environment  to achieve at home alone.

Bob and Jillian push the contestants past their own perceived standards of what a human can accomplish.  Bob and Jillian don’t let the contestants settle with excuses, apathy,  or a false sense of accomplishment.  It is not for the weak-in-heart.

Bob and Jillian know what it will take for the contestants to be successful.  They know that for the contestants to lose the weight it will take good pain and a lot of sweat.  The intensity of Bob and Jillian is the engine that drives the the contestants to success.

Bob and Jillian won’t accept failure.  If it means offending, getting in the faces of, or raising their voices with the contestants then they will do it because they care and see what is at stake.    They are successful trainers because they care and won’t settle for less.  They are willing to tear down a person’s weaknesses in order for the person to built true strength in its place.

Would the contestants take the intensity if there wasn’t a $250,000 cash prize to compete for?  Some would and some wouldn’t.  However, most of the contestants who are the least losers from week to week and have to leave the show are grateful for the experience and momentum pushing them in the right direction.

It is inspiring how Bob and Jillian inspire.

The contestants are only successful if they surrender the right to themselves – the right to comfort, the right to their way of doing things, etc.

Intensity is missing from so many lives and venues.  As humans  we  have a propensity for fooling ourselves into thinking we are something we are not.  We have become apathetic and believe standards to be excellence when the standards are nothing more that token jesters to make us feel good on the inside and give a facade of excellence on the outside.

We put up skinniness funny mirrors of ourselves to hide our true obesity trying to convince ourselves as well as others that we are something that we are not.  We take short-cuts that lead to temporal success, but not true success.  We adjust the scales of our lives to make us and other believe we have made progress when we have not.

We like the easier road of comfort, selfishness, and entitlement.  Wrongly thinking it will lead  to the same place as discipline, self sacrifice, and earning every step.

Jesus Christ was intense about life.  He understood the obesity of sin in people’s lives and its consequences.  He didn’t come so we could be happy, fulfilled, selfish individuals who give only lip service and give only to the point it doesn’t cost anything.

He said a life lived toward true success would be hard and would cost.  He pointed out all those who proclaimed to be followers of God, but were far from it. Men who had fooled themselves into believing they had become something they were not.

Christ came so that we could become the biggest losers.  Losers of ourselves which have been weighed down by our sin and selfishness.  Christ won’t settle for a few pounds of good deeds (or not doing bad choices)  here and there.  He wants the transformation to an entirely new person.  A person where He is the life.

In order for us to be made new we must surrender the right to ourselves. We must die to ourselves and workout with intensity what He is working in our lives.

When we first met, she wanted what I had.  She had live a life of poor, selfish, and destructive choices.  I wasn’t perfect, but I live life with discipline and intensity.  I knew what true excellence was in all arenas and was willing to pay the cost to get there.

Her life had been tumultuous drama of living a double life of lies and deception. She told me how she had lied to cover up the true her and how she didn’t care about the choices she had made.

She had lived a life around weak and destructive men.  She had filled her life with bitterness, anger, and vengefulness.

I wasn’t worried about the life she had lived to meeting me.  It doesn’t matter what a person is as long as he/she is desire to and is heading in the right direction with an intensity that can’t be stopped or compromised.  I saw the strong and stable woman she could be

I explained to her how I live my life and that it would be intense,  tough and hard at times, but was worth it. It was worth more than $250,000.  I wasn’t for the weak-in-heart.  No compromise. No settling.  She said she didn’t care how tough it would be.  She wanted what I had and wanted to go in the direction I was headed in.  She wanted to be free from the obesity of the lifestyle and choices she had been living.

In order for her to succeed she was going to have to surrender the right to herself as far as what she had become.

I took her at her word.

My biggest mistake was I didn’t move us away from the surroundings where she had made such a mess of herself.  We needed to go to a need place and a new environment to establish ourselves.  A place where she could really free herself from the choices she had made.

She resented the intensity and direction we were heading in. She really didn’t want to change, but just wanted the fruits of such a change.  She would project on me many of her faults trying to place the guilt onto someone or something else.   I was the one who needed to lose her weight.  She resented who I was and the choices I had made, instead of keeping her eyes on who she wanted to become and could become.

She wanted the change but didn’t want the sacrifice it would take to get there.

I supported and encouraged her as a woman, a nurse, a mother.  I wanted her to succeed and supported her every way I could. My encouragement was never good enough.    Her support of me always had conditions.  Her encouragement was evident in word, but most of the time lacking in action.

