One of the most powerful things I’ve seen at work in this ministry is the totally unexplainable power of humility and how it so effectively works in marriage restoration, which is why I often say I just wish I could make women (and now men…more about that to come!) understand it. So I was really pleased to get permission from Adrienne Enghouse to share her awesome restoration testimony, which was recently included in one of Judy Rousseau’s email messages. Since Adrienne plans to write a book about her experience some day, this is just a little preview of her powerful and touching testimony of how the Lord worked in her heart and life as He taught her the power of humility, which makes me sure she’d agree that one of the most confounding things about learning to walk in humility is how easy it actually becomes once we learn to put it into practice…and the peace it brings! An earlier SOF post, The Power Of Humility, quotes a lot of Bible verses about pride and humility, so I strongly recommend reading it, and NEVER forget God’s awesome promise in 1 Peter 5:5-7, which says Young men, in the same way be submissive to those who are older. All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. That’s why I love Adrienne’s testimony SO much; she vividly expresses and illustrates the reality of what it takes to walk out the above passage of scripture, which is something anyone standing for marriage restoration needs to pay very close attention to and LEARN from! So thank you, Adrienne, for your obedience and allowing the word of your testimony to be used to overcome the devil in accordance with Revelation 12:10-11, which says Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ. For the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down. They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death. I know everyone will be blessed and encouraged by it!

“I hear in my Spirit it is time. Time for what I ask. Time to share our story. This will be a brief overview of God’s great grace, mercy, forgiveness, and restoration. The book is to follow:) Where to start…when I was crying on the bedroom floor, when he had walked out, and left his ring…or when he looked at me and said, “I want a divorce” No a little farther back.* *

I was a Christian or so I thought. I prayed when I needed something. Praised when all went well. Mostly I pursued my career and wasn’t a Biblical wife. Would never dream of making dinner for my husband or straightening the house because he was coming home. After all I had worked all day taking care of the children. And the house, well he was the one with the problem with it, let him clean it. Blessing him, why didn’t he bless me. I did all the work. I sat through a class one time where a woman discussed this very thing and I scoffed. “What century is she from?”

Yep, I brought home the bacon, fried it up in a pan, and did the dishes. And…he didn’t appreciate me a bit. I had grown weary of working 74 hours a week and we still couldn’t pay the bills. I earned over $130,000 and I never saw my children. Didn’t care that much if I saw him. But when he said he wanted a divorce, my heart broke into a thousand pieces. My friends told me he was a bum and to get on with my life. People at the church I started to attend told me divorce was okay. Some of the pastors had been divorced. After all he had committed adultery. So, as I lay on the bedroom floor, in the fetal position. Crying so hard I couldn’t even breathe effectively anymore. I cried out to the only One I thought maybe could help. But that was the start of a faith walk like nobody could write about.

First I had to believe He was there. And all though through out life I had prayed, even praised. I really had never come to the core of…is He real. Well, like the M&M’s guys say, He really is real. I set out to find out. (more likely He set about revealing) And low and behold, one thing after another fell into place. My friend Kelly and I reconnected. Without me knowing it, she had been training in deliverance ministry. And we spent hours going through my life, repenting, undoing, and restoring, generational curses broken and wrong thinking changed, with the Holy Spirit leading the way. I soaked it up like a sponge. I was bone thirsty for the word of God and HIS promises. And as the chains broke off and I started to walk in that freedom, strange things started to happen.

I could hold my tongue in heated situations. I could be humble and even apologize. I could even apologize when I wasn’t really wrong. Just because God asked me to do it. Just to keep peace. I could be right, and lay down my right and let the other person think they were right. I could just shut my mouth, and let God be my justice.

I started to hear God and walk in obedience. But there was along season of feeling like I was walking in the new way, but was blind and kept running into walls. Or stumbling over rocks. I prayed about selling our dream house. But clearly “felt” like I should sell it. I called the broker who had sold it to us, and it sold in three days of being on the market. I called the tenants at our rental house and told them that we needed the house back. And they found a place to live in a few days. We needed a home for our St. Bernard. We were leaving 10 acres and moving back to the city. A man showed up one day who lived up the street and asked about Elvis. To this day we don’t know how he knew we were looking for a home for our dog. But he had two other St. Bernards, and twenty acres, fenced!!!! It was awesome. I was praying constantly and answers were coming in very miraculous ways.

But the one prayer that eluded me was, “God bring my husband home.” I begged. I pleaded. I cried. But again I get ahead of myself. The house sold. The children and I moved back to the old house. One day I was sitting in a parking lot of a Christian bookstore, crying. Waiting for them to open so I could buy some help book someone recommended. And suddenly I wasn’t in the car anymore, but I was standing before Jesus. And He held me in His arms, stroked my hair. I sobbed onto HIS beautiful robes, and yet they absorbed my tears, and there was no dampness on HIS robes. He told me, “this is not what I wanted for you. I will _contend _____ for you.” Now that should have been the end of the conversation. I mean I had come face to face with Jesus Christ of Nazareth. I had been given a promise from the ONE. But I continued to pray. I continued to cry out. In all of that crying out I learned alot about God. We had conversations about me. About my attitudes. About my view of HIM. About how I must think I am God. After all, my prayers were merely directives, telling HIM what I wanted. I asked HIM about strategy. How would He get my husband to return home? And He showed me. He showed me what my husband needed to be won over to HIM. He showed me that Stephen would need to experience unconditional love in terms he could understand. God showed me that He first loved me with unconditional love. When I cried,” I can’t do this anymore.” God reminded me that through HIM all things are possible. Not some things, but all things. Like that time my husband invited me to go camping. Showed up at the house and told me we wouldn’t be going. He was still going with the boys, and her. He then proceeded to take our family camping equipment and pack it into his car. I had cleaned it, packed food, gotten it all ready and now he was going to take it to camp with her. I thought I was going to die. As he started to pull out of the driveway God said, “Stephen forgot the watermelon. Go give him the watermelon.” I did. Before he got to the end of the block I was at my friend’s doorstep, sobbing.

