What brought you to RMI? Please use this space to briefly let our readers know what your life was like when you first found us, Violet, so our readers understand just what a miracle your restoration is.
Violet, how did your restoration actually begin?
We were married for thirteen years, and during this period, there were always differences looming between us. Before we got married, a civil service, there were several separations. Once I found your ministry and began to apply the principles, God began gradually transforming my husband as he began to search for God and go to the church. We soon began volunteering but as members of the church, they began putting pressure on us to be married in the church. They actually were forcing us, saying that we had to get married. Then due to the difficulties and to know and believe that we were already married, I spoke with the Lord and that’s when He gave me a word I had never heard before, I heard, You will be saved, you and your household. I thought well, I’m already saved, I got saved eight years ago.
But, out of obedience to the Lord (more than what the church was pressuring us to do), we married again in the church. Then I began fighting and believing and begging God to save my husband (when I was not saved myself. But at the time I had no clue).
For five more years, His mercy kept us married, but when I lost my mother and father in a tragic car accident, I shut down and when I did start interacting again, that’s when all the fights started too. They soon were getting worse and worse fights until it broke us. I know now that my house was not built on the Rock, so when these rains hit, my family was washed away. One day my husband up and left taking my two teens left with him.
How did God change your situation Violet as you sought Him wholeheartedly?
In the face of such utter despair and pain, I began to seek help with a counselor (recommended by several friends and our church). Yet, that’s when the wounds began to fester. Instead of helping I became angry and bitter. I spent the nights awake, for a week or more at a time. Soon I began relying on the prescription drugs I was given.
Without being able to sleep and no longer reading the bible (that stopped soon after I began going to counseling), I was just about to take more medication that night when I entered a site and they were talking about a website that helped marriages in crisis, and for the first time, I believed there was hope.
What principles, from God’s Word (or through our resources), Violet, did the Lord teach you during this trial?
What I learned, what I was taught here was about me. I realized that I was the person who was totally wrong and who had become a quarrelsome woman. This happened soon after I read the book How God Can and Will Restore Your Marriage and I began to take the courses and read the daily Encouragement.
What I never expected is that at a marriage ministry I could be helped off my medication, stop paying the high price of counseling that cost me not only money—but my health and state of mind. But of course, as most everyone who is here knows, the greatest discovery is finding His love. Realizing I am the bride He’s longed for. It is His love that heals, heals everything. The loss of my parents, the loss of my children, the loss of my marriage and husband. Everything.
What were the most difficult times that God helped you through Violet?
Without a doubt, it’s when I had to forgive all the people involved. I had to forgive my pastor, husband, children, parents for dying (as stupid as that sounds I was bitter and angry), everyone. Next was to let go and trust that He was in control, and allow Him to make the necessary changes in my heart.
Violet, what was the “turning point” of your restoration?
For sure it was when I finally (with the help of His love), managed to let go. I poured bottles of pills down the toilet. And rather than panic, I felt for the first time that I would make it. The other turning point was when I no longer thought only of the restoration of my family, but in my own transformation and my intimacy I had with my HH and also telling Him (when I sensed it was getting close) that I thought that I was not ready and would prefer it just be the two of us, my Beloved and me. Like every testimony seems to say, that’s when He really kicks restoration into action.
Tell us HOW it happened Violet? Did your husband just walk in the front door? Violet, did you suspect or could you tell you were close to being restored?
No. I did not suspect it could happen so quickly, but in my spirit, I could sense it was close. While he was away he did not talk to me, not at all. He only communicated through our children who I saw once or twice a month. And based on what I heard from them, it seemed that the Lord was not doing anything to turn his heart or change our situation.
Yet I didn’t care. I became a student of the Word, focusing on the lessons that were changing me and healing all my past. I remember that I was doing a lesson when I got a text message. My husband asked me a question regarding our son, but I was a bit afraid to reply for fear of speaking what I shouldn’t. So I used the verse “Even a fool is considered wise when keeping silent” and didn’t text back.
Three days passed and another text came in. I ignored it because I thought by replying it would be due to my own desire for restoration, and I didn’t want to fall into that trap. Another three days passed when I got another message. When I looked at the message it was my husband asking me a question. It said, Will you be at work tomorrow? I knew he was forcing me to interact, but again I said nothing.
The next day he arrived when I was just leaving work and asked if he could follow me home so we could talk. When he got there he began by asking if I would be able to start taking our son to school each morning. That’s when I relaxed. However, the longer he spoke, the more affectionate he became, first in his words, then by coming to sit next to me. When I said I really needed to get up in the morning, he asked if he could stay there with me, to sleep. I hesitated a little, then I remembered that we were married and the lessons on remaining intimate. So he stayed and we were intimate.
In the morning everything seemed different. During breakfast, he told me he’d heard how different I had become (from my children) and that he knew we needed to be a family again.
Would you recommend any of our resource in particular that helped you, Violet?
How God Can and Will Restore Your Marriage first, and then A Wise Woman that I still study. At night I study a WW and just recently my husband has begun reading A Wise Man.
Would you be interested in helping encourage other women Violet?
Yes, maybe.
Either way Violet, what kind of encouragement would you like to leave women with, in conclusion?
The Lord is truly faithful. When He speaks, He fulfills. His Word is able to heal and never comes back void. Do not look at what you see, just look at you, look at Him. And then with all certainty, at the right time, not before or after, once He has healed you from all your pain, He will give you what your heart desires! Make Him first, your One and Only. Seek the Lord in everything that you do. Follow His Word to the letter, no matter how much you think you will not be able to. Finally, remember it is not you but the Master who makes the changes in you—trust Him and only in Him and He will do it.
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