I was loyal to her, always hoping and believing she wanted what she had said she wanted.

She lived for control for control’s sake because she couldn’t control who she had become.  She was afraid to lose her old self because she was afraid of losing control.

I wanted her to be the biggest loser of who she had become.  To be free of the weight of control, bitterness, envy, anger, hate and vindictiveness.  To be free of every weak man and woman who enables her in her destructive choices.

She can only become the biggest loser by surrendering the right to herself to Christ.  In Him is the transformation to a new creation.

Made to Complement- not to Complete

I would say a large number of females and males get into a  intimate relationship trying to find completion.  I know growing up in a Christian cultural setting, I was always fed with the line that marriage was about completing one another.  Society in general also feeds this line.  The movie “Jerry Maguire” romantized this with the famous line – “You complete me.”

The problem is person cannot complete another person.  Furthermore, it is a selfish motive.  When a person is looking to be completed by another, the reality always falls well below the expectations. 

It is like that toddlers toy in the shape of a sphere with all different kinds of different shaped spaces.  None of the relational pieces fit, no matter how hard we try to squeeze and force the pieces into the spaces.  So a person goes from piece to piece trying to find the right-shaped mate who will fit into the space – never realizing another person will never be able complete the space. 

This is why most marriages end in divorce, infidelity, or exist in a state of apathy and discontentment.  The unconscious thinking goes -If he or she isn’t going to complete me then I will find some one who does.  And then he/she goes on looking the rest of their lives. 

The more baggage the greater the hole that needs to be filled and the greater expectations on those to fill it.  People jump from relationship to relationship, making destructive choices along each stop, creating a larger crater each time a piece of themselves is surrendered another. 

The craters become filled with resentment, anger, bitterness, and wrath.  The craters can be hidden for a short time to cover the hole and what is in the hole.  Eventually what is inside always bleeds out.  The person with the hole will manipulate reality and people trying to fill the hole to feel like a complete person.

God created marriage not for completion, but for complementation.  For only He alone can complete a person.  If we aren’t complete in Jesus Christ then no amount of complementation will raise us to a life we know we should live.

Complementation is about loving,  encouraging, strengthening, sharpening, upholding, and protecting.   If a person is looking for completion s/he will resent, mock, and resist the complementation of their husband or wife.   There can be no oneness until s/he is complete and made whole thru the one who made them. 

Any person who is expected to complete another person will lose themselves in the blackhole of what is missing in that person.  It leads to frustration because the partner trying to fill the void can do no right even though s/he is doing everything to try and complement his/her partner.

She could never be pleased or satisfied because I couldn’t complete or fill the void that had been ripped open by poor and selfish choices.  I can remember trying to encourage her just to have my encouragement mocked.  She would scorn me when I would pray and would trample hopes and direction.  She would sabotage any plans to move forward out of a sense of control. 

She carried around with her a magnifiying glass to make everyone else’s holes look much larger than they really were. She would view her hole looking backwards through binoculars making her hole  look and feel smaller than it was.  One of her favorite sayings was, ” I know I have my faults, but yours .  .  .”

She described one of her boyfriends as breaking up with her because he had to “find himself”.  I can now understand.  She expected him to fill her void and he got lost in trying. She expected the same from me.  I got lost trying to do something no human could.   Trying to do something only God can do will suck the life out of you. 

All of her eight or so intimate relationships with men have ended in turmoil, hurt, destructiveness and vindicitiveness because a relationship won’t make her complete. 

We had talked about this before we married and I thought she understood her completeness couldn’t come from me.  When we met she didn’t have life together – a life full of constant drama, bad choices, and selfish living.   

If she would look and see her completeness can’t come from any human being or anything else human made.  Her completeness can only come from the One who made her. 

I chose to marry her not for who she was, but for who she said she wanted to be.  I wanted to see her become complete in Jesus Christ.

Looking back I don’t think she understood the pain, discipline or good fight it would take to get her there.  She wanted compete, conquer, and tear down instead of build.

Tiger Woody

Tiger Woods seemingly had it all.  A great career, a beautiful and faithful wife, two children, and nice abundance of material possessions.   What more could a man need or want?  Nothing is new under the sun as King Solomon once wrote.  As we come to find out Tiger has been sticking his golf club in many places he shouldn’t.  And the list keeps growing.

The mentality of Tiger and the women whom he had the adultereous relationships with all but fallen and depraved humaness.  True character and excellence  is not found on a golf course, or basketball court, or football field, etc.  It doesn’t take a whole lot of character, if any, to become great at any sport or human feat. 

