Sweetea and Just Reid - Growing together!

[TimothyPaul]

Hey Reid. Speak up n let me know u r on the call. I'll make sure I bring Looneys cattle prod! Just kidding u r doing great!!

[TimothyPaul]

Hey Reid - Just as a quick note.

 

rather than putting my definition on things..."my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." Not saying everything's easy all the time,

 

Jesus never said my yoke is easy. Thats an incorrect translation. Take a look of the analysis I did on this.

 

 

My Yoke is easy

 

 

TimothyPaul

[JoelandKathy]

Yoke is well fitting... easy.. compared to a yoke that does not fit well.

 

We are more than conquerors.. why? Because he won the battle for us!

 

Halelujah!

[JoelandKathy]

It is a quantity of small expressions of caring and love on a consistant basis that best stir up and maintains high levels of oxytocin in a woman's body. We call it "initiating postive words and actions of love" on a consistant basis. 20 hugs, smiles and kisses and everything else!

[just.reid]

Thanks TP. Yeah, easy doesn't mean the same now as it did in the 1600s. His yoke is perfectly fit for me. Just like my SweetTea.

 

I love you SweetTea.

[just.reid]

Hehe. That looks kind of funny. I posted last night just before we went to sleep, then when I got up, the post was still on my phone. So I sent it. If someone want's to delete that duplicate that'd be cool.

 

My SweetTea is so used to things being her fault. Darling, I am so sorry I've built up that in you. I've let you think things were your fault for twenty years. Let me be clear . You are not the cause. I am. If I am putting the right stuff in, you will not be able to help yourself responding. You have a lot of healing to do babe. Please don't stress over getting all healed up overnight. That's counterproductive. Just ride and respond. Let me know how you'd like the climate -- i'll be all over it. I have a lot of work to do. I want nothing less than to be the man of your dreams. You are already the woman of mine.

 

Phil 2:13 for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.

Or in the Amplified:

13[Not in your own strength] for it is God Who is all the while [j]effectually at work in you [energizing and creating in you the power and desire], both to will and to work for His good pleasure and satisfaction and [k]delight.

 

I love you SweetTea. Thank you for being so patient.

Edited August 18, 2011 by just.reid

[Sweetea]

Thank you, Babe.

[Sweetea]

Totally hate Thursdays.

[just.reid]

To catch you all up, JR did it again. Yesterday I slipped and sang at a female coworker. SweetTea is speechless. She feels betrayed and tricked. She feels like everytime she opens her heart, I crush it. She probably wants to push me out so far I can never hurt her again. I understand that.

 

Tea, you feel you were lured out and bashed. You don't deserve that. I am sorry. That is not going to happen again. You are my song.

 

I will not stop pushing, getting up, lifting. The yoke fits. I just need to tuck in and pull.

 

Moving.

[firewalker]

Bonehead move, dude!

 

But...

 

Kudos for recognizing your error, confessing it to Tea, and walking out the pain of your choice. The consequence that she is experiencing is reduced as you share her pain and reduce the load.

 

The old J.R. would not have been that transparent. You ARE moving forward.

[TimothyPaul]

Correct me if I am wrong helpers....

 

But JR is not going to perfect 100% of the time. I think this one of those rare occasions where Tea may need to give a little grace. He has been doing very well for quite a while, longer then most men here do, so my gut instinct is

 

- He screwed up, He's not perfect, He was able to recognize it.... its a bump in the road as Kathy would say. It happens, let Tea focus on the great things Reid has been doing and get past this. One slip does not a whole process ruin.... keep the big picture in mind.

 

A convertible top, with the top down - crusin down the Pacific Coast Highway....

 

 

My 2 cents.... TP

[firewalker]

Correct me if I am wrong helpers....

 

But JR is not going to perfect 100% of the time. I think this one of those rare occasions where Tea may need to give a little grace. He has been doing very well for quite a while, longer then most men here do, so my gut instinct is

 

- He screwed up, He's not perfect, He was able to recognize it.... its a bump in the road as Kathy would say. It happens, let Tea focus on the great things Reid has been doing and get past this. One slip does not a whole process ruin.... keep the big picture in mind.

 

A convertible top, with the top down - crusin down the Pacific Coast Highway....

