(Note from Linda: Melissa’s powerful testimony reveals the key to REALLY getting to know God, and that’s the ONLY way we can stand for our marriages with the faith, confidence and peace that makes this such a wonderful and God glorifying journey! And there’s no doubt that when we understand that digging into God’s Word is the key to all we want and hope for, we will definitely be blessed and encouraged beyond belief!)

*****
Before standing for the restoration of my marriage, I struggled with really knowing who God is. I was raised Christian, owned a Bible, and knew many Bible stories; yet I didn’t know God enough to have a real relationship with Him. I pretty much put God in a box and thought anything that brought me closer to Him was of my own doing. I fell into that misguided idea of “free will” and falsely believed that God would not have anything to do with me until I Chose Him and His ways.

So after my first son was born, I began trying to repair my dysfunctional Christian walk. And as I began my pursuit of righteousness (without really looking to Jesus), I became more satisfied with myself and I felt like I was becoming an overall good person and that I was probably pleasing to the Lord. However, that kind of thinking was mainly based on my own self-righteous pride and actually caused me to look down on my own husband. His walk was “weaker” than mine, and he didn’t seem to understand scripture the way I thought I had so perfectly mastered among other things.

I did not see the plank in my own eye, and made it quite clear that the speck of sawdust in my husband’s eye was very much visible to me. Yet Mathew 7:3-4 says “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?

Regrettably, I would often blame my husband for every trouble we faced; linking it back to something He had previously done that was less than Holy. And since I believed we had to search for God to get closer to Him, I never really trusted the Lord with my husband and would take things into my own hands and try to force SNO (spouse name omitted) to choose God.

As I continued my walk with the Lord, I began to view my husband as an obstacle to my blessings and happy life. I thought I had given my marriage my all, and that because of SNO’s “free will,” I was being punished with a lifeless marriage full of bitterness, arguments and problems. I would pray for my marriage, but I never really gave it to God before our separation; I was too afraid to do that! God was too frightening to me, and I was afraid and almost certain that if I gave Him my marriage, I wouldn’t like what He would do with it.

As a matter of fact, the God of the Old Testament scared me so much that I dreaded reading it. I preferred the New testament, as I thought it revealed a totally new picture of who God is. To me, God only showed His love, mercy and grace in the New Testament. The Old Testament God seemed full of fury, anger, and unforgiveness to me. Yet, if I had read the Old Testament, I would have discovered how seriously mistaken I was. Passages of Scriptures found in Isaiah, Jeremiah, Psalm and practically every other Book in the Old Testament would have completely debunked my misguided view. For instance, Jeremiah 29:11 says For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Well, for anyone who doesn’t know it yet, let me assure you that God is the one responsible for calling us to Him. As Ephesians 1:4-6 reveals, For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will — to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.

And God gets our attention – no matter what it takes. Yes, our God is a loving God, full of grace, mercy, forgiveness and second, third, forth and fifth chances! No matter how bad we make things, He can still make our crooked paths straight when we just trust and obey! Proverbs 3:5-6 says Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. So no matter how much I messed up my marriage and my walk with God, He can and will straighten it all out when I give it ALL to Him!

But it was not until my husband walked away that I really started to know God. Actually, that’s when I clung to my Bible for dear life; it was like my life raft during the storm. At first, I tried reading the New Testament as I had always done. But no matter what happened, it was the Old Testament that kept popping up. It was as if God would open my Bible and highlight scriptures for me to read FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT. All of the passages I read were about forgiveness, restoration, God’s Divine intervention, His protection and His love! And all of the Scriptures I read at that time seemed to very particularly pertain to me at that exact time and moment. For the first time, His Word became The Living Word to me! And I finally began learning about his absolute power, and I started trusting Him with everything. It was through a related series of answered prayers, dreams, events and scriptures in a period of approximately forty-eight hours that the Lord ultimately led me to stand for my marriage! As a matter of fact, I remember flipping through my Bible mindlessly while talking to SNO over the phone. It was actually just a nervous habit; if a pen and paper were in front of me, I would have been doodling instead. But when I hung up, I heard God say “LOOK!” And as I looked down, I was in the Book of Hosea, and my study Bible had a big box at the top and in big bold letters, it read “Being faithful to an unfaithful spouse”

Well, God called me to stand, and only He could show me how to do it! So I immediately dug into His Word – both the Old and New testaments! I learned so much, so fast and couldn’t get enough. His promises to me were in abundance, and He kept every one of them. And He changed me completely through the piercing of His Word. Just as Hebrews 4:12 says…For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

My relationship with God is now the most amazing relationship I have and it is more than I could ever ask or imagine. He has become my first love and all other idols have been put back in their proper order. And I know that my marriage had to crumble for a season to bring about everything that needed to come to pass for the sake of my marriage, and for the relationship I now have with God. I know that what the enemy meant for harm, God meant for good! As Genesis 50:20 reveals, You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.

The process of standing for our marriages serves many great purposes. And we are blessed to be on such a journey. Yes, it hurts, but the pain is nowhere near the amount of joy we can experience if we truly saturate ourselves in God and watch Him direct our steps. There is so much He has to show us about Himself and our lives. And as we continue to walk with Him, we form a friendship that becomes so strong that it changes us entirely.

So I encourage everyone to count every day as a blessing. Look at this as a learning experience and really get to know God. This journey will serve as what will very likely be one of the most miraculous times in our lives. If we are not trusting God for everything we face, than we still don’t understand His absolute power and don’t know Him on the level He wants us to. If we just let go, He WILL be faithful to do as His Word says and He will complete the work He has started. That is the nature of God. He is not too harsh with us, as He has sent His Son to wash us clean in His eyes. He is not here to make our lives harder, but rather here to take our heavy burdens and make them light. God got our attention and He will do the same with our spouses so we need to let Him work on the other side of the mountain without our meddling hands. Instead, we should view every day as a precious moment in our season, and as an opportunity to intimately discover who God really is!

Posted Thursday, January 15th, 2009 at 11:02 pm in Seeds Of Faith.