True character and excellence are found in the accomplishments of a person but in a person themselves.   There have been men of character who have accomplished great things from the human point of view and there have been men of no character who have accomplished great things from the human point of view. 

Many “great” accomplishments are just facades of human arrogance.  It is human to exaggerate who we are, how important we are, what we have done, and why we have done it.   If we can dilude ourselves with false greatness then we don’t really have to develop or strive for the true character and excellence that will last.  It is easier this way because it doesn’t take faithfulness, self-control, or discipline.  This just doesn’t go for athletes for there are many “religious” leaders who do the same. 

Accomplishments come and go like a vapor. They don’t satisfy for long and keep us striving for a fulfillment that doesn’t exist.   We live in the here and now.  If if feels good do it, or her, or him.   Nike can start a new Tiger campaign – “Just Do Her”

Tiger’s indiscretions aren’t just private because he is a public figure.  He has just eased the conscience of married men who live or are thinking about living promiscious lifestyles.   Tiger did it. He successful and respected, so I can do it.   No thought is given to the consequesnces of STD’s, unplanned pregnancies, broken hearts and broken families.

The women involved are the most selfish and destructive type of women.  They didn’t care Tiger had a wife and kids. One was even involved with Tiger for close to three years and while his wife was pregnant.   It was all about them and their skewed sense of respect and self-worth. 

These sexually promiscuous women don’t care about the consequences to them or their future family (if they ever have one).  It is all about control. They conquered Tiger Woody in the bedroom.  The control becomes addictive and bleeds into every area of their lives. 

It is ironic.  The promiscuous man thinks he is controlling the promiscuous woman and the promiscuous women thinks she is controlling the promiscuous man.  The addiction grows by feeding off of itself. 

These women are hard and scathing because they have thrown away their greatest gift given to them – their sexual purity.  Faithfulness means nothing to these women.  They value themselves less and in turn value what really matters in the end less.

Tiger Woods problem isn’t a sex addiction.  There is no such thing.  Most addictions are just labels for us to feel good about our lack of character and integrity.  

Tiger falsely believed the millions he give away to charitable causes and the many good things he has done make his character.  It is not what we do but who we are and become in the big picture. 

Tiger Woods’ wife Elin Nordergren deserves better and can do better.  She deserves a faithful husband.

Rock Climbing

Marriage is a risk.  A risk like rock climbing. As one climbs the other belays.  The one who is climbing must trust the one who is belaying, especially, when lead climbing.  If one can’t trust the one who is belaying him/her  then he/she would be safer just free climbing without protection because the risk of climbing with one who can’t be trusted or doesn’t care is much greater than climbing alone. 

Climbing with someone who doesn’t care and/or can’t be trusted breeds fear because you have to focus not only on the rock but have to worry about the person you are climbing with.  It creates frustration because falling and the ground are usually always the end result. 

My marriage was such a lession in this principle.  She said she wanted to go on this climb with me.  She said she had the desire and ability to climb the route laid before us.  She promised to have me when I would fall, or help guide me to handholds and footholds I couldn’t see.  She said she would be there to encourage me at each move, especially at the cruxes, where a climber is either broken or made stronger. 

I promised the same to her and kept those promises. 

 Most of the time the marriage was like climbing alone with a rope attached to one who wanted me to fail.  Her control as belayer was not a desire to see the marriage grow and succeed, but to control for control alone. 

I don’t know how many time I would make a move to reach a spot further up the climb, only to feel a violent tug on my harness, that would either prevent me from moving forward or would pull me off the rock. 

Even though she told me to lead a decide the route her excuses were always the same- “I don’t want to go that way” or “You can’t make that move” or “That move is too risky”.  She would then berate me for falling, telling me to get it together or it was my fault. 

This was the cycle for most of the marriage.  I always blamed myself and put the burden of responsiblilty on me.  I thought it was me. It became frusterating failing at moves I know we could make. 

 Only now that she is gone do I realize the freedom of climbing alone, like before I met her.   I don’t have to worry about being pulled off the rock.  I am making moves with confidence that I couldn’t make being attached to her because she would keep pulling on the rope.  Her brother once told her she was, “Hard on her men.”  I now understand.  

  Her enjoyment was never in the climb itself or in her partner.  Her satisfaction was in the control she got from pulling on the rope and seeing her partner fall.  