Through all of this, God was teaching me to die to self. He was teaching me to walk in obedience and be humble. Like the Christmas I couldn’t afford a Christmas tree or anything for that matter. But God told me to go and buy one for Stephen, the woman he was living with at the time, and her son. I left work and drove toward their house. I said, “God where am I going to find a Christmas tree?” But as I approached the street, there was a Christmas tree lot. I said, “God, what if they already have a tree.” He said, “well then they will have two. But do you think I would send you out on a rainy night to buy a tree they already have.” Duh!!! I said, “God what if they are home. You told me to not tell them that I did it. ” God said, “Since I set this up, why don’t you let Me worry about the details.” And sure enough, nobody was there. The next day someone gave the children and I a Christmas tree. My husband called to talk to the children, and asked to speak to me. He never asked to speak to me without something nasty to say. So I braced myself, and he asked if I had bought them a Christmas tree. I asked God and He said to confess. I did, and I saw one of the first cracks in my husband’s heart. God told me to agree that the children could go there Christmas Eve night. With great pain, fear and trepidation, I agreed. This softened Stephen’s heart even more towards me. I was at home later that night, crying on the couch. When he and the boys pulled in the driveway. He spent the night and we woke up Christmas morning together like a family. That was the first time he came home. Much to my pain, he came and went several more times in the next two years.

There was a Christmas present under the tree because God had told me to buy it. Now, three weeks before Christmas my husband was not even speaking to me. Only cold stares, and mean comments, if he spoke to me at all. But God told me to spend every penny I had on a gift for my husband. I had doubts. Like what if she had bought him this item. What if he threw it back at me. But God said, “His response is not why you are obedient to me. You are obedient to me because of who I am to you.”
So I spent every penny on that gift. I had no money for the kids gifts. But I was not going to be concerned. God would do something. Well as you read above, my husband was there for Christmas, and shocked and humbled by the gift. A week before Christmas, my husband was at the house and a woman appeared at the door. When I answered she handed me a basket. Inside was almost the exact amount of money I had spent on Stephen’s gift, and alot of my very favorite goodies. The next day a woman on the Internet prayer group I belonged to sent me and Amazon gift card. It was a very blessed Christmas.

But my husband continued to pursue hard after a divorce. The settlement was terrible. No child support, and I was going to end up with the bills. My gut ached. I knew I couldn’t swing the bills. So again before the throne of God I showed HIM the divorce paperwork. I said, “What do I do about this? This is terrible. It is like he is getting everything he wants.” And God said, “Yes. I am going to let him have everything he wants…” There was a grin in God’s voice. Mischievous, He was up to something. And then it occurred to me, yes, yes, he is going to get everything that he wants. Then he will know that is not what he wants. I got it. I understood. What a perfect strategy!! God said, “Yeah, I thought it up myself.”

I asked God for a specific promise. Yep even after seeing Jesus Christ and hearing from HIS own mouth, I was still asking for confirmation and a promise. I was obviously a very tough case. But God told me, “I will deliver you from divorce” And He said, “We will face your worst fear.” I had know idea that my worst fear was divorce. I had come from a home broken by divorce. My mother had been married 5 times. It was so deep and painful but God showed me I was afraid and He would heal me. Again, duh!! I had to go through the divorce to be healed. I Okay, during those times of revelation, when God shows us deep, and mysterious things. It all seems so perfect, and of course it is perfect. But walking it out was very painful. Layer, upon layer, upon layer of flesh died. And when I thought no more could die, there was another layer. The first time I knew the kids were with my husband and this adulterous woman I raced over there in the car and picked them up. I was so angry. But the second time I walked out into the garden and started weeding. I cried out, “God how can you let this happen to them…to me?” And He answered, “do you trust Me?” Of course there is only one answer to that question, meekly I replied, “yes.” Suddenly I was overwhelmed with warmth, and joy!!! That yes would be put to the test 1000 times before this part of the journey ended.

This story only encompasses mostly the first year of our journey. There were many other women, broken promises and heartache. But I simply kept surrendering. Truly and honestly the number one thing that got me through all of this was to surrender to doing things the way Christ would have me do them. I was reminded if I was asked for my cloak to give my shirt. As for me, in any way a situation concerned me, I was to be at peace. If God asked me to do something He would provide a way to accomplish it. I learned to rely heavily on the HOLY SPIRIT to show me what to do in every situation. I learned that usually what I needed to do, was not going to look anything like the church or others thought it
should. I learned that God is a very BIG, BIG God and was almost always going to do something very unexpected. The tears didn’t stop in those 3 years. In fact despite the fact that my husband is home, I still cry out in pain,and frustration. They are short lived. I bounce back quickly and by the awesome grace of God, I am still standing. Only by HIS power and might could I have come through such a horrific time in life and be still standing. In HIS awesome grace, adrienne Bondservant to Christ”

Posted Friday, December 29th, 2006 at 8:49 pm in Seeds Of Faith.