I cried when I read this chapter. Big can of worms. My husband is haunted by his past, but doesn't even know it. I cannot imagine the pain he must have felt as a boy and as a teenager when he was abused by his father. His drinking could be a result of this. This is one area that I need to pray for my husband more. <P>Page 144, third paragragh: "Your husband's passt not only affects him, it affects your offspring as well". I fear for what my son will go through as an adult. I pray daily that my son is spared pain because of what we've been through. <P>I will be standing on the scripture Psalm 90:15: He can make up for the bad things that have happened. Only God can heal the deep wounds inflicted upon my husband. We should really pray in earnest for our husbands' issuses with the past to be resolved, and the bad effects of their pasts be removed from their lives. <P>Father, we ask that you help our husbands recover from any bad experiences in their pasts. Please remove feelings of bitterness, resentment, revenge, and unforgiveness, in our hearts as well as theirs. Show our husbands how to not live in the past, but to live for You in the future. In Jesus Name, AMEN.

Again, a chapter that hits us between the eyes. The insight which are in these pages is purely anointed. I know God's hand is pointing the way to wisdom in prayer for our H as well as ourselves.<P>I need to pray with power and insight for my H. He allows the past to rule almost every thing in his life. He doesn't see it and he wouldn't admit to it if he did, but I see it so plainly. God open his eyes!<P>I as well was a prisoner of my past until I began to pray as this book teaches. It wasn't that I didn't pray before for I truly did, but God showed me my prayers were weak and self-centered!<P>Someone has said, "there is a reason they call the present, the present. It is because it is a gift!" <P>Thank you God for this gift. Help us all to live life in the present as you intended it to be. Allow us to leave the hurts of the past with you and run the race set before us. Forgetting what is behind and reaching out to what is ahead , we press on to the prize. Lord, our H's have very empty pasts due to their choices, empty of joy but full of the high cost of sin. Help them to seek forgiveness for their choices, but free them from the strangulation of the net surrounding them. Where the past has brought on fear, addiction, self-centeredness, anger, lust, or anything else, replace it with faith in Jesus Christ to heal, change and forgive. IJN<P>------------------<BR>"Perfect love casts out fear" I John 4:18

Taj, AMEN!

AW,<BR>I wrote a little about H's past on your other post:"Please pray with me this afternoon"-about how h is angry at me for being just like his parents, brother and sister.<BR>We need to pray hard for your husband while/if he starts delving into his past!<BR>It's one of those things- 'had I known then what I know now'- You see I "encouraged" my husband(left books around, suggested counseling for his ACOA issues)to seek help..... right there hinting that he needed fixing. My motives were so selfish...."it will make MY life easier"- "it will make ME happy"-- well did that all backfire! How would I know that all it would take would be one of his customers(one that is attracted to him)to take a couple of things I said to her about H and my relationship (my lack of healthy boundaries)to run with it and find him a New Age therapist!!!!! An "advanced" therapist so she said. Yes, advanced in following the wrong God.<BR>Anyway, like Taj,I was stuck in my past too-(by the way Taj, thank you for the above post)<BR>and was always "working" on myself-I guess we call it healing, now.I was always trying to heal from my past,using a lot of energy trying to "save" myself(and my husband.) Then, after years of trying unsuccessfully to carry out a pregnancy, I just became more self absorbed, into healing my "body, mind, sprit"-look out!Heading away from Jesus.<BR>Trying to figure out why God was not giving us a baby, etc. Even writing this I feel so selfish and self centered.This all took everything away from my husband.Priorities were: Get pregnant,get pregnant, why am I not getting pregnant.......Then two miscarriages later, the blessing turned out to be that I turned to God at last!!!Unfortunately, Priorities became God, get pregnant, husband.........Again husband was last. Even work became an obsession- Was working with pregnant mothers in recovery from addictions! Eeeek!<BR>So husband goes out and has a one night stand with someone who wasn't obsessed with him being a sperm bank.(Sorry)Anyway,he doesn't admit this to me until almost three years later, when he asks for a divorce in July'99.So here we are,by the grace of God, still in the same house getting ready to sell, me praying constantly for God to change me, and change my husband's heart, so we don't separate.<BR>Thank you for your prayers. They are working. Even though he still "reminds" me often,of when we separate and divorce,and some days he is not very nice to me, there are still praises to Jesus.We are not fighting, and I find him staring at me sometimes like maybe God is speaking to his heart about not going through with it?<BR>Thanks for letting me go on and on.<BR> <BR>I know I am still in the storm and can't wait for God to dock this boat.<BR>I pray for patience.<P>Thanks for your post,AW, and Taj's reply.<BR>Staying in the present,IJN,<BR>Jn