Glass Gloves

Well again, not to boast or brag, this ain’t me guys. He gets the glory. That’s right, his name is Jesus for most folks! Praise Jesus!
I have prayed and fasted. I prayed for “circumcision of her heart” as I felt directed by the Spirit. Sometimes when you don’t know what to pray for you have to ask. Well anyway, that’s what I prayed for. He answered in a big way. All glory and praise to Him - again it wasn’t anything I did.

She has put forth a set of conditions for coming home and they were fair. Keep praying that the enemy stop attacking us for now and to guard both our hearts. He has some more work to do on me yet, but victory is at hand. Devil, Flee my family in the name of our Messiah, Yeshua! Halleluyah!

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So here I am… probably have about another two to three months to have my divorce completed. Plenty of time left. It got me to thinking though. Each of the little coincidences or baby miracles or whatever you want to call them that have happened over the last two - three months. When did they occur and what were the conditions for what was in my opinion some sort of heavenly intervention?

1.) My back was to the wall with no other way to turn.

2.) I prayed to God - it is up to you, I trust and ACCEPT the outcome, this is what I hope and desire for, but I trust you no matter what happens.
3.) I make sure my heart is right. I spend at least a couple days making sure my heart is right. No unforgiven sins against me, and I’ve apologized for my own sins. Not self loathing, but rather giving them up to Him.

There seem to be some other minor conditions, but really this is it.

Now I suspect that there are times that similar to how we may do four our children God wants us to grow. I’ve described this in the past. It feels like He just up and leaves for a few weeks, that is, I don’t feel His guiding hand…. very difficult to describe…. the coincidences and stuff just go away… nada nothing. Then it comes back out of the blue.  I’ve thought about this some more, and I suspect that perhaps He also likes us to learn how to ride the bike without training wheels and we need to fall a few times first before we understand the danger and overcome our fear and also it gets us to the point of “no return”. Our backs are against the wall with nowhere to turn… who is the only one who can save this? It ain’t me…. sometimes that ol’ Master of Drama likes to show off and thereby deepen my trust in Him.

The first custody hearing got cancelled…. by a sick lawyer. I thought to myself… what are the odds… that had to be divine. Come on, … a lawyer passing out right before the hearing? I asked around and found out it wasn’t staged.
The second one got cancelled….. My God, that was impressive. The judge had an emergency. Wow…

The third one got cancelled….a trial  landed at the same time and ran over…

Her lawyer goes on vacation for the next one….

What is going on here?

I don’t know, but I know what my heart desires. I hope my heart is still in the right place.

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Oh God, please make my wife come back to me! I had said it probably a thousand times. Then something happened inside me and to me that I can’t explain. The best way I can describe it is for you to read the book Contact or go watch the movie. That scene right at the end where Dr. Arroway (Jodie Foster) is prompted to retract her testimony by the National Security Director and replies: “I can’t”.
I’ve seen it happen to other people. They are going along in their life. Something bad happens to them and they pray to God - he doesn’t answer. Then they give up. But, sometimes they place all hope in Him alone. God, please let me with the lottery and I’ll spend the rest of my life working for you. God please let the Mavericks win the play offs next year. God, give me a signs (13 hits) that you are real and if not - to hell with you. God, my wife want a divorce and I’m no longer strong enough or smart enough to make this work. It is up to you. Do what you will with my family, it is in your hands, man (446 hits). I give up.
That is in the marriage world. What about the ol’ medical miracles. We’ve all heard of them. Yeah, I know, what about the guys who didn’t pray and recovered and what about that study that prayed for several patients with no conclusive results on whether prayer is effective. What about all those people who never had their prayers answered. I don’t know, but He has answered mine time and time again, then he goes silent. Sometimes it is for a whole month. Then some flaw in myself is revealed and he comes back. No voices in my head mind you, but just little things that only I know about. Little coincidences that line up all in a row. Kind of like playing golf and making that one perfect shot. You can hack up the green all day, but that one perfect shot keeps you going. Kind of like that scene in the movie Ghost. The scene where Whoopi Goldberg says “ditto” to Demi Moore. Demi Moore instantly recognizes this spiritual BS as no BS, but I doubt any scientist would have been able to prove that personal experience was real beyond Demi’s mind.
Every time it has happened to me, it is as though I’ve gotten in touch with a spiritual side of me that I can only occasionally reach. Other people have described a similar experience. It some kind of “knowing” that everything is going to be okay. A new found confidence - a moment of clarity. I get away from everyone and pray in silence - in my room, alone. He is quiet for weeks at a time. Then He answers - out of the blue. Unmistakable proof of a PERSONAL GOD in my mind, but there is no way for me to explain it. The Prophets would often fast to get that spiritual connection. I just read the scriptures and search the Internet for clues.

Darth Vader once said that the power of the Death Star is nothing compared to the power of the force. I think of spiritual moments like what I have described in a similar way.

