Jesus spoke at length about such people (Pharisees).
She was testing you. I think you passed the test.
Personal growth!
This is an important and personal issue that each couple needs to resolve on their own. It sounds like you are handling it well.
It is a difficult question because from the man's side of it it was an agreement without accurate knowledge of God's will and with culpability from society and culture to perpetuate a lie. Not an easy or simple issue in my opinion.
Your experience is following mine. I have been an advocate of Biblical polygyny for 10 years, but still have just one wife. But the personal and spiritual growth that my wife and I have experience have made the whole thing a great blessing, whether or not another woman ever joins our family.
I do think the truth of Biblical polygyny should be a tool in every man's toolbox, in the sense that without it a man can find himself in diffuclt situations where it is not clear what God's will for him is. I have seen and know people for whom the "monogamy only" lie from Satan has destroyed families. It does not have to be that way.
We still attend a regular church. I recommend it for all those that can. Sometimes big churches are good to quietly blend in and participate in.
There are no perfect churches. I do have trouble fully committing to a local church. I am always half expecting to be kicked out as many others here have.
Many here also home church. We (my family) like doing that on occasion, too, especially when another Christian family is staying with us.
It is not easy when God starts showing you truth and you realize the ranks of those who want to learn it and follow it are getting thinner and thinner. On the other hand I thank God every day for any truth he has been gracious enough to reveal to me.
Although I do not get in other people faces, I do believe that you should never ever waffle and hide the truth, no matter what, especially with those who seek it. We owe that to God. Whatever gift he has given us, we owe it to him to pay it forward.
My prayers for your father-in-law and your family. It does not sound like your wife's distance from you physically is absolute. Congrats on the baby! It sounds like you are in a good place with her now. I pray that God will continue to bless you and your family. Thank you for sharing your story.
What part of the country do you live in, may I ask?
Hey sorry for the very slow response to your post. Some how I never saw it until now.
I appreciate a lot of what you wrote and agree.
As an update my father in law did pass and it turned out to be not as painful as I thought it could be.
He had claimed to be agnostic. We were concerned for his soul. A lot of people have been praying for him for years. The last two weeks of his life we saw him interact much more humbly with his Christian friends and in fact, other than his girlfriend, at the end he only wanted Christians around.
I want to share something that happened. I wont be able to type out all the details here, but I'll give the summary.
About a week into my father in laws physical decline a friend of my wife's came to us with what she thought was a spiritual dream. She then described to us about half the details of my father in laws decline followed by a bunch of things that had not yet happened. I will tell you i have been around a lot of spiritual dreams and seen some of them be very predictive, cautionary, encouraging... I have never experienced anything like what happened with this. God sent our friend to tell us everything that was going to happen. Her dream made it clear that there would be a series of believers traveling long distances to his bedside to minister to him. They would breath life into him and God would give him new life and that he would pass away while more Christians were planning to travel to him. In the dream he also died after a first round of sedation from the doctors. There were a lot more details, but those were the most important parts and every part of it happened. I'm crying as I write this because my wife has so long struggled with her dad not following Christ and feeling that maybe there is some unknown reason why God doesn't answer her prayers for him. I felt stuck wanting to help my wife with the pain of unanswered prayer, but in this situation it seemed like something only God could do. Anyway it ministered to me so deeply to see God directly heal one of my wife's deepest pains. It has healed and brought more peace to our relationship also.
Thanks for to those who have been praying for us. God hears your prayers!
Oh yeah and I live near Washington DC.