The Secret to Contentment
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[0 Comment]Forty years ago Joyce felt trapped at the bottom of a dark, deep pit of despair. Walking away with her baby son and only what she could carry, she'd just divorced her husband of five years who'd cheated on, manipulated, and abandoned her. Prior to her marriage, she'd grown up in a home where for 18 years her father sexually abused her and routinely beat her mother. With no place to go, the broken home of her childhood was the only place she now had to turn.
Yet in the months following her divorce, God led Joyce to meet a gentle man named David Meyer, a Christian who'd been specifically praying for God to send him a wife. At first Joyce was harsh and sarcastic toward him, not willing to trust any man. But Dave was patient and Joyce eventually agreed to go out with him. Five dates later, Dave asked Joyce to marry him.
"For my part, I certainly did not know what love was, and was not eager to get involved with another man," Joyce recounts in her book Beauty for Ashes (Warner). "However, since things were getting even worse at home, and since I was living in total panic all the time, I decided that anything would be better than what I was going through at the moment."
Joyce's marriage to Dave didn't solve all her problems, though. She'd become a believer as a child, and with Dave's prompting began attending church. Yet she still struggled with anger, fear, and discontentment that stemmed from her painful past.
"I was making the frustrating, tragic mistake of trying to find the kingdom of God—righteousness, peace, and joy—in things and other people," Joyce writes. "What I did not realize is, as Paul points out, the kingdom is within us: Christ in you, the hope of glory (Colossians 1:27). My joy had to be found in him."
Slowly, God began to restore Joyce. He also began to show her how her own painful story could help others. Today, she heads Joyce Meyer Ministries, speaks to millions worldwide through her television, radio, and conference outlets, and has authored 75 books.
Marriage Partnership spoke with Joyce about how she's found joy in her life and in her marriage to Dave, and how other married couples can experience lasting joy as well.
After such a rocky first marriage, how were you able to find joy in your relationship with Dave?
Joyce: In order for you to have joy in your marriage, you must first have joy within. In my case, because I was sexually abused by my father, I had a shame-based nature. I grew up with a record playing in my head that continuously asked, What's wrong with me?
When you get married you're supposed to love each other. Scripture teaches to love your neighbor as yourself. But if a person never accepts God's love and learns how to accept herself, then she doesn't really have anything to give away. It's the same with joy in marriage. I can't have joy in my relationship with Dave if I don't have joy within myself. One of the greatest things that helped my marriage was learning how to accept, love, and be content with myself.
Originally published in: Marriage Partnership, 2006, Spring, Page 40
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