Fits of Rage Came Over Me

Fits of Rage Came Over Me!

Micaela, how did your restoration actually begin?

My husband and I met while still in our teens; although we had gone to school together since the fifth grade. Even then, there was always a certain interest between us, but we never really started dating until I was 18 and he was 19 years old. At the time we met again, I was a single mother of a 5 month old baby, and a practitioner of spiritualism, while he was a young man who had known the gospel for three years (when he was 16) but was far from following the ways of God.

When we began our courtship, he always tried to tell me about the Lord and God’s plan of salvation. Over time I became convinced that Christianity really was the way, but that was not when my conversion happened. It was simply a conviction that (without action) did not lead to any significant change in my life.

After eleven months of courtship, we decided to live together, and we faced many struggles. As a young couple, trying to adapt to a new way of living, between both our comings and goings, it was hard. It was during this time that my husband (we weren’t yet married) became deeply involved in his addiction; while at the same time, I had been involved physically with a colleague. Thankfully this relationship never brought me any comfort or joy, instead it was utter torment. At the time, what I was looking for in this man, was to find the respect and admiration I wanted in my relationship with my husband. Trying to make my husband the way I wanted him to be, turned into nothing but quarrels. Each one ending badly, until we separated.

It’s at this point when I began to walk in the Christian faith and as such, I completely broke off the relationship with the other man because I wanted to rebuild my life. My husband joined me, also desiring to rebuild his life. We wanted to rebuild a life together, so together we became members of a local church. Soon after, we got married, had our youngest son, and bought our own house. It appeared everything was going well. We both wanted to serve God and it was at that moment that I decided I should confess my sin to my husband and tell him about the past relationship so I could ask him for forgiveness. At the time our son was 5 months old. I had not had contact with this man for more than 2 years, and simply wanted my husband's forgiveness, which did not happen. As soon as he heard what I had done, my husband made a complete turn around—it was as if the castle of his dreams had collapsed. He left the church, gave himself up again to his addictions, and began to attack me with harsh words. Many times things even became physical.

Because of what had happened, I simply could not forgive myself. Seeing my husband who was once a man who was firm in his faith, a member of a church, praying, fasting, working for God’s Kingdom, who was now depressed, with no will to live destroyed me. He even attempted suicide just after he had tried to abandon us, moving to the city where his father lived. Since his parents had separated when he was only 7, I had only seen his father a few times. But I believe it was his longing for his young son that led him to return to get me. So, when he asked, I went with him, I left everything behind: my own house, my family, and my job. I followed him to a city where I knew absolutely no. It was difficult to always be alone because my husband worked all the time.

After we moved, my husband again tried to follow the Christian faith, both of us together, but to no avail. (Today I understand that I only became a true believer, His bride, after my separation a few months later when I found RMI. It wasn’t until my life lost all its meaning; when everything was different from what I dreamed it would be.) At this time, however, I no longer listened to his verbal assaults, but foolishly started to stand up to him, get in his face with the truth. This was what I was encouraged to do by so many women in my new church. And that’s when he tried to physically attack me, and the next thing I knew, I began to attack him more than he was attacking me!! I became such a fool. Horribly quarrelsome and contentious—everything that the bible tells us “is better to live in the corner of a roof than a palace if you live with a contentious woman.”

Each time he’d say something I didn’t like, I’d attack him, pulling his hair whenever fits of rage came over me!!

Not surprisingly, my husband began to ask for some time away from me, insisting that he needed to take time and be away from me to clear his head. Even before he left, I’d noticed that his behavior began to change: he left the room to get dressed, and he’d always hide his cell phone. I felt something was happening, but spiritually I was dead.

Although I had not picked up my Bible at all during this time, and I had not fasted for at least six years, I knew it was the one way back to living again. I remember that I threw myself at the foot of the altar at church and begged the Lord to take me out of this situation, to do anything to me so I would no longer be a lukewarm believer. I just felt God was about to spit me out.

The next morning, after a terrible fight, in a rage, I threw him out our house. And so my journey began...

How did God change your situation Micaela as you sought Him wholeheartedly?

As soon as he left the house, I confess that I felt a relief, it was as if a burden had been lifted, because I was without any understanding about God's will for marriage. I began to want to meet someone else, a new man, to love me more, to respect me. I had spent ten years inside the church asking God to convert my husband but nothing had happened, so I believed I needed to find a new Godly husband.

