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May 5, 2022

Heavenly Father, grant us the strength to hold fast to our marriage vows. Help us to love, honor and respect each other, and we ask You to teach us to love the way that we should with patience, kindness, forgiveness and grace. Amen.

A toxic marriage is a chronic condition characterized by ongoing unhealthy mental, physical, spiritual and emotional issues that are unresolved and fester into even bigger problems. Verbal abuse, physical abuse, possessive and controlling behavior or other major transgressions are obvious signs of a troubled relationship.

Does It feel like your thoughts and opinions are locked on mute? In a toxic marriage, you're seldom "allowed" to communicate your feelings, needs, and perspectives, and rarely, if ever, do you have peace. Your spouse may belittle, dismiss or scoff at any fair attempt to express yourself.

They sabotage or guilt trip your efforts to discuss issues on a healthy and peaceful level. Anytime you attempt to activate your end of the discussion, your partner may fracture your emotional legs with subtle jabs, all the while highlighting your shortcomings. They may even denounce your newfound efforts of self-improvement or coming up higher spiritually as being selfish or unfair to the marriage. This is because people who have been hurt and in need of healing often fear being one-upped, outdone or left behind. Because of this insecurity, you may be shamed, ridiculed or pumped full of venomous language that causes your efforts to fade, your momentum to stall and subsequently, asks that you crawl back into a shell of stagnancy.


Mother Clare began, "Some marriages suffer from the effects of hormone imbalances. If your spouse is not willing to humble down and receive good counsel, then their deliverance and healing will not take root. If people have a blood pressure problem, or cancer or MS, they take medicine to counteract what the disease does. It can ruin your life. If he or she is stubborn and strong willed, and will not consider what could save his or her life, ministry, and marriage, and God has not healed them after all this prayer and suffering, the Lord humbles us by making us dependent on medicine to live a holy life.

"They may have a brain imbalance that has ruined their life. It doesn't have to be that way, but they must be teachable. This behavior takes time and attention from other souls depriving them of ministry and prayer time. They may very well be bi-polar, which is a huge challenge. Father Ezekiel and I got through it because he was willing to consider that he had brain damage from his father's beatings, especially head injuries. So the LORD has led us to medications for my fibro and his fibro and intestinal problem, which takes away from our natural mood hormones so we had to take Prozac to restore what we lost. I think it is virtuous to follow everything in the Scriptures, but some people make a statement about Scripture they do not fully understand. Jesus never said, do not go to a doctor and do not take prescription medicine. He never said that. People are hung up on drug abuse and recreational drugs which is like witchcraft in the Scriptures. Some people with serious problems get the notion that they are sinning if they take a prescription drug. They become proud and combative, bragging that they don't take drugs or need them, yet they do take medicine for high blood pressure, or they will allow the hospital to use a drug for surgery and post-operative pain, or a Tylenol for a headache.

"I saw a woman at an evangelical church get up and proudly testify that she finally stopped taking Prozac. She went on for about ten minutes with the insinuation that she was an addict because she obeyed her doctor. She cried during the entire ten-minute testimony. She couldn't control her emotions because she was lacking the brain balancing of this antidepressant and wouldn't take it. How tragic to have to live with that condition, constant crying which could have been remedied by a simple, cheap prescription. I think it all boils down to a misconception of what the Bible says and perhaps taking pride in that they don't have to take drugs, they are healthy without them, or God will heal them. After 30 years and two marriages, God has not healed and they will not submit to common sense. That surely is pride and a religious spirit.

"As you can tell, I've had lots of experience in this area and people who do not want to be helped, will not cooperate, they will always find an excuse to dodge a cycle in their life that is destructive, until God lets them hit rock bottom, this is a common issue in marriages. The men or women are insecure and abusive because their parents were bad to them, so they carry the emotional scars which they pass on to their husbands, wives and children, and do nothing to get healed.

"I have to say, Ezekiel and I had seven years of this toxic cycle until he got medical help to balance his brain chemicals which were always being set off. Fight or flight, and we could not have a sane, level headed conversation, it always turned sour. Everything changed when he was put on Tramadol and Prozac. He became a little puppy and so easy to live with.

"He would always apologize for his behavior later, but the damage was already done. As it is now, he is wonderful and well balanced. However, if he goes off Prozac for more than three days, he reverts to the same destructive fight or flight behavior. And here at the community we all know it is not his heart, it is his mental hormones that are unbalanced because of the beatings his father gave him he does not have certain enzymes that are necessary for clear thinking.

"We had to separate for several months and he finally decided he would go to the doctor and get medical attention....... that saved our marriage."

In Scripture it reads in Ephesians 5:25-31: "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to Himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husband's ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church--for we are members of His body. For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." Amen.