 

 

My 2 cents.... TP

 

So why in the world, TP, are you thinking anybody is expecting him to be perfect? Consider that you might be triggered by your own "stuff", and your own mislayed expectations of perfection for yourself.

 

Maybe I need to read Tea's thread because I don't see that here. I pointed out the positive here of the changes JR has made. This is affirmation of the good, here, on HIS thread. Let that stand on its own.

 

Tea's triggers are going to happen. Unless you are a woman, you don't realize the full connection between the present and the past in a woman's experience of events. In fact, J & K talk about that in the intensive, when they discuss the difference in the female brain patterns.

 

JR, you will learn from her being triggered, and this all adds to your learning to live in an understanding way with your wife. That is a good thing.

Edited August 19, 2011 by firewalker

[just.reid]

Hey guys, SweetTea really needs encouragement right now. I think she feels very alone. Singing may be a bigger deal than you realize.

 

I remember the first time Tea ever heard/saw me sing. We were in church, and it came time for someone to come up and sing 'special music.' We were sitting together, to her suprise I got up. I walked up from our pew to the platform and sang something. Probably Steven Curtis Chapman or Steve Camp. It really affected her. The Spirit was there. It was suprising, and moving.

 

It's an old part of me that I don't let out much. I don't sing much anymore. I wonder if, when she hears that I've sung to someone else, it touches back there. The old illusion of what she thought she was getting. She thought she was getting a spotless, powerful man of God. She got a toddler.

 

Tea, I'm not sure if you're listening. I am sorry. You deserve a better man than you got. You were sold a bill of goods. This looks like the same warmed over mess i've sold you over and over. I am changing. I will become the man you've always dreamed of having. You certianly don't have to believe my words. I will show you.

Edited August 19, 2011 by just.reid

[firewalker]

Tea,

I'm so sorry that you are hurting again. It seems sometimes that our marriages are not allowed a lingering time of joy, before it's time for more surgery, more repairs, more training. That, unfortunately, is the way of a marriage in recovery. It is a couple of years of painful, diligent hard work, punctuated by joy and comfort and relief in the changes. Marking every milestone of change, allows you to go back and acknowledge the changes, like a marker on the path that tells you how far you have come. Sometimes we need to revisit the markers, especially in times of troubled hearts, to bring balance to the perspective on our journey.

 

Your husband posted about the incident with his singing to a gal at work. This seems to have triggered your fresh pain. Are there other things that happened or was said by him that added to the Pain? If so, please share, because he might need additional information to come to understand your pain.

 

Your husband said you needed some encouragement. That alone should encourage you, that he is seeking help, to come alongside and heal your heart.

 

I know that when he does something that he has said that he wouldn't do, and falls back into the pattern that he created for himself, it triggers something in you. We wives have all walked this out, too many times.

 

That trigger is an opportunity to visit unfinished business. When your heart is triggered, it is the indicator that it is still recovering. It is NOT an indicator that all is lost or that your husband is still the same man that he always was.

That is where our emotions want to go, but we need to be in charge of our thinking.

 

Being a wife in a recovering marriage is just as hard as it is for the man to change his thinking. Because you are one with your husband, what happens to one, impacts the other. Your heart and your emotions in this time of pregnancy is also more fragile than any other time. A double challenge on your plate, dear one.

 

You are doing a wonderful job at being a supportive, loving, patient helpmeet to your husband. You have come so far into hope, don't allow the Enemy to drag you back into hopelessness. He wants to destroy your marriage and negate all the hard work that both of you have put into it. Fight against that, with all the warrior princess that resides within you.

 

I encourage you, to allow your husband to come alongside and bear the weight of this pain you are feeling. God has equipped him for that task, and you can find greater comfort in his arms and from his words, even in the face of him being the one who might have knowingly, or thoughtlessly, reopened old wounds in your heart.

 

The timing of when you are able to receive that comfort is in your hands. You might need some space, but don't allow too much time to pass before you allow him into your mourning.

 

Blessings to you and the Comfort of our Lord Jesus be with you today.

[just.reid]

Morning all, it is a good morning because I'm breathing and I'm still married to the SweetestTea in the world. Day two after Thursday. Today SweetTea goes out with the "Bigs" (short for the three oldest girls, a very exclusive sorority) That is always a party. They even have a theme song "that's where the party's at" by the Newsboys. Such a joy!