Another way to look at is life changing moments. One minute you have a somewhat smooth economy and the next minute the twin towers are falling down. What’s next? World wide bird flu epidemic? Don’t worry - science will save us, after all, a cure for cancer is just around the corner. I wonder though - did cancer exist before we discovered the joys of soft drinks and petrochemicals?
Don’t get me wrong. I like the outputs of science and math. I like a good diet coke too, and though I probably err too much on the side of an arm chair scientist, after everything I’ve learned recently those subjects have started to bore me. If we keep up our good science where will we be in a few thousand years? Instead of blowing up the planet with nukes, I guess it will be death stars with freakin star destroying torpedoes and everyone will be married according to a strict compatibility matrix. Life will be so swell and I bet we still won’t have a clue what happened before moment 0.
Oh brother, I guess I became an instant bible thumper. You know the term. You know people this has happened to and they have always annoyed you. Yet they have something you do not understand. They are like these way too happy goof balls that run around smiling all the time. Instant holy roller. Instant self-righteous bigots. Well I hope not, as I’m not fit to be your judge, but I can at least inform you of what I’ve experienced. I guess I suffer from the same mass delusion that many of the rest of us suffer from. The more I read the word the more treasures I find. What a complex piece of literature and life manual at the same time.

Ray’s prayer has been answered folks and I think we can see when the turn around happened (169 hits). Why did he answer Ray? I don’t know, maybe you can tell me why He answered me.

Our Father. Hallowed be thy NAME.

What was that name again?

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I’ve said before (99 hits) that miracles can and do happen. I also said that I would describe what happened to us. You must first understand some background as follows:

• My wife and I were living under the same roof with separate sleeping arrangements at the time.
• My wife is one of those persons who rarely remembers her dreams. She had remembered four or five the whole time we’ve been together (5 years at the time).
• At the time she had become effectively agnostic - her faith was waning.

It was Saturday evening. We had come in from a somewhat friendly yet weird “as friends date”. One of those types of dates where she reluctantly agreed to go out since she had nothing better to do and couldn’t afford anything else. We went out to eat at On the Border (8 hits) and then went roller-skating, which was something I had never wanted to do before but actually found fun.

Before we came home I had managed to anger her by lecturing a bit about letting go of her anger towards me. I pushed too hard. I had some recovery work to do.

One of things my marriage coach (139 hits) told me was to pray with her at night to help reduce the anger. So I decided to pray with or for her whichever she would allow. My wife was the type of person who refused to pray out loud. I asked her to pray with me and she said no as usual, but said it was okay if I prayed while she remained silent. So I prayed for her well-being and asked God to touch her and let her know that He is there (the actual prayer was about 10 minutes). We then went to sleep in separate quarters. The couch bed was my new home!

The next morning I was preparing to go to Mass (144 hits) and followed by service at another church that I like (non-denominational Bible Church). I got up at 6 AM and prayed over my wife while she slept. My prayer was quite simple. I asked that she be sent a “strong message in the form of a dream that would show her the right path”. I prayed about 30 minutes and then gently woke her to see if she wanted to go to church. I knew she would say no. I would have normally gotten annoyed if she didn’t want to go to church on Sunday; however, something told me not to press to hard lest she not have enough time to receive a dream. Something also told me that she would not believe me if my prayer was answered so I wrote it down in my log book (133 hits). I wrote down what I prayed for - and the date.

I went to Mass and guess what - the sermon was about marriage and why divorce is wrong. It felt very personal - almost orchestrated by God just for me. I prayed some more for my “strong message in the form of a dream about the right path”.

Mass was over and I went to pick up the kiddos from my grand parents. I called my wife and asked that if she was willing - could she get up and get showered so we could all go to the other church I told you about. The other church was going over Songs of Solomon in the Bible, and had some really great marital lessons I thought we both needed to hear. She didn’t sound very enthusiastic - I expected that she would still be asleep when I got home.

Finally I got home with the kids. Time was about 9 AM. I went into the room where my wife was sleeping and she had awoken groggily.

The first thing out of her mouth was - “I had a really weird dream”. She was obviously disturbed as she said this.

I immediately dropped to my knees and had tears of joy (something I had never had before). I told her I needed to show her something. I showed her my journal where I had recorded my prayer earlier that morning. She read it and was silenced for a few minutes. She told me about her dream - it was a very strong message and clearly indicated a path that could be taken, but the results of that path (divorce) spelled disaster for her. I wrote the dream down in my log book (133 hits) to preserve the memory. The next thing I know - she is getting all the kids ready for church. She actually paid attention in church this time instead of her “a bit stand-offish” self she had been in church lately.

God had answered my prayers numerous times in the past - sometimes quite directly, but never so quickly (3 hour turn around!) and never so directly (exactly what I prayed for). I told everyone I know and they all agreed that it was a miracle (984 hits). Even if I never get another the rest of my life - I can hang onto this one.

Now you may ask how did I pray? I asked for His will to be done, for it to be a dream with a strong message, and for it to show the right path to her.

If you don’t believe in miracles I think you can at least sense that this story came from my heart. Miracles are out there - you just need to get connected with the Man upstairs - and learn how to ask.

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I was looking for other sites on the Internet that might discuss “Glass Gloves” (see about) to try and get this site promoted. I ran across a rather curious discussion on a site called Slashdot (nerd site), which is a site I used to frequent daily.

The discussion was about robots that walk on water. Eventually the discussion (7 hits) turned to the miracle of Jesus walking on water. What greater place for a debate on miracles than a site with an audience of nerds some believers some not. Do miracles really happen - and more importantly why is this relevant to saving your marriage? This is actually important for the most special of you folks out there - the spouse who has completely given up on the marriage. This is where my spouse was at and a miracle did in fact save my marriage. If you’ve given up on God, then it may be time to come back. If you never believed in the first place, then now is the time.

I thought the italicized joke from the discussion was worth posting since it illustrates the power of God in a funny way.

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