This way of thinking lasted no more than a week. It happened in the midst of my self-justification with God period of my journey, making many excuses for my behavior. Despite my efforts, He wisely chose to break me and show me what I needed to see—who I was. He needed to show me that I was not converted, and that if instead of spending ten years asking God to convert my husband, to change my husband, that had I spent the same time looking at the my mistakes and my sins, then my life, our lives, would be different.

Do you know the weight that I felt had come off me? Yet, almost immediately an even greater weight fell on me. Because, it was no longer the weight of my husband's mistakes that I wanted to change, it was the weight of my own mistakes—mistakes that I could not deny, and it weighed on me heavily. I finally understood, really understood, how wrong I’d been and that’s when I realized I needed to ask God to change me. I finally understood that it is the woman who builds the house, and builds her house by wisdom, wisdom that we should ask God for, wisdom that is nothing but having an honest fear of failing God.

After finding RMI and your courses, I started to hunger for the Word of God, and I began to understand what marriage was to God. I began to research everything that referred to marriage, divorce and why we were not encouraged to seek remarriage. All this completely changed the way I viewed my desires. I began to desire a restoration, not another man. I came to understand that God was with me in my desire, but I still made a lot of mistakes during this time. For instance, I tried to indoctrinate my husband, I tried to make him see the same truth, but at this time he was in his sin of adultery. I knew personally how adultery can blind you to the truth.

Once I became the crazy contentious woman who attacked him, after I threw him out of the house, it did not take long for my husband to find and begin a relationship with an OW. He found her right in the same neighborhood, just five minutes from our house. She was a woman 12 years younger than I was. He was already living with her, and after only a few months, to increase my despair, they were attending an evangelical church together.

Yes the man who I prayed for ten years to go back to church, was now back in church with the OW. It was difficult to endure this indignity, but God knew it’s what I needed. He asked me to follow along my journey and not give up, because He knew I wanted to give up.

It took more than a year for my husband to ask for a divorce, and on that day he made a vow with God where he promised two things: First, he promised that after the first misunderstanding or argument he had with OW, he would leave her. Also, that if in 3 months, God would do something to him to help him understand that it was with me that he should be with, he said he promised to come back to me.

Their first fight occurred only 4 days later, when I handed him the signed papers for divorce as he requested. That same day he appeared at my front door and tried to reconcile with me, but three days later, his pastor and the OW met with him. The pastor said my husband needed to reconcile with the OW, not me, and insisted that my husband give the two of them at least three more months together.

This happened the day before I was scheduled to travel to see my parents. On the way there, I was crying and speaking with God, telling Him that the time had come and gone, he had not come back to me, and that I understood it as the sign, that this happened to show me it was time for me to give up. When I got to my mother's house, my husband was there. When he saw me he just cried and said that he did not know why he was there, but that it was very important to be with me that night. He said he felt it was spiritual, so we spent the night together, and I thought it was the restoration of our marriage. But the very next morning, he got up and he returned to and reconciled again with the OW.

This meant another Christmas where we were apart, and another New Year, with me alone, without any sign that God would restore my marriage.

After this, right after I returned home, I made the biggest mistake of my life, I filed for divorce. I did it because I was hurt. I hurt because my church had failed me, it did not give me any support, even after I asked my pastor for guidance. Everything my pastor told me were new ways of making vows and more begging and pleading with my husband. But God was already telling me not to make any more bargains with him.

It was then that I felt God asking me for another kind of sacrifice. God expected me to kill my flesh. After entering into divorce, one day I had a very great crisis of utter despair, and that’s when God began to lead me to another path towards restoration. I had known the truth about marriage restoration from finding another ministry, but only knowing the truth that God wanted us to be restored, never leading me to restoration. God knew if I did not understand the principles to follow, I would remain spiritually arrogant. Which I was. So lovingly, God allowed me to suffer more and more affronts, scandals, and indignities in order to break me.

Entirely broken, is when I began to search Him with all my heart. I had already read the book How God Can and Will Restore Your Marriage but due to the other ministry, which I found more to my liking because I was told it was good to follow and nudge and harass my husband, I ended up not following the wise teachings of RMI and ultimately, I got lost. I was wandering in the desert along my journey.

