♕Today's Promise: "That they may keep you from an adulteress, from the foreigner who flatters with her words” Proverbs 7:5
Linda, how did your Restoration Journey actually begin?
My husband and I had just celebrated our 20th anniversary when I began to notice things were not quite right. We were going through some very difficult financial times and I wrongly assumed that was why he was not quite himself.
He came in on April fool’s Day and told me he was leaving. I was shocked! He had always been the giver in the relationship and he had always seemed to be so crazy about me. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I immediately began to seek God and knew from the beginning that I was to do whatever it took to restore my marriage.
Unfortunately, I tried to do so in the flesh for about nine months until I found the Restore Ministries' website. My husband was involved with a woman that I would have never imagined in my wildest dreams would interest him at all. She was one of our customer’s daughters, a former drug addict.
She had spent time in prison for breaking and entering to support her drug habit and she had abandoned her own three sons. Unknown to me she pursued my husband not only at work, but after we invited her to our church. While I was busy serving, she was taking my place. She basically wanted my life: She wanted my husband, my children and my home.
Of course, when my children rejected her, she quickly began a campaign to separate my husband from his children and grandchildren. She flattered my husband and made promises she couldn't keep. Adultery was a way of life for her and my husband was just one of her many victims just as you explain in your book.
Once I was given this knowledge it let me know that our marriage was in serious danger, and so when I searched for help—I found it! Wow!! As soon as I read the Restore Your Marriage book, it was my new life and I began to live it. I must have read it ten times in a row before I stopped to take a breath.
Though I was living it I knew it wasn’t enough. To come against what was coming against me, I began teaching from it and from the A Wise Woman too. That’s when things started to turn around immediately!
How did God change your situation, Linda, as you sought Him wholeheartedly?
Teaching gave me an opportunity to confess regularly that I was very much a contentious woman. My husband and I were Christians but neither of us was living our faith. Then, by reading the books, having a fellowship in my home, I changed from being contentious to becoming a gentle and quiet spirit. I began to try to be like the woman I wanted to be as described in Proverbs 31.
Instead of arguments, I began to agree with everything my husband said. This included all the praises he said about the woman he was involved with, agreeing to a divorce and all the outrageous stipulations. Not surprisingly I enjoyed staying up and praying all night and found much comfort in fasting (something I never could bring myself to do). Not only did I wear out your book, I wrote hundreds of Scriptures on cards and relied solely on God’s Word, constantly, until I would humbly quote the scriptures in my spirit 24/7.
At one point I began praying God’s Word out loud and that is when my friends and grown children noticed the change in me. They said it first, and then my husband began to notice. Soon my husband started to call and came by more and more often just to see me.
What principles, from God's Word (or through our resources), Linda, did the Lord teach you during this trial?
By following and obeying nearly every principle in the restore book, I was “blessed” when God allowed a second woman to come in to my husband's life, and through her, I knew then that I’d have to obey completely in order to see my restoration come. That’s when I realized obedience was just the beginning of my journey, the Lord wanted to be my first love and when I finally got that, things began to change in my heart and I no longer began to care about restoration! Imagine that!
That’s when God was free to work on my husband. I realized that as long as my heart was knit to him, the Lord would not touch him. My husband and I were well known and respected in our community. We were also very well off and well thought of. But due to my husband’s adultery, like you say in your books, we began to get into a terrible financial condition. During our journey, we were about to lose everything: our business and with it our financial troubles had legal implications. We should have lost our new home, but by God’s grace and mercy, the bank didn’t want our house!! I knew it was God and God alone!!
What were the most difficult times that God helped you through, Linda?
We won two of our legal battles, but my husband was sentenced to two years in prison because he had signed a false banking statement. Looking back, God was so good through all of this: we had sown bad seeds for years and we’re reaping the consequences. Not only was my husband in trouble, but one of our daughters who had never given us any trouble was pregnant and my grown son was battling a serious drug addiction.