I feel sorry for her because she has never experienced the joy of the climb itself – the satisfaction of making each move (especially at the cruxes of life), the growth of each risk that is taken, the encouragment of the climbing partner, and the exhileration of reaching the top.

Free climbing is good because it has reestablished the focus and confidence I had lost in a marriage that could only succeed my staying on the medicore ground of selfishness and apathy.

Kiss Me Again -by Barbara Wilson

“Kiss Me Again” by Barbara Wilson is a good read for understanding struggles and conflicts in current relationships where virtue has been compromised in previous relationships.  It is not only a good read for understanding, but a good read for hope as well.

Her website is www.barbarawilson.org

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Crazy Makes You Crazy

The comdedian Christopher Titus has a segment on his Love is Evol tour called – Crazy Makes You Crazy.  It it he describes his divorce.  He was right on in his assesment. 

Some of the warning signs that a person might be crazy is when s/he describes everyone else in his or her family as crazy except for her/him.  Titus refers to such a person as the tylenol time- release cap of craziness.  You think you are swollowing something non-toxic and at first everything seems fine, but crazy is coming. 

Looking back on my relationship with Julie the signs are as evident as the sun on a cloudless day.  She described every man who had been in her life as having psychological problems.  Both her brother where drug addicts with psychological problems, her dad was described as a sexual pervert, her mom as a manipulative, controlling, enabler, and many of her past boyfriends as psychologically unstable. 

I never realized at the time she was describing herself.  I can now see why all of her boyfriends ran from her.  She hid it well.  Her projection onto others was an unconsicous smoke and mirrors way of hiding her true character.  I got into a mess because I didn’t judge her for who she really was.

One time she told me how one of her boyfriends was cheating on her.  She stalked him and followed him to a restuarant where he was meeting his new girlfriend.  She told me in her rage how she made a huge scene at the restaurant.  Warning flags should have gone up and I should have started running. 

She framed her whole life with the premise of her as the victim.  She covered her rage and anger,specifically towards men, with the selfish hope of proving to the world someone would marry her.  Eventually the facade of trying to be someone she wasn’t melted to show her vindictive, bitter, rebellious, and resentful heart. 

Never in my life would I have imagined a women so full of hate, anger, and de3structiveness.  I married her because I believed she was the person she claimed to be.  I stayed with her because of loyalty, faithfulness, and because crazy makes you crazy. 

Since she has been gone I have been able to detox from her craziness.

Heart Transplant

In marrying Julie I settled for less  I didn’t exactly know it because she communicated and showed a person to me who was not who she really was.  I told her exactly who I was and what I was looking for.  She wanted to be that type of person but had not had the discipline or made the right choices to become that person.  Deep down she believed our relationship would change her into that person like some magic potient.  She hoped all the years of her poor choices and rebellious behavior would vanish.  

She failed to realize marriage is hardwork, especially with the heavy baggage of promiscuity and adultery.  I did understand all the dynamics or expect the outcome that occurred.  As humans we expect the fruit someone else has grown thru the virtues of self-control, discipline, purity, etc even when we haven’t live such virtues.  It never happens that way nor can it.  The Father expects us to yield to Him and work out the grace, love, and cleansing He is willing to work in.

Julie tried to show things on the outside that weren’t on the inside.  Her anger and bitterness kept her from looking on the inside.  I think she was afraid of what she would find – her responsibility in what she had become.  Her blaming of everyone else from men in general, to her brothers, to her father, her mother and finally of me, her husband was a smoke and mirrors means to keeping herself from truly looking in.  She would do many nice things for me during our marriage, but I could tell in many of her subtle attitudes towards me that we were missing a connection.  What she expected of me she did not expect of herself. 

As our marriage went on I was the primary one to blame.  She would only admit to having some issues as well, but I was the main problem.  So, I would take responsibility for issues and problems that weren’t my responsibility.  This always leads to frustration and destruction in the end.  Julie didn’t see she wasn’t close to the person she portrayed herself to be – the person she wanted to be. 

I settled for less by choosing Julie, because Julie had settled for less in how she live many years before I met her.  Following Christ isn’t a magical formula where one becomes the ideal he/she thinks he/she should be.  Surrendering one’s past to Christ is a humiliating and painful endeavor.  It means a heart transplant of the ulitmate kind.  Many times we want to come to Christ without the heart surgery so we do everything in our power to look presentable on the outside. 

