Hope (Marriage Testimony)

After 7 or 8 years into our marriage, I had a hardened heart because of unfulfilled expectations and disappointments while facing new and difficult circumstances. It was like the perfect storm. I was dying inside, but no one knew. I had carried a lot of resentment and unforgiveness into our marriage from our dating years. Unprepared and desperate for change, I decided to do things my way and slowly began to plan my way out of it. I prayed often, as I always have, and attended church weekly and even served in children’s ministry. In this place of prayer I sought the Lord with many tears. But one night while praying on my bathroom floor I heard what I perceived as an audible voice that said to me “Are you going to go My way or are you going to go yours”? To my surprise, my tears dried up and I got scared. First: because I knew that I didn’t speak that to myself. Second: because I knew that He knew. Thirdly: His question clearly stated two different routes. I was shocked that He would not go with me; I knew that I needed Him to make it. For the first time that I can remember I feared the Lord which the Bible explains “is the beginning of wisdom” (Psalm 111:10). I made the decision to go His way, but the rest of me would have to catch up. My friend asked to meet me for coffee and offered me a book (The Power of a Praying Wife, by Stormie Omartian). I was not a reader at the time, but I told her that I would. As I read the introduction, I remember reading that “if you pray for your husband, you’re praying for you, because you’re one”. I knew that I needed a lot of prayer, so I just made a simple commitment to just read. At the end of each chapter was a prayer, and even though I “just read them,” God took those prayers and began to work in my heart and in our marriage. When I finished the book, I read it again and then ordered more of Stormie’s books. I began to learn His Word and how to pray His word over my husband, my life, my boys and my marriage. I began to know and believe that I would “see His goodness in the land of the living” (Psalm 27:13). I saw that I had a hope and a life flowing from within me that did not depend on any outside circumstances going “right” as I would define it. About 5 years later, at our new church, we had a team of people praying for us that had never met us before. As they read the words they had gotten from the Lord for us, they were being recorded on tapes so that we would have them. One of the ministers on the team was apologizing to us because when he was giving me my words on my tape he said that he had prayed for me, but Jef would come along, and then he tried to pray for Jef and I would come along. He could not separate us because we are intertwined with each other with the Lord as a “threefold cord that’s not easily broken” (Ecclesiastes 4:12). That was his word for the both of us on my tape. I believe that the Lord wanted me to know what He did for our marriage with a little bit of hope in my heart. He's the only One who can create such a masterpiece with just a willing heart.

We will be celebrating our 19th wedding anniversary this coming year 2011, and now we are happier than we ever thought possible.

Prayer
I thank You Lord that You give us beauty for ashes. You're the One able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think. We give You all the glory. In Jesus' name, Amen!

Psalm 27:13 I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.

Radio Testimony: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/coffee-and-the-word/2011/02/10/a-little-bit-of-hope-a-powerful-marriage-testimony?sms_ss=facebook&at_xt=4d53163092ae0858%2C0