Mercifully, God was good to me. He brought me people to help me when I was about to be shipwrecked, people who advised me not to continue with the divorce, but I was still a rebel. So, I changed churches, and I finally found a pastor who believed in restoration. He had read Erin’s book, and told me I needed to begin to change by helping other women who, like me, were struggling and needed restoration for their marriages. I began a restoration ministry in my church, which helped to strengthen myself spiritually. Soon I began to see many marriages restored.

Yet, things began to get worse for me, My husband was still attending church with the OW, but my pastor reminded me of what Erin said, nothing was impossible and it was because I was ministering that the enemy was attacking me. He said I needed to continue believing that God would restore my marriage, but the whole church saw me as an idiot, a poor delusional woman, and their advice was to get a new husband and let my husband be happy with the OW.

Finding someone new was no longer something I wanted, but because I did not follow the principles I learned here from RMI, but began following what I learned in the first restoration ministry, I continued to experience my husband's rejection. For three long years, there were at least a dozen frustrated attempts at reconciliation, and after each one failed, I wanted to die. Each time I saw my husband return to the arms of the OW, and each time he returned, he was forced to make it clear to me how much he loved the other woman. This is what “not letting go” will do to a relationship. There’s no doubt I hurt myself every time he came and went. But I understood, and the Lord confirmed to me that he was a prisoner, and that only God could deliver him. And that would only happen when I pursued my relationship with my HH, not my EH. Making my HH my first love.

What principles, from God's Word (or through our resources), Micaela, did the Lord teach you during this trial?

God showed me that my HH needs to be our everything, be everything to us in our life. Unfortunately it took me a long time to accept the idea of ​​seeing the Lord as my Husband. I wanted God as my Father, as I never had a father present. I don’t remember ever sitting on my father's lap, or receiving any affection from him. So it was easy to let go of an earthly Father because I already felt this love from God. Now with God as my Father, I reluctantly began to look at the Lord as my Husband. God had already promised me in Isaiah 54.

God told me to “Fear not, for you will not be put to shame; And do not feel humiliated, for you will not be disgraced; but you will forget the shame of your youth, and the reproach of your widowhood you will remember no more. For your Husband is your Maker, Whose name is the Lord of hosts; And your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel, Who is called the God of all the earth. For the Lord has called you, Like a wife forsaken and grieved in spirit, Even like a wife of one’s youth when she is rejected,' Says your God. Instead of your shame you will have a double portion, and instead of humiliation they will shout for joy over their portion. Therefore they will possess a double portion in their land, Everlasting joy will be theirs. For I, the Lord, love justice, I hate robbery...and I will faithfully give them their recompense and make an everlasting covenant with them. Then their offspring will be known among the nations, and their descendants in the midst of the peoples.”

At that time I returned to read the book How God Can and Will Restore Your Marriage again but with my new HH in mind and also to do the studies regarding having a HH, going through FAL and also LAL. I also left the ministry in my church in order for my new HH to be my Spiritual leader. And that’s when I began to tithe to RMI, to Surrender and Trust Him where I was spiritually fed, in order to become spiritually strong. What I lived through was a very long and painful journey. And the reason it was so long and painful was because of me. I was, myself, my biggest stumbling block— me, and no one else. It was me and my heart of stone that caused such a difficult journey.

What were the most difficult times that God helped you through Micaela?

There were many difficult times that I went through. In the first few months I lost about 80 pounds due to being in so much pain and despair. On several occasions I asked for death to take me; I asked this many times at the altar. It was very humiliating to see my husband pass by singing the praises of God, telling everyone that he was so in love while I was torn apart. God mercifully protected me, for over a year. Although he lived in the same neighborhood, I did not see them together at the beginning. Later, when I began following the principles from the standers, the humiliation changed. I began to see them everywhere, almost every week. I’d see them together in the car, and driving on their way to church on Sundays.

It took seeing my husband doing everything for her that he never did for me to finally break me and to stop pursuing him. Erin is right, when you chase husbands they will flaunt their sin and try even harder to get away from you.

In addition to the pain of my relationship, I also went through a lot of financial difficulties. At one point, I was almost evicted from the house where my son and I lived, which belonged to my in-laws. My mother-in-law set up a situation to get me out. Then I began tithing to my storehouse, and a year later, God allowed me to buy my own house. But by this time I was very tired of my journey, after the tenth attempt of reconciliation, when I saw my husband return to the OW again and again. Due to me pursuing, not letting go, returning to the teachings of standing, I’d repeat this again and again.

