I recently received something written by one of the FAM Fellowship members in which she shared her heart concerning something the Lord had revealed to her, and it really struck a cord of unexpected recognition in me, as I expect it may do in others as well. So thank you, Mindy, for letting me share what you wrote and how God used it to teach both of us something VERY important. And here’s what Mindy shared with me a couple of weeks ago:

“God has really been working on me, but this time I took off the boxing gloves and ran into Daddy’s arms. When we look into a pond, what do we see? When our children look at us, what do they see? When our spouses look at us, what do they see? When the world looks at us, what do they see? Are answer should be Jesus. But when I looked in the mirror, all I saw was me. Sadly, I realized that every time I put my two
cents in and believed I was assisting God in my restoration; all I was doing was throwing a rock into my reflection. So there was a ripple effect – a little of me and a little of God. But it can’t be that way. I also realized that I still had some anger, unforgiveness, self righteousness, and (the biggie) Jealousy left. Fortunately, God is faithful and lets us repeat the tests until we pass.

I got pretty upset because my husband had skipped out on coming to see his daughter to go to a party with the ungodly people who had influenced his adultery. But what I really needed to do was to have compassion and forgive them for they know not what they’re doing. Meanwhile, my husband didn’t go to the party and said I could ask his father if they played computer games that night, if I wanted to know the truth. Jealousy is a killer. But God was once again so gracious and cleaned up my mess.

I heard God ask “Why must you always try to destroy my work of restoration?” I said “You’re God…you know.” (I am so glad God puts up with me.) Then at Target, right before seeing my husband Saturday afternoon at my son’s birthday celebration, God said “Mindy, I want you to tell me.” I was cornered. I felt like a rabbit caught in a cage; so scared, yet angry. I said “God, I have been rejected since birth and I don’t need it from you too.” What I did my whole life was stuffed my pain. I did not go to God to heal me or help me deal with it. But I could not stuff being hurt by God. You see my court date is coming up; and I know I heard God say He was not going to allow the divorce and that He heard my prayer; and that my youngest daughter would not go back and forth; that He would not allow her to go through what her older sister went through. Now I know a lot of you are saying that God can restore even after divorce. Yes, He can, but my prayer and belief goes back to when my daughter was in my womb and I heard God audibly tell me that He would not allow the divorce. And He even brought local restored couples into my life to stand by my side and pray with me. So I said “God, I only have you and I believe you are the God of the bible, and that the stories are real and the word is alive. I’d rather die than be let down about whom I believe you to be. I believe your word and could not take rejection or being let down by you, Lord.” Then I said “I like being able to come and go as I please and not having to serve my husband every night. I am content in my circumstances.” And looking back, never in a million years would I have believed that possible! I said “God, you have taught me; you are my provider; you are my comfort; you are that ear that will always listen and not judge me. You are my best friend; you are the one who gives me peace when I could go postal; you are my husband and help with my children. Lord, you have given me joy in washing clothes
and cleaning on my own, when I used to complain. You are my healer and deliverer, so, Lord, I could not bear or fathom that you, my Lord, could not put love where no love exists, because you did it for me. I could not bear to believe your word that says ask anything in my name and believe and I will do it for the Glory of my father; or to see all the delays in the divorce proceedings; believe that you would answer my prayer about my daughter going back and forth; see how you brought couples with restored marriages who have ministered to me…I could not bear to believe you would do all this and then have you not do it.” But God said “I will never let you down and I am faithful. He pointed out that not one person in the bible that received a word or a promise from Him had ever been let down. He also said “I did not bring other ladies (names omitted) to you to minister too for their restoration and not do the same for you, my child.” God said “Give it to me. I will not hurt you.” So I did. I am on Cloud Nine and very peaceful.

This was nothing to do with my husband; but all with God. I am not even concerned about the marriage being saved. It was my heart not being able to bear that my God could not do something or that He was not real. But He is so real. Only He can touch my heart and make this past adulterous, that lied, stole, cheated, and manipulated, realize what
unconditional love is. It is God. Love doesn’t count one’s wrongs, or give expecting in return. Love sacrifices and bears all. I pray that if any of you are where I was, you will surrender your fears, because God loves us so very much. It is not about the miracle, everyone. It is about the road getting there. This is where we find true love, Jesus, and who we are in Him.

Jesus, I thank you very, very much. No one but you could have shown me what love is and restore me and clean out all of the garbage the enemy made me stuff inside of me. Lord, may you continue to use me to go out to your people and to the lost to let them know Jesus. You are simply the answer to all. I love you, Lord, and now you are my first love. Lord, deliver your children from pride, anger, Jealousy, selfishness and all that would hinder your divine work. Open the eyes of the prodigals to see who you are and may they, along with the rest of the world, see you, Jesus, when they look at us and be
drawn to you. Lord, save these prodigals/marriages for your Glory. In Jesus’ name Amen”

