Clean Out Your Pipes – Get Rid of Your Baggage
(This is one of a series of blogs honoring Mimi Fulcher)
Every day, since I first became a Christian, I have gotten up early in the morning and first spend about ten minutes with God telling him my sads, my mads, and my glads. (Not long ago upon hearing and appreciating these three words, a member of our congregation wisely suggested a fourth — my bads.) And then secondly I have read the Bible.
It was during one of her early morning trysts with God — which Mimi describes above — that she sent up that desperate prayer asking God to work on me, her husband, about the inordinate time I spent at work. She had given up trying to change me and told God she would trust him and nag me no longer. She did both, the result being ultimately not only my reform but the writing of our book. However, not before …
“A New Problem Developed”
While we mentioned earlier that we did not have sex on date night (Date night was a big part of my reform that I mentioned above.) we did have sex at other times. Great sex — and then I would start a terrible fight with Sim within the next few hours. “God, what is wrong with me?” I would pray. About that time I discovered a book, The Power of Sexual Surrender (by Marie Robinson M.D.). Robinson basically says that if a woman has a problem with her father, she will take it out subconsciously on her husband. I had not thought I had a problem with my father, but one day I saw a little girl on TV sitting in a rocker with her dad and I began to cry. I realized that when I was a little girl, my dad was gone all the time. I knew my father loved me, but we were not very close. So as to protect myself from the pain caused by his continual absence, I walled Sim off. As I began to see this problem, the wall began to melt and, do you know what, the fights with Sim stopped. Sometimes just identifying the demon is enough to make it vanish.
Clogged Pipes and Hidden Baggage
Baggage! It will affect your marriage. We both have many more stories of our own baggage, but you need to find YOUR baggage and ask God to help you with it. Clean out your emotional pipes so healthy emotional feelings and that which produces the fruits of the Spirit can flow through you. You have to be willing to get rid of the baggage in your life — the stuff you brought into the marriage relationship. And if you are not married, you still have to be willing to get rid of your baggage if you want to become the person God created you to be.
As you’ve no doubt noticed above and elsewhere (if you’re familiar with our book) Mimi has been unusually personal. I say “unusually” because for a private person (which she was) the things she has said are quite unusual. However, we both have felt that though the Christian life is personal, it’s not private. That’s not to say each of us don’t have secrets — secrets with God and secrets of our own. But when you realize your experience might help others be encouraged or regain hope, then that experience ought to be shared. And that’s been our purpose — even our stated purpose up front in our book. It was not easy for Mimi to write the paragraph below but she genuinely wished to give a heads-up to well-intentioned but misguided moms.
“My Biggest Baggage — and Blessing”
I (Mimi) was born in the era of big movies such as Gone with the Wind — the era of big movie stars like Shirley Temple. My mother always wanted to be a dancer and musician, but her father died when she was nine, so she never was able to achieve her dreams. I was supposed to achieve them. When I was very young, I started ballet, music, and even acting lessons. My mother thought anyone could be Shirley Temple if they had the opportunity. However, God did not give me those particular gifts, and I felt I was a terrible disappointment to my mother. She thought opportunity was the key but did not understand about gifts and natural talent. I was not a happy camper. My failed efforts to become the person I felt I should be had a huge effect on how I felt about myself. I felt shame — flawed and rejected. I had no self-esteem. When I became a Christian, I started dealing with my shame. And when God started me working on my baggage after we got married, I had to come to a place where I thanked God for how he made me. I had to forgive my mother for her not understanding that we aren’t all created the same and that we are each an individual package from God. It was very freeing to get that in perspective. Please do not try make your own children into what you have wanted them to be. See them with the gifts God has given them and try to help them develop those abilities.
