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Pursuing Love: Why I Had to Admit My Jealousy

Feb 22

Written by: Julie Arduini
2/22/2010 11:00 PM

Marsha is on the ball over at her blog, Marsha's Musings. She's covered 1 Corinthians 13 love topics like kindness and patience. Last week she blogged about jealousy and I promised I'd do my part. The week got away from me.

I love reading Marsha's writings because she's a girl after my heart. I do no one any good when I put on a mask and pretend all is well. I'm not perfect and neither is my family or marriage. There are people that I'm trying so hard to reach who run the opposite direction because they aren't ready to take off the mask. I'm just too much to handle because I come at you warts and all.

Marsha admitted her jealousy situation and it's understandable. She wants to grow in Christ, so it's a pattern of thinking she wants to break. I write the same for me.

Five years ago we moved 300 miles from everyone we loved, knew, absolutely everything. My focus after the move was to make sure my family made Ohio their home and just blossomed with the transition.

With God's hand, this happened so well one person was left behind in limbo.

Me.

Our church is a lot bigger than the one we left and we decided to jump right in. My husband became active in choir and received the favor of the director who took him under his wing. Through time and circumstances my husband was the choir director. It was a dream come true and I was so proud of him.

Thing was, he had a full time job that required his time too. I'm not good at math but when you're giving so much to work and so much to ministry, something has to suffer. It was homelife. I took on home responsiblities which at the time was a lot of medical and therapy issues. Financial crisies hit one after another. I didn't realize at the time I was reeling from the move and my dad's death. While my husband stood in front of the church each week singing and conducting, the congregation throwing praise his way, I had people turn to me and ask if I was visiting church for the first time.

They were shocked when they found out Tom was married.

One even seemed surprised that he would be married-to me.

Jealous?

I made Shrek look pale. Green, green, green. I resented that I worked myself out of the family unit. I knew I could run the family on my own, but I didn't want to. I wanted to be one, not alone. Big difference.

I'd love to say I went to the Lord and it all was better. It took time as in years. I slowly started serving to meet people but the work is still ahead for me to find that balance that I don't stay busy to avoid him. In recent months God has shown him much, and he's finding great balance. I need to be there to enjoy that balance with him.

My advice is if you have jealousy in your heart, speak it out to God. It's no surprise anyway, not to Him, and probably not to anyone else. That envy wraps around your heart like a choking vine, I know. I'll never forget the poor person that faced my blunt woundedness when she told me how great my husband was for the choir. I couldn't say I know, or thank you, no, I had to let my envy fester. I said,

"It comes at a price. For him and the choir to be that good, something has to be sacrificed. And that would be his family."

It's not pretty, jealousy. Let God take your feelings, He will exchange them for something beautiful. It takes time, but all beautiful things do. Just like you and your marriage!

I'll be back later this week with Marsha's latest on the Pursuing Love series.

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The Surrendered Scribe

122 comment(s) so far...

Re: Pursuing Love: Why I Had to Admit My Jealousy

And I love your writings for the very same reason...you are openly honest. This is so real. I think there's a lot of women who struggle with the green eyed jealousy monster, even in our marriages. It's so good to see you able to see where you were wrong and go about correcting the course by the grace of God.

This week we've got a set of unloving twins to deal with. Just one of these weeks I wish I could say, okay, I've got this one down! LOL

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