To be very honest, I was actually quite surprised and disturbed by how much I could relate to exactly what Mindy was saying. And I have a feeling a lot more people who are standing for the restoration of their marriages, especially those who have been standing for awhile, will relate to it as well. I had to admit that even though I consider myself a woman of strong faith in God, I had to acknowledge that something rang true in that part about not wanting to be disappointed in God; even to the point of holding back from believing with ALL of my heart and absolute certainty that He IS going to restore my marriage. Now, that was a pretty shocking and serious admission coming from someone in my position! And I could most certainly understand and relate to the part about not being so sure I even want my marriage restored, because I’m so used to doing things entirely on my own, the way I want to do them, without any consideration for anyone but me…and what if my husband has changed so much that I won’t feel the same way…and what if… Oh yeah, the recognition and acknowledgement of similar thoughts in myself sparked quite a bit of turmoil inside of me, and I spent the better part of the next week trying to understand where that was coming from and asking God to reveal what it meant. I was surprisingly very troubled in my own spirit, and couldn’t really understand why, but I knew that the confusion did NOT come from the Lord. But once I was faced with the realization that I was holding back from believing God would restore my marriage with ALL my heart, and even questioning if that’s what I REALLY want, I wanted to know why. One of the most obvious answers was that this is my second marriage, even though my first husband had remarried. So that sent me down the path of questioning what I had been pretty confident the Bible teaches about being released to remarry when one’s spouse has committed adultery. And another was fear that I MIGHT not be able to love my husband as I should and that I could disappoint or hurt him again. Oh yes, Satan was having a fine time playing with my mind, and God didn’t seem to be coming forth with any answers!

And it didn’t get settled in my own heart and mind until I started editing Mindy’s message for a SOF post a few days ago. And as I read it again, instead of being struck by the recognition of similar thoughts or feelings in myself, it became as clear as day what the problem was – with both me and Mindy! No matter how true and probable all of those issues might be, we miserably failed to follow what the Lord instructs us to do in one of my very favorite passages of scripture, which is Proverbs 3:5-6 (NJKV), because it says Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths. Well, we were most certainly LEANING and relying on our own flawed and limited human understanding, and we most definitely were NOT trusting God with ALL of our hearts or acknowledging Him in ALL our ways! And it’s unfortunate that we also failed miserably at heeding the counsel and instruction found in another one of my favorite verses; 2 Corinthians 10:5, which says We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. OUCH! OUCH! OUCH! Well, I certainly failed miserably at taking my own advice and practicing what I preach! And Mindy let her fear of what happened with her older daughter in the past loom larger than her experience and knowledge of God, and that caused her to focus on that to the exclusion of everything she knows and believes with all of her heart about Him – so she withheld that one little bit of her heart from God when it came to trusting Him. (By the way, Mindy and I have since discussed this and are in total agreement.) And I allowed my surprise and uncertainty upon recognizing something unexpected about my own “feelings” to lead me down a path I would not have gone down otherwise, and exalted my “need” and desire to understand that about myself over my experience and knowledge of God. But it did NOT change or alter my stand, because that’s something I do in obedience to God, which probably wouldn’t have been the case otherwise. And with both me and Mindy, just as I’m sure Satan does with just about all of us, he used the exact same tactics on us that he started using way back there in the Garden. He loves to whisper to us…”Did God REALLY say….”

I’m sharing all of this just to help anyone else Satan snares into sabotaging the work of restoration God IS doing, because they don’t trust God with ALL of their hearts, and don’t resist leaning to and relying on their own understanding; not to mention NOT taking EVERY thought captive and making it obedient to Jesus Christ and His Word. God really doesn’t want us to withhold even a tiny little piece of our hearts when it comes to trusting Him, because that WILL lead to thoughts, emotions, feelings and actions that serve in some way to sabotage His work of restoration in our marriages and lives. And one way to make sure to do that is to NEVER stop praising our Lord and Savior, which glorifies Him just as Psalm 86:12 says: I will praise you, O Lord my God, with all my heart; I will glorify your name forever. And another one of my very favorite passages of scripture that we can rely on when we trust God with ALL of our hearts, lean not on our own understanding, and acknowledge Him in all our ways and always praise Him is found in Psalm 37: 4-6, which says Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him and he will do this: He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun. So we have to STOP trying to understand everything and we have to understand that we DON’T need to figure everything out. We just have to trust God and do our best to DO everything in accordance with His written Word, and realize and ACKNOWLEDGE that HE KNOWS AND CONTROLS EVERYTHING…and that’s ALL we need to know. That’s what it really means to “be still” and KNOW that He’s God, and that NOTHING is impossible with Him. So the next time we find ourselves stressed, doubtful, uncertain, discouraged, frustrated, unhappy or dissatisfied (not at peace in the midst of our storms), we need to recall these verses and PUT THEM INTO PRACTICE. If we learn to do that consistently, the devil doesn’t stand a chance, and he will NEVER be able to steal ANYTHING from us again (especially our peace and joy) or lead us to say or do anything intended to sabotage and destroy the work of restoration we know God is doing! So I hope and pray you will learn from my experience and be blessed and encouraged!

Posted Friday, April 27th, 2007 at 5:05 pm in Seeds Of Faith.