Darling, I am so glad your going to go have some time reconnecting with the ones who really make our date nights possible. They really rock. Comes from being with such an awesome woman all day to show them what right looks like.

Father, please make me the man SweetTea deserves. The man of her dreams, not her nightmares.

Bless. Their time together Lord.

[KathyandJoel]

Glad you are here, Reid. Talk to you on the men's call. 12:30 eastern time today.

 

This is Joel, by the way - sitting at Kathy's computer.

[Sweetea]

I don't have any extra energy to give to this right now. There were many problems this week, culminating in the last straw of the flirting with the coworker (whom he had convinced me earlier was no threat) on Thursday. I'm not going to go into everything, but what pushed me over the edge was that I had warned him just that morning that I had a bad feeling. I woke up with that familiar feeling of doom. Then *just before he flirted* he sent me an email "Do you know I love you?" After I thought about it, I responded, "Yes, I do." He responded, "WOOHOO!" because I have not often been able to say that in 20 years. Then, he goes and does that. Totally just proved again I'm a fool for believing him. As I said, that wasn't everything...but it's all I have the energy to share now.

[JoelandKathy]

We are going to stay on him on the men's calls.

 

You can relax - and let him work his way back into your heart.

 

He IS going to do this... in JESUS' name!

[JoelandKathy]

Thank you, Firewalker, for your love that you share here - from Kathy and Joel

[just.reid]

Dauntless.

Scream your gentle violent silence my love. Your pain that you feel has no bottom. It's a never-ending well of sorrow filled by my betrayal. My cruelty.

I am not that man. He is crucified.

I am so sorry.

[just.reid]

As I sit here in the dark drinking the coffee we should be sharing, I feel you. I hear your heart crumpled in the corner where I've kicked it again. You've tried to make this work. You saw a glimmer of hope. It was a truck bearing down on you.

You looked, you thought I'd swerve and miss- perhaps even his park the truck.

I crushed you instead.

You'd seen me being short. You'd seen me giving place to the flesh in "lesser things." But he hasn't done THAT.

Then I did.

Oh Tea, you truly don't deserve this.

You work so hard every day and night.

Whatever you decide, it won't change what I'm going to do. I will love you.

[just.reid]

Posting again. Hosanna.

 

I was listening to James McDonald on the way in to work this morning. He refered to that hymn by August Toplady (who names their kids that?) "Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me."

 

He pointed out the second part of the first stanza:

"Let the water and the blood,

From Thy wounded side which flowed,

Be of sin the double cure,

Save from wrath and make me pure."

 

I need the double cure. Not only justification, but purification. That's the part I'm working out with fear and trembling.

 

SweetTea, thank you for letting God use you. Thank you for the ministry you tirelessly give yourself to. You will have the man of your dreams. You are my one and my only.

 

facta non verba

Edited August 22, 2011 by just.reid

[truth]

T,

How are you doing sweetie? You have been on my heart a lot the past several days.

[Sweetea]

Thanks, Truth. Not doing real well.

[C2]

Tea's triggers are going to happen. Unless you are a woman, you don't realize the full connection between the present and the past in a woman's experience of events. In fact, J & K talk about that in the intensive, when they discuss the difference in the female brain patterns.

 

Firewalker, I agree. There is a difference between grace and experiencing pain. Right now Tea is in pain. A woman can’t just make the pain go away and say, let’s start fresh. No, the event will change their relationship. She knows that. It is a setback and she has good reason to be leery and hurt.

 

Now instead of feeling loved and free she has to guard her heart. Each time these hurts reoccur, the event becomes another part of the pattern. She cannot just get over it anymore than you can just defy gravity. It is lodged deeply in her heart and brain.

 

Healing will only take place WHEN Reid proves himself. A man is fortunate to get many chances. He should not take advantage of that.

 

Reid, you are doing well to come here to the forum and address this over and over. Hopefully you are doing the same, in person with Tea. If you are initiating bringing this up and apologizing many times, as many as it takes until Tea feels like you get it, then you are on the right track. Apologizing is more than words, it is also actions.

 

TP, do not underestimate the instincts of a woman. She will know when he gets it and when it is time for grace.