Christian

Post the events of the last week in my life, my husband and I have had some talks. 75% of our marriage has been made up of talks- counseling wise.

We are both born into Christian families and have ancestors who have been Christians at  least in name. I belong to a family which has family prayers, hymn signing during night prayers, everyone from the littlest to the biggest getting a chance to pray everyday and ask questions during prayer time, especially related to the Bible reading for the day. My in-laws have family prayer too which almost has the same routine but is only for about 15 minutes of time. Since my family is huge, by the time prayer finishes it would be a good two hours since we started. Prayer times are great bonding times in our family particularly since it is no TV, no cell phone time.

My husband and I tried to keep the tradition of family prayer ever since we married 25 years ago. To be honest, it hasn’t been consistent. Now if we pray together once a year, it is an incident. We of course, pray through the day, and read our Bibles. Our children do too. Church going has in recent days become a routine for my daughters and I.

Recent talks with husband about prayer brought a lot of revelations. I am the reason he does not pray and has a frivolous attitude to religion. The reason being that I harbour resentment and do not forgive people. If there are people who wronged me, I remember like an elephant. OF course I don’t take revenge physically but I do kill them a hundred times in my thoughts.

He said, since I do not forgive and forgiveness is one of the basic tenets of Christianity, he has lost his faith. For him when he sees me carry baggage from long ago and reacting abnormally in situations, he has lost heart and mind to pray. I feel horrible. I am putting another person away from praying. In my lexicon, that is a grave sin. My behaviour is such that it dissuades another human being from being intimate with God or tithe or any of the other things done by other Christians. In effect I am only a nominal Christian.

I have vowed to change. I forgave everyone with whom I resented. I prayed in my heart and asked for forgiveness. I am going to change. I am going to invest in things that are important for my spiritual life and for my husband’s. This has to be rectified.

Things to work on:

1. Harboring resentment
2. Forgiveness and moving on
3. Encouraging children to get married
4. Thinking less about myself and my requirements

This post is for my records so I can look back and read it and see where I stand compared to this day.

Mathew 6

Do Not Worry

²⁵ “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? ²⁶ Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? ²⁷ Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life^[e]?

²⁸ “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. ²⁹ Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendorwas dressed like one of these. ³⁰ If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? ³¹ So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ ³² For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. ³³ But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. ³⁴ Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.