Day 6

Life is a classroom. There are lessons to be learned through God and others day in and day out, but its up to us whether we pay enough attention to notice. Since I began this journey 6 days ago, everyday God has been faithful and shown me many things, however, a certain topic will be more prominent than the rest. I believe there were lessons all along, and God was trying to speak to me daily, however, I wasn't focused. I wasn't paying attention, I was consumed and lost within all of life's meaningless distractions.

I am in college all over again, but this time, I have the greatest professor known to man!

Today's lesson was: Be a good listener.

It all began last night as Marques and I were praying before bed. He had admitted to me that he had been holding back emotions and feelings and was struggling immensely. Because of my behavior in the past, and shooting him down so many times when he was trying to open up caused him to build a wall, and to speculate whether he could open up to me at all. I rejected him, abandoned him, took him for granted and made him feel like he wasn't good enough and never would be. I would twist his words, and lose interest when we were discussing his needs and not my own. No wonder he shut down. No wonder he feels he has to walk on eggshells around me. And no wonder his mindset is that he's better off to keep it in then risk being vulnerable and ending up more wounded then he started.

So you know what I did last night... I listened. I didn't fall into any of my past behaviors, and it payed off. He got what he needed, a shoulder to lean on and an ear to hear. Who better to give it to him than his other half, the person who should have given it to him all along. The end result was forgiveness. We have apologized for our actions to each other many times and we have both uttered those three words "I forgive you." Yet, we were just saying it, knowing in our hearts we really hadn't. As he held me in his arms and we apologized and asked for forgiveness, we said those three words once again, except this time we truly meant it....

So tonight during family worship when Marques read to me the title of the devotional, I wasn't surprised when he said, "Tonight's reading is titled.....Powerful Listening!"