Finally it was the RMI courses that taught me, taught me a lot, mostly not to try but to trust. How can I warn other women not to stand, not to hold on, but to let go? I want to save them from the pain I endured, facing so much hopelessness, so much humiliation, times I wanted to die. I came through very painful times, but coming here to RMI, finding my HH, God freed me, He humbled me, He forgave me and finally, I came to the place of no longer wanting my earthly husband as husband, I wanted the Lord as my Husband. That’s when everything changed.

Micaela, what was the “turning point” of your restoration?

That was the turning point, to see that I could not expect anything from my earthly husband, that the only One who loved me,

who cared for me was God, my Father, and my HH. It was for Him that I would live and who I would care for. What’s sad is that this happened only after my tenth attempt at getting my husband back, which frustrated my youngest son, to the point that he left the church, stopped praying, stopped reading the Word, gave up on everything and began to fall into a deep depression. He missed so much school and this forced a meeting with the school where both of us had to attend. This caused a forced contact with my ex, as the father, but it was not my choice, it was for my son. Sometimes he was polite, sometimes rude, but I was really tired of hoping he’d be who I wanted him to be. At that moment I only cared for and would return to the arms of my HH.

Tell us HOW it happened Micaela? Did your husband just walk in the front door? Micaela, did you suspect or could you tell you were close to being restored?

I did not know anything about how my ex-husband's life was going. My son would not tell me anything and I would not ask anything. Then one Sunday the phone rang and it was him. He called to say he wanted to come over to see our son, something that he never did in almost three years of our separation. He never came to my house to see our son, so that’s when I knew something was happening. So I asked my children to be there when he came, but knew I should leave the house, and that before I would come back, I would send a message so that they would let me know if their father had left before I arrived back.

This was my test, and it pleased God when I passed it. He saw that I’d stopped trying to manipulate, to leave my restoration to Him. So that very night as I was returning, there he was, my husband hadn’t left. He stood there in tears, weeping a lot. I could not ignore what I saw, so I went to him and asked if I could help. We talked all night. he told me that he had left OW, told her that he wanted to go home, to go back to his family, and that he needed all of our help.

A few days later, he came home with all his things, and today, five months have passed since he has been back. What I didn’t know is that our divorce was never recorded, that he stopped it because he knew he was not to get married to the OW even though there was a lot of pressure from her to marry.

I know that our journey will continue and we must continue to follow the principles so we can learn to again be a family. Gradually he is starting to be as affectionate as before. He tells me that he will go with me to the end of our life together, which is something we always said to each other. We said we would grow old together.

One day I told him what saved me and changed me, was having a HH and that same day he called me on the phone to tell me he will never cease to love me. I know that God is moving his heart in my favor. I realize that for him things are not easy, but all I ask of God is that He give me wisdom to tread carefully every step of my journey, because everything I'm already living I can already say that it was all worth it. To have found my HH and His love at last, which changed everything.

Would you recommend any of our resource in particular that helped you Micaela?

Reading the book How God Can and Will Restore Your Marriage is a great start, but I recommend taking the courses, because the courses are what soothed my soul, and help me move forward along my journey. It was only coming to the site daily to take my course, read the daily Encourager blog, and witnessing other women who were being thankful for things so seemingly small and insignificant, which made me understand that only by gratitude will we be healed from the wounds of our soul, that my restoration progressed and I never faltered as before.

So I tell everyone who wants restoration to read the Restore Your Marriage book, but then to take every possible course. Take each as many times as necessary, and also try hard to put each principle into practice.

Would you be interested in helping encourage other women Micaela?

Yes, that's my biggest wish.

Either way Micaela, what kind of encouragement would you like to leave women with, in conclusion?

Never give up on your spouse, pray for his life, but first ask God to do His will in your life. Do not make restoration an obsession. Stay away from standers. Let God be your Father, take the Lord as your Husband. Your HH is the only One who will love you and take care of you, and give you everything you desire. Save time each day to sit quietly beside Him. No one can claim that God will restore every marriage, but I can affirm that God knows what is best for your life, and the best that God offers is what will make each of us the happiest.