This always fails because our hearts end up failing in what Christ leads us thru.  Just as a person who needs a physical heart transplant can’t climb Mount Everest, so a person who needs a spiritual heart transplant can’t climb the path God has for him or her.  The heart of the matter is truly the matter of the heart. 

I think about who Julie was before her rebellion in her early twenties. She had a beauty that she has long forgotten. As I look at the pictures of her late teens and early twenties I can see in her eyes show the life that was in her and her contenance revealed a priceless purity.  She was a woman of virtue.  A woman of truth.    I saw glimpses of that young woman in Julie – glimpses that attracted me to her.  I wish I would have met Julie before.   I pray someday the glimpses I saw will reappear and grow to into a living reality for Julie and our children.

Returning to One’s Vomit

Proverbs 26:11, “As a dog returns to his own vomit, so a fool repeats his folly.”

This verse gives a disgusting picture.  As humans we are all very capable of returning to our own vomit.  It is as natural for us as it is for a dog to return to it’s own vomit because we have a sin nature that thrives off of our vomit, i.e. sin.

Dogs believe their vomit is good and nutritious.  They ignore the fact real food is available.  Humans need a change in their disposition that can only come through yielding to Jesus Christ who becomes a life within us.  With our inclination to remain a fool remains with all of its folly.

Folly is easy to follow because it drives one without thinking about the end.  It is usually consumed while one is intoxicated with vengeance and bitterness.  Those eating their own folly falsely believe the folly is the truth – that it is the reality of the situation.

The world and its system entices encourages one to eat of the vomit.  Telling him/her it is justified, it is good, it will lead to happiness.

We can cover our foolish inclinations with acts of righteousness, but if the core isn’t changed the cover will inevitably come off in times of testing and stress.

Folly is also like a drug.  The more one feeds off of it the more one wants.  A dog wants more of its vomit and will gorge until it vomits again. Only to eat the vomit for another round.

Marriage and divorce wars will bring out the fool and his/her folly with all the vomit to fill every divorce lawyer’s bank account a billion times over.   Those vindicitive mates think eating their own vomit of folly will hurt their spouses and even destroy them.  They don’t realize or don’t care that eventually the acid from their own vomit will eventually erode their insides, their very life.

Many spouses eat their own folly thinking it will give them control.  After all it is their own vomit.  No one had to provide it for them.

The Lordship of Jesus Christ in one’s life is the only way to be free of the fool that lives so stronly inside of us.  We must die to ourselves- our own sense of reality.  We must allow Christ to show us exactly what our vomit is.  Only through Him will we achieve an appetite that despises our folly and desires the bread of life He alone is.

A faithful woman who can find?

“Every man proclaims his own goodness, but a faithful man who can find.”

Julie didn’t care or treasure my faithfulness to her because she was unfaithful herself.  All she cared about was getting worldly respect, control, and a sense of vindication over her own sins.

Those on the outside didn’t know what she was really like to live with or be married to.  She didn’t understand what it was like being married to her.  She could always proclaim her own goodness while magnifying my faults with half-truths.  It takes two to tango, but it was always my fault.  I took too much responsibility and fell on my sword in too many occasions which enabled her with a warped sense of control and power.

She was never an abused or battered wife.  If we went by her standards she was guilty of being abusive far worse than what I had been falsely accused of.

She told me once how she never “cheated” on one of her boyfriends.  She never saw the hypocrisy in the fact she was unfaithful by stealing another woman’s husband for two years.

During our engagement she told me she would support me in whatever I did and go wherever I would choose to go.  She wanted me to be the breadwinner.  I had always felt the desire to move and told her that.

Once we were married she didn’t want to move because she loved Colorado.  She always had a pin to deflate my hopes of moving.

Julie said she wanted me to be a man of integrity no matter the cost.  I supported her through nursing school when she almost got kicked out.  I supported her through a situation at work involving an end of life issue where she had to go before her supervisors and take a stand.  I supported her with issue of betrayal involving her mother, sister, and brothers.

But when I needed support from her involving work, none could be found. Not just lip-service support, but strengthening support and encouragement only a spouse can give.  She would speak on thing with her lips and then cut with her actions.

I was so much more confident and focused before I met her and am slowly getting that confidence and focus back.  Being married to her was like being lead rock climbing with a belayer who didn’t want me to complete the climb, who would pull on the rope to pull me down, and who didn’t have me secure when I would fall.  I would choose a route and she would tell me I couldn’t do it or shouldn’t do it.

Julie would told me I had a bad attitude for expecting excellence and integrity in regards to work.  She told me to get over getting stabbed in the back by a friend.  If the table were turned she would have come to me for support like I came to her.