Many times I thought my husband was coming home and would panic because at this point I was so content with my life with the Lord as my Husband and first love. Thankfully each turned out to not be the Lord’s timing with His will for my life.
Linda, what was the "turning point” of your restoration?
It was right after Thanksgiving that my husband asked the second OW to move out. He came to our house the day before he went to be sentenced (he had kept his sentencing a secret from me – clearly God’s way to protect me!), and while here he told me five times that morning he loved me!
He hadn't said that in years! It wasn’t until I had no feelings for him, only for the Lord, would I hear what I thought would change my life and make me happy. But I had become happy hearing those same words from the Lord, “Linda, I love you.”
Tell us HOW it happened, Linda? Did your husband just walk in the front door? Linda, did you suspect or could you tell you were close to being restored?
That day my husband asked if we could make plans to celebrate Christmas with our kids and grandkids on December 23, which just happened to also be our anniversary. And when I agreed that’s when he told me about his court date, which was the next day. I didn’t say anything nor try to rescue or lessen the impact it was having on him because I knew better. God had truly changed me into a wise woman once I began ministering to women who were as desperate as I was when I found your site and ministry.
The next when he hadn’t called, I knew what had happened, that he had been sentenced and was on his way to prison. From that time until he left in January, things got darker and darker. Though most women in my fellowship couldn’t understand why God was not “blessing me” but almost punishing me, having the young new Christians watching helped me focus on doing the right thing. I had more than just myself (and my family) to think about.
The original OW was allowed back in our lives, and my husband ended up spending the holidays with her and her family. He would call late at night and got very angry when I missed his call the last time he tried to call before he left for prison. He even opened a bank account with the other woman and made plans for a future with her. Those who watched were devastated and I have to confess it tried to get me down too. But I continued to trust what God said, not what I saw.
Again, things began to get even worse. Shortly after my husband went to prison, my son got arrested for drugs. One Sunday morning while I was driving to take insulin to the local jail for my son, I hit the bottom, my faith gone, and I remember saying: “Lord, look at my life: my son is in jail and my husband is in prison. My life does not really glorify You.
I am obeying and I am teaching other women what You have shown me, but why would they want to do this when they look at MY life?” Then, without Him saying anything to me, I just began to praise him through my tears!!
That very afternoon my husband called and my true restoration began. He asked and I felt led to visit him in prison. That’s when he began to write love letters to me— I have close to 200 wonderful letters as proof to what God can do!! In one he asked me to marry him again! Soon after his proposal, our son was given a court ordered to attend a rehab.
It’s been three years since my husband and I have been restored—but not just to me, but to the Lord, to our children and also to our grandchildren. And due to his love for the Lord that we share, we are more in love than we have ever been in all of our lives! And what a testimony to all of the ladies I have been teaching for 18 months. Though some left, the ones that remained got to see the glory of God in full force. Now they never grumble about what they are going through or how bad it “looks” because no life could look worse that the way mine looked the more I began helping other women.
Would you recommend any of our resources in particular that helped you, Linda?
When I found Restore Ministries, desperately searching the web for help, I have to tell you that I had nothing to offer God but my mistakes. I was suffering and my family was suffering because of my disobedience and contentiousness that led to my husband being so vulnerable to the seduction of the adulteresses (and not one but two). It’s when I realized God could use my mistakes to teach other women that my life really changed. And if I would simply tell them what not to do, what I had done, then God could take this horrible mess I had made and use it for His Glory—and He did!!!!
The most important book every married woman should read is How God Can and Will Restore Your Marriage. But once in crisis I also listened to the videos and taught dozens of women out of the Wise Woman.
Would you be interested in helping encourage other women, Linda?
Yes
Either way, Linda, what kind of encouragement would you like to leave women with, in conclusion?
Everyday is such a gift to me due to the women that God has brought in to my life! And because the restoration of my marriage HAS brought glory to God, it has given so much hope to the ladies I’ve met and with whom I’ve shared my faith and love for my Savior, who have since began making Him their beloved Husband too!
