Stood Stunned Holding Groceries as EH Drove Off!

Stood Stunned Holding Groceries as EH Drove Off!

Luna, how did your restoration actually begin?

One day in late September my husband left home to live with another woman. He had already had a loving relationship with her, but I actually did not suspect anything. I always believed in him, we are an evangelical couple in ministry, and we married in the presence of the Lord. I only found out what was going on after he left the house.

Once he left, I logged into his email and saw that he had leased an expensive apartment the month before he left. The OW left her husband in September, the date of the lease, and took her two young children to live them in the apartment. For the six months before he left home, he would argue with me a lot, always finding something to fight about. About this same time, he’d come home very late, and about a month later, he began to sleep in another room. It was only after he left that I was able to put all of these signs together.

Also after he left, I hired a detective and found that the woman worked with him. It was horrible to see the photos and videos the detective gave me—what I paid to see will forever be burned in my memory and heart. What a horrible mistake! Not becoming of a Christian in leadership.

From the moment he left, I prayed a lot, I cried at the Lord's feet, I prayed before dawn, I fasted, I read the Word of God. I even tried to call him, apologizing and begging him to come home. It was too little, too late he said. Sometimes he would scream that he wanted to be happy and that he was seeking happiness, and that’s why he would never return home, that he did not want to live with me anymore. So I spoke to the Lord: “Nothing is too difficult for you. Dear Lord, remove my husband and deliver him out of the yoke of the sin of adultery. Give your angels orders to go where my husband is and set him free from this yoke of sin."

One day I prayed and asked Him how long I would suffer in this way. I asked Him to speak to me in His Word. The number seven, the number of completion, is what I saw. This happened in the month of April... so I knew that I would travel along my journey for at least that long. I was comforted, thinking I could make it that long. Then I started to ask the Lord to shorten the time, because I thought that it was going to take too long and I was afraid I could not wait. I thought it would be very sad and lonely to have to spend Christmas and the New Year without my husband. Yet, as I took His hand and began my journey, I found that He was all I wanted, needed and began to live for.

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

Browsing the internet for “marriage restoration” I discovered the Restore Ministries International site and purchased the book How God Can and Will Restore Your Marriage which for me was the most valuable help in my restoration. I immediately began to renew my mind that resulted in my behavior as a servant of God, everything in my life completely changed as well. I confess that I have always worked for God, have been in ministry for years— but my marriage was a failure! I had so many defects, so many failures that I committed during my 20 years of marriage. Why isn’t any of what I learned taught in the church? I still wonder.

For the first time in my life, I began to look at my faults as He revealed them, I asked the Lord for forgiveness. Each day I asked Him to transform me and asked Him to love me in order that I could love my husband the way He loved me. I told the Lord that I knew I needed to forgive him, and even the woman who was with him, in the same way He had forgiven me. I forgave both before the Lord and soon after, my husband started to come to spend his lunchtime at our house and every day I treated him better, made the menus the way he always liked and finally became the wife I knew pleased God.

My husband was able to see the changes the Lord made in me but when he spoke to his family he said he did not believe I had changed very much. Regardless of what was being said and reported to me, every night my children and I prayed for the Lord to bless our home and also for the salvation and deliverance of their father. My eldest daughter is fourteen years old and my son is almost ten years old, and because they asked, I have always been able to talk to them a lot about what I was learning in the RMI materials. So I taught them to love their father and to respect and honor him even in this situation. To love the unloveable.

The Lord led me to think differently than what I saw, so I began to behave as if he was not living with anyone, and my daughter followed my lead. She would ask him to go out with her school friends, she listened to his advice and respected him—something she hadn’t done since she was quite young.

After the New Year, after one of the best Christmases we’d ever had, the Lord laid on my heart to fast for 40 days and during these 40 days, I prayed without ceasing. On the last day I shouted out that the walls between my husband and me would fall completely. During this time God was giving my husband a new heart.

The mistake I made happened on my son's birthday. I decided to invite some of the members from our church and I invited my husband too. He came, but at 10 o'clock he left in a hurry, saying that he was very tired, did not say goodbye to anyone, then simply ran out the kitchen door. This foolish act of mine caused a new wall to be erected, yet God is merciful, and He allowed me to repent (to Him). So from this day forward I realized that what the book said was true. It is how GOD can and will restore. It’s when we as women get in His way that prevents restoration from happening.

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

Be faithful to the Lord, let GOD restore your marriage. Make sure to read the Bible, meditate on it and let His words wash you. Wear out the books How God Can and Will Restore Your Marriage as I’ve said before this book was invaluable to me, and be sure you also are prepared for restoration by learning everything in A Wise Woman. Meditate on the verse: “This is the Lord’s doing; It is marvelous in our eyes.” Psalms 118:23 So that you don’t foolishly fall into the trap thinking you did anything to bring about your restoration.

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

The worst times were when I found my children crying, weeping, when I realized how much they missed their father.

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

At the end of March he sent a message on my daughter's cell phone that he would soon return home and on April 1 he called me telling me that he was leaving the OW, and he came home. When he came in, he had us all kneel down to pray with him and we all wept.

Dear brides, he returned home after seven months, the month of completion. All I can do is THANK the Lord so very much because He is faithful and I am not. Even after all He’d brought me through, I still made so many foolish mistakes I’m ashamed but must confess this to you.