She would tell half-truths and slanted facts to friends and family to get their support who in the end encourage her to do things that would destroy her marriage.  She knew the words to say to get sympathy.  She like the attention she got of being known as a “battered” wife – even thought she had never been abused physically or emotionally,  and she had never been threatened.

She concocted a charade of lies and victimization to provoke me, to destroy me, to gain control. She could give no specifics but just generalities.  She believed those who would help her in endeavors to destroy her family.

She wanted me to be honest, but when  I was honest she would cry abuse.  When I tried to hold to he expectations we had talked about, she would cry abuse. She wanted my support when she felt rejected by her mom and sister but when I had issues with them it was abuse.

I should never expected faithfulness from Julie based on her history.  She hadn’t been faithful to the Lord for seven years before she me me, so why should I expect her to be faithful to me.  Like a fool I listened to her proclamations of her own goodness and never allowed the time to truly observe her faithfulness.  Her faithfulness to God,  to our marriage, to our family,  to me as her husband.

She still wears her wedding ring to give a facade to all who see her that she is the faithful one – even though she has lied about me, left me, kept our children from me, placed a no contact order on me so there can be no contact, and has proceeded with a divorce based on nothing but lies and her own selfishness.

Her faithfulness is to herself alone.

Cleaning up ourselves can make us worse

Matthew 12:43-45 , “When the unlcean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none.  Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished.  Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of the man is worse than the first.  Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation. “

Before I had met Julie she had seven or so years of intense rebellion towards God and the values she knew were life.  She slept with over seven partners, obtained two sexually transmitted diseases, had an adulterous relationship with a married man for two years, spent her money getting drunk on most weekends, almost was kicked out of nursing school for cheating on a test,  had her EMT license put on probation for forging a doctor’s signature on a prescription, etc.

Most men wouldn’t have touched her, but only for sex.  I believed her when she said she wanted walk with Jesus again.  I beleived her when she said she was taking her sins before the Lord in true repentance and submission to His love and grace.  I believed her when she said she  wanted to be married to me, even though I warned her it would be tough because I desired to live a disciplined life of character and integrity in every area no matter the cost.

I believed her when she said she desired what I desired out of a marriage.  I believed her when she said she would support and encourage me through life. I believed her when she said she would be committed to the best interests of our family  I believed her when she said she loved me.

I was wrong.  All she said she was or wanted to be was an outer facade of to impress me that she was someone she really wasn’t.  I didn’t care about her past as long as she dealt with it in God’s way by submitting her past to Him and dying to herself and seek a life through Christ.  By her choices Julie had done tons of damage and created quite a reputation.   God is true to His Word and His promises and can take anyone from anywhere and transform them in the newness of life that can only come through Jesus Christ.

Julie cleaned up her surface.  She knew the things to say.  I think she hoped for a new life.  However, she kept a hold of the right to herself, so along came her past and the deep issues of her heart.

Julie cleaned up her surface with her own acts of righteousness and right behavior.  As humans, we think this will do. We like to take a sense of pride in thinking we have done only what God can do.

Our marriage struggled because impossible walls were keeping us from knowing each other and becoming one.  Wall that only the Jesus Christ would tear down.  Walls that created a lack of trust, confusion, and frustration.

Matthew 12:43-45 rings true.  Julie out of bitterness, resentment and deep seeded anger has allowed the house of her heart to be taken over by many spirits and attitude of destruction.  Her last state is worse than the first, because she didn’t yield her heart, mind, soul and strength to the only One who could cleanse and make her whole again by giving her a whole new life.

Julie’s goal is control.  The Lord has allowed her to have an illusion of control and power through the circus  justice system that is only “just a system” that care nothing about truth or facts or families.  Her vindictiveness has made her gullible to what anyone tells her. She is trying to destroy her husband.  She is trying to make her children fatherless.

Much of her life has been a lie as she has tried to deceive one set of friends or family from how she has lived.  She has always taken the victim mentality to her own choices and has been able to get supporters to go along with her and enable her build a house of sand.

One definition of hell is coming to realize the truth when it is too late.  If or when Julie is awakened from her delusional sense of reality it might be to late.  Severe damage has already been done, but not to the point of where Christ can bring healing and life.

Christ offers a new life where no “spirits” can enter to kill, steal, and destroy.  I believe Julie can be a woman of true character, integrity, and virtue, but it can only come through the life Christ is offering her.