Spiritual warfare

In my whole life, I had not had so much spiritual warfare in most areas of my life.

We are in the middle of the adoption process and everything is going great there. And along with that, Conrad and I feel encouraged, happy and fulfilled – a very good season in our marriage. But the rest of our tangent life is all drama.

My brother’s wife filed for divorce last month. And took everything except their son. I can’t even begin to comprehend the pain of everyone, including my nephew, my brother and my parents.

Over the last two weeks, because I was feeling left out of all pain and details of my brother’s divorce, the one couple we poured most love and effort into over the last year, to help them regain stability and have a healthy marriage, is going through a very traumatic phase. She packed and left, and is filing for divorce. There is so much more to this story. This drama brought us to our wits ends, as these friends also live next door and we had front row seats to it all. The hardest part is that our community, waking up now, is putting undue pressure on us. We feel judged for not doing more, then and now.

As if not everything was enough, a situation from last year is surfacing to be dealt with. Let’s take a look at the definition of my dilemma: “flirt – verb behave as though sexually attracted to someone, but playfully rather than with serious intentions”. After a youth camp where I was a translator, affinities towards my husband from some girls were noticed and I was put en-garde. I kept an watchful eye and came to some conclusions and made some protective decisions with my husband. But we hadn’t cleared the air with said girls, hoping that it will get solved on its own. I was very hurt and couldn’t muster up the energy to deal with the drama and embarrassment then. If there is one certainty, nothing gets solved and healed on its own. Last week I opened pandora’s box, not to get apologies but to generate awareness for an appropriate attitude currently and for future instances. Defensiveness and embarrassment is a natural response – but right now there is just silence.

An underlying issue is that the church we attend on Sunday is resembling more and more to a synagogue during Jesus’ days. The crowd is hungry and needy and broken, but we can’t seem to get out of the pattern of dry Sunday service that only tickles deaf ears or reiterates the law on a regular basis. What happened to “go and tell what Jesus did to you”. The devil only gains ground (given the afore mentioned dramas) because we are dispersed (our own fault and doing over time) and leaderless.

Another neighbor is putting undue pressure on my mom and me when she gets the chance, with expectations, directions and numberless questions. It is very much a unilateral relationship.

…And all I want is to catch my breath.