Mending My Relationship With God

The last couple of posts are not ones I am very proud of. They were my true feelings, but I wish that during these very difficult times, I had handled things differently. Back in February Eric and I had to come to terms with not getting Matthew. During this time I was sick with the crud and just didn't feeling like doing anything or getting out any more than I had to. We missed one Sunday of church, then another, then another. I prayed less and less, and quit reading my bible. I had a major break down when we went to our nephew's boy scouts program, and saw all the proud parents and grandparents. I cried so hard that night I almost made myself sick. Eric and I were both sinking into a very dark place. Neither one of us were able to be a support for the other. Neither one of us were trying to maintain our relationship with God. We were feeling forsaken, angry, and we were questioning why God is allowing us to hurt for so long over not having children. Eric and I were arguing a lot, and one night driving back from my parent's, I was going through my head trying to decide who would keep what when we went our separate ways. There are a lot of couples whose marriage doesn't make it through the stress of trying to adopt. Throw in the stress from work, finances, and a major home project, and we have several reasons for a failed marriage. We knew we had to make some changes if our marriage was going to survive. We love the people at the church we had gone to, but we knew we would need more spiritually in order to get our selves back in a good relationship with God and with each other. Several months ago I had run into one of my cousins, and I had asked her about her church. When we made the decision to go back to church, we decided to visit her church. Oh my, it was AWESOME!!!! Eric and I both really enjoy praise and worship time, and this church has an awesome praise and worship team. It just sets the mood for your worship time. I can't say enough good things about the pastor at this church. I have already learned so much from his sermons. He initiated meeting with us to get to know us better, and that meant so much to us. We have really enjoyed and look forward to the services at this church. We are not proud of the way we handled this failed adoption. Instead of drawing closer to God, we both drifted farther and farther away. We are now trying to heal, and put God back at the center of our lives. It is still hard at times, but I am so glad we are at least making an effort now. The last several Sundays the pastor has really been speaking to me about worship not just being something we do on Sundays. My personal worship time during the week has been lacking. In order to get my relationship with God where I want it to be, I know I have got to set aside time to spend with Him. I know we all have times we feel our prayers aren't being heard, but for such a long time, I had a tremendous negative feeling when I would think about praying or reading my bible. It really feels good to no longer have those negative feelings.
Today our pastor challenged us to read the book of Philippians. He wants us to read it twice. He said the first time just read it through, and then come back later that day or the next day and read it again while praying through it. I don't know why, but when he challenged us with this, I felt God was telling me to pass this challenge on through my blog. I pray that if you take this challenge, you will hear from God while reading and praying through Philippians.