Just two weeks after he came home, I went to the store where he works as a manager. I came at the end of the day, with the excuse of getting a ride home, and I took my two children with me. My husband hated what I did. Out of anger, he left the store and left me there. I just stood there stunned holding bags of groceries while he drove off!

I took advantage of being left behind (this is when it gets ugly) and sought out and found the OW to talk to her—what a mistake—oh how I regret trying to finish what God had done! I told her that I would forgive her and that the Lord loved her, that if she would just bow down at the Lord's feet and ask for forgiveness she would receive salvation. Dear bride, would you be surprised to hear that after the OW told my husband what I’d done, my husband did not come home? Instead he went back to the apartment and began sleeping with her for two more nights. I found out where he’d gone because, again, I made the mistake of driving down the street where she lived and saw his car there.

Two days after I’d caused this horrible scene at his store, he came home again saying that he was going to leave her again but that he could not go on living like this. The Lord is merciful and does not look at our imperfections. I talked to him and I cried a lot, so full of repentance for the part I’d played in sending him back into sin. He continued living with us, but this time he chose to begin sleeping in my son's room. My husband did not come home completely free, this time, he still continued working with OW, and again I went back to my old ways too. I snooped and discovered on his cell phone the exchanges of several private messages to the OW. Even though he came home, they continued having a relationship, he began to stay with her, but said that he was traveling for work.

Again, because of me going back to my old ways, he made sure he told me that he did not feel anything for me, and I begged him to seek the Lord to bring the love back into his heart for me. But for the Lord to work, for the Lord to open his heart to me, I knew I had to put the Lord first and allow God to restore. If I go back to my old ways, so, too, will God remove the hedge He built and He will allow my husband to pursue the things of the flesh. I am the heart of the relationship, so if my heart is defiled, by not having my HH first, I know my husband will pursue his passions, like the OW.

Because of my folly, I heard from his family that OW now goes to church and goes to the prayer team and has asked for prayer for them to stay together. Unfortunately, due my contentiousness, my EH is not going to church any more and does not feel the need to go. His own family does not support what he's doing, and his mother asked him to give up the life of adultery. As promised, God kept His word to me. My husband lives in my house, with me, and we do have some intimate times together. But for the most part, we're living like two friends, because he always threatens to leave home again if I pursue him or try to talk to the OW.

My reason for this testimony is for me to make a public confession about my folly and foolishness in order to help women like you, dear bride, to grasp and live the concepts learned here. Not only for your own sake but also for the sake of your children.

God has restored my marriage, but I defiled it. Nevertheless, He will complete everything, first in me, and then in my husband.

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

After my fall from the changes He’d made and our first glorious restoration, I started to study all the restored marriage testimonies and go through the books How God Can and Will Restore Your Marriage again and again. Then moved onto A Wise Woman. I read all the written testimonies to see how I’d gotten off course, and have to say this was wonderfully edifying in my walk with Him along my journey—that I’d made so horribly difficult.

I confess that I believe I’ve finally learned how to behave myself, with a meek and quiet spirit, and to deliver EVERYTHING into the hands of the one Who can really help me. I promised Him that I would not go after information that He is trying to keep from me to protect me.

Every weekend my husband arrives home very late, but when he arrives, I now treat him with as much love as He’s given to me, and I know that the Lord helps me be the wife He’d first transformed—as if nothing had happened.

Dear bride, what I went through was such a hard lesson to learn, but I believe I have finally learned to give my husband and the entire situation into the hands of the Lord. I again make sure not to call him during the day or to send him messages. By the grace of God, I believe I have finally learned to let him go.

Though everything was much more painful, something very wonderful happened, because I discovered my HH. Now that I have a Husband of my dreams. I have approached each day more with the desire of pursuing the Lord not of restoration. I want to have an even greater intimacy with Him. I called two women in our church to do A Wise Woman. I was amazed by what happened next. I had been praying, speaking to my HH to incline my husband's heart and to help him turn away, again, from his transgression. Just this weekend he told me that he is looking for a job in a city many miles from where we live, and believes he’s going to get a new job due to a vacancy where his brother works.

He asked me if I would help him prepare his resume. He got the job so we are now moving.

By the way, this all occurred, as I said, after I began my A Wise Woman lessons with ladies from my church and after we’d all began tithing to our storehouse, RMI.

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

Yes, I would. I recommend, first, the book How God Can and Will Restore Your Marriage again and A Wise Woman. Once you study these books, be sure to begin helping other women you know who will hold you accountable, where you can confess your faults, cover your husband’s nakedness and to focus on each of your relationships with your HH and give praise for how His love is changing you.

Would you be interested in helping encourage other women Luna?

Yes, I believe if I’d been encouraging other women earlier, I would not have fallen back into my old ways. RMI and Erin says that this is what we should do, but I fell into the pit of thinking I had to focus on my own restoration, which led me to do foolish things. Only GOD can restore and He will do it if we let Him and focus on our HH and in helping other women.

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

Brides, seek and believe that only GOD can restore. The Lord is faithful in His everlasting love for us. Put Him above all else. May my testimony be an example and warning of what He wants for you but also what He wants to spare you from. May the Lord bless you greatly, you, your husband, your children and your grandchildren. May He reign supreme!!