RESTORED Marriage Testimony: “I Honestly Wanted to Commit Suicide”

♕ Today's Promise: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.” Proverbs 3:5-6

☊ RMT Audio

Martina, how did your restoration actually begin?

It all started when my partner, that's right, partner (because I wasn’t legally married and before coming here I wrongly called him my husband) went to live in another state. I didn't go with him, he didn't ask, he just left and when he got there he called me.

Betrayals began to be uncovered, not just his but also on my part. And because of many fights not only did he leave, but I began being unfaithful to our relationship.

Since I was raised in the church, my family is very religious but no one followed the principles of the Bible. But the Lord knew my heart and knew I was very sorry. So I agreed to get married soon after (he’d asked me many times but I refused) and when I got married I wanted to build my new marriage on the Rock.

This wasn’t what my EH had in his heart though, and soon after we were married he began avoiding me, staying on different sides of the house from where I was and I also noticed he started to lie a lot. He was gone most weekends and because he worked way out in the country, he often just stayed there rather than commuting back home (usually spending three days or four days away from me).

Soon I realized he was involved with another woman, then another! The first time it was very painful but my EH did not leave the house. I was prepared to divorce him but instead I studied all day to take my mind off things, and even when he’d be at home I was always studying and did not give him any attention. It seemed the more we talked, the more we fought and I was tired of it. I prayed and asked the Lord to please just resolve everything. He did.

After what happened and just when I thought that everything had normalized and peace would reign in our home, once again the enemy hit me hard, this time my EH was involved with two different OWs within a three-month period. What was worse is because knowing that he and I have no children, one of the OW had her children call my husband “daddy” which was the worst blow that anyone would give to a person who’s longed for her own children for so many years.

The OW used his kindness and love for children, to make him believe they were his children. When I thought it couldn’t get any worse, I heard from someone that she had become pregnant! I honestly wanted to commit suicide at the time.

Anyway during this entire drama, right in the middle of it, my EH gets involved with a second OW. Later he told me he worked with this woman and began to open up to her. He told me he couldn't tell me anything because he was so ashamed so this woman offered a sympathetic listening ear. He told her that my dream, besides getting married, was to be a mother and he also told her about the dream of us together of having a son and how I had continued working and how we had postponed having children so that he could give money to help his family (that he still helps).

In the end, throughout it all, through this terrible part of my journey, through all the trials in my relationship, I stayed in prayer and asked our Beloved to help me uncover everything that was hidden and wrong in my relationship with Him first.

How did God change your situation, Martina, as you sought Him wholeheartedly?

The Lord transformed me in such a way that even I did not recognize myself. In all the many situations that I mentioned above, I would never have been able to control myself before, but this time I was different, I was transformed.

First, my Beloved helped me have a gentle and quiet spirit, reminding me to always look to Him. In the beginning I would pray and fall on the floor begging my Beloved, but as soon as He became my HH, things were different. My faith was no longer very small, nor did I pray with doubt. The more I gave myself totally to the Lord and gave Him all of my heart, trusting His Word without doubting anything, soon great faith emerged, and I'd watch as everything would begin to be resolved with no effort or pain or worry or anything on my part.

I started to have such a very deep peace that I had never felt before or knew I could feel. Ours is something very special, my Beloved and I! I started to give my entire restoration over to our wonderful God, my Father, so I could just be a bride. I always thought that one day my testimony would help others like me, women forsaken and following religion, lacking a true relationship. I just can’t tell you how I feel right now that this day has come.

After I gave myself to our Beloved and asked Him to do everything according to His will in my life, I remained faithful and followed what the book asked me to do. I fasted, I agreed with my adversary, I let go, I did my courses daily, pouring my heart into each one. I cooled myself in the water of the Word.

I read HOW GOD CAN AND WILL RESTORE YOUR MARRIAGE more than three times over several weekends, and then began going through each of the Abundant Life courses.

Each day after my time alone with Him, I'd go immediately to your website and I'd do one or more courses. I sent in praise reports. As soon as I was being completely obedient is when everything happened. I began ministering to other women and boy it's then that I went through trials! But rather than back away, I knew it was the Lord who was testing me and because of His love, I was able to keep myself still and quiet and allow myself to be humiliated and didn't defend myself, but kept entrusting my reputation to Him who judges righteously.

I am very grateful to Erin for her book, for her devotion to her ministry even though so many have come against her. I know it's because she is helping so many women like me. Thank you so much for everything!! For not giving up or giving in. “Friendship with the world is hostility toward God. Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God” (James 4:4).

After I came through this, my Beloved brought me to live close to my husband who had moved into the country (it is where we are living now) and it's when I discovered that there was no child. The pregnancy was a lie. My GOD had resolved everything, and I thought we would be at peace. But no, the enemy wasn't done with me, with us, just yet.

Again the same OW told everyone she was pregnant, posting an ultrasound picture on Facebook, so he left me after he asked me to move in with him. It was the longest separation we’d had, a full three months. She pressed him in every way but I was calm and thankful I had more time to be with my HH and to have nature all around me; where I could feel Him even more than when we were living in the city. I simply trusted in the Lord and followed through with obedience and my husband soon returned.

What principles, from God's Word (or through our resources), Martina, did the Lord teach you during this trial?

The principles that helped me was to let go. If I hadn't, I wouldn't have been able to embrace my HH with my whole heart and being! When I let go completely I started to see the transformation in me and watch GOD take care of things that really seemed impossible. At first it was not easy, because I could not let go of my husband especially after we'd just married and the more I saw other women claiming to be his. I needed to really press into Him, and told my HH that unless He did it “in me”, I would never get what I wanted most, which now was Him!

Another very important principle for me was to be meek and quiet because before I could not control myself and all I did was talk, talk, talk and that led to fights and more fights. I always wanted to win in everything, I was a very contentious woman. It was fasting that tamed the shrew. I was too weak, as Erin says, to react and say something. These two principles were paramount to my transformation. The principle of keeping silent running only to my HH was also paramount. Because before I opened myself to family and friends and got more and more lost and confused. Once I started to open only to my HH my world changed.

What were the most difficult times that God helped you through, Martina?

The most difficult times that the Lord helped me through was right after my EH asked me to come to live with him and then he left saying his girlfriend was pregnant. I was alone out in the country, far from my family. Yet He used it for good because that's when I learned to run to our Lord and kneel down and cry. Soon I was not crying but praising.

Oh, also early on when I thought about suicide but the Lord helped me was a very difficult time. When I started to pray constantly, read the bible out loud and follow all that Erin was talking about in the book and videos I felt a lot of inner peace. I chose life! I read this part of her book over and over:

This is the time to choose. “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants, by loving the Lord your God, by obeying His voice, and by holding fast to Him; for this is your life and the length of your days . . .” (Deut. 30:19–20).

Martina, what was the “turning point” of your restoration?

The turning point was when I had my Love and wanted no other. He has sustained me and given me everything I wanted but didn't know I wanted when I began my journey. I want only Him. I came for a restored marriage, for the pain to stop, but when I got Him, when I wanted only Him, I got everything and so much more!!

Tell us HOW it happened, Martina? Did your husband just walk in the front door? Martina, did you suspect or could you tell you were close to being restored?

It happened suddenly one day. I came back from a short trip to visit my family. When I got home there were two children, two small children who I thought were his children (from the OW who weren’t his children). It caused me to stop in my tracks, but then in my heart I praised Him. That’s when I saw it wasn’t those children, but children from two of his friends from high school who’d come to visit. When he saw me he jumped up, gave me a hug, and told me to go grab a shower because we were going out.

As I was getting ready, my husband came in with a bunch of trash bags and his backpack full of his clothes. He didn't say anything to me, he just grabbed me in my towel and he asked me for forgiveness! When I looked in his face I realized he was different. He told me his friends showed up soon after he’d prayed and asked God to help him. His friends were Christians and when they asked how he’d been, he told them everything, confessed everything. They prayed for him and he said he had felt such a peace and the huge burden he’d been carrying was gone.

I’d decided right from the beginning of my journey that I would not tell God how I expected everything to happen, not my will but the Lord's will and do it just how He wanted it. As Erin says in her testimonies, books etc. that God will do it His way, so I just assumed there would be no repentance and I was fine with it. I trust the Lord who I knew would transform my EH heart at some point.

Soon after we were together, I found out I was pregnant and very soon we will have our first baby, it’s a boy. Everything I went through, it was necessary to be transformed and I thank the Lord so much for all of it. For every heartache, for every trial.

Would you recommend any of our resources in particular that helped you, Martina?

Yes! I recommend the book as God can and will restore your marriage, read the daily devotionals, read the Bible over and over and over again, read the day's psalms and proverbs, take the courses, read the testimonies, watch the videos and be sure to give your tithe to your storehouse. Just obey the principles. Write all the verses that Erin recommends, fast to be gentle and quiet and make Him your first love!

Would you be interested in helping encourage other women, Martina?

Yes

Either way, Martina, what kind of encouragement would you like to leave women with, in conclusion?

My beloved brides and fellow companions in this restoration journey, my words of encouragement to you is that you go ahead with great faith and do not give up. Follow everything Erin says with great obedience because today I am the one who has had my relationship restored but tomorrow it will be YOU for sure. Therefore continue to persevere, believing, fasting because if you do, it means your restoration is closer than you think.

Proverbs 3:5-6

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.”

Then Jesus said to the disciples, “Have faith in God. I tell you the truth, you can say to this mountain, ‘May you be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ and it will happen. But you must really believe it will happen and have no doubt in your heart. I tell you, you can pray for anything, and if you believe that you’ve received it, it will be yours. (Mark 11; 22-24)

Find more encouragement and overcome the hurdle of #Letting Go, #Gentle & Quiet Spirit and #Contentious Woman by clicking on the #TAG linked to Restored Marriage Testimonies.

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