♕ Today's Promise: “she must remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband...she is happier if she remains as she is...” 1 Corinthians 7:11
Jacelyn, how did your Restoration Journey actually begin?
I have always believed I was a Christian. I was raised in the church and my parents were always God-fearing. I dated for about four years before and at 29 I married my EH (earthly husband). From the beginning there was a very big spiritual struggle because he came from a family who didn’t really believe in God, unless they were low on money when they would pray for more.
Marriage was much more difficult than I could ever imagine, and have to say that my first year of marriage was terrible. However, I have always struggled to maintain my marriage and my family that hasn’t changed. I knew he was a man of the world, but because he went to church with me and was fearful of God at the beginning, I thought it was okay that we marry.
After just a year, I had our first son and after another two years later, our daughter. With each new baby the difficulties, fights and trials increased, but I always believed that one day he would change or that God would change him and He was listening to my prayers. Of course at the time I never dreamed I was the one who needed changing.
Early on he was unfaithful, then he got so bold that he started to commit adultery inside our own home, he even harassed our children's nannies but I always forgave him when he said he was going to change. Needless to say, he never changed. Each time I caught him and confronted him, it only made everything a hundred times worse.
Next, he left us and spent 2 months with OW (other woman), and then I heard she had been pregnant (which is why he left to live with her) and shortly after, he had a daughter. I suffered a lot, but what was worse is how much our son suffered. By this time he was 10 years old, so he already understood things.
One day after he was tired of the OW (other woman) and their new family, he came to me and asked if he could come home so I accepted (trusting him not trusting God that I learned we needed to do later), "Thus says the Lord, 'Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind and makes flesh his strength, and whose heart turns away from the Lord. For he will be like a bush in the desert and will not see when prosperity comes, but will live in stony wastes in the wilderness, a land of salt without inhabitant. Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord and whose trust IS THE LORD. For he will be like a tree planted by the water, That extends its roots by a stream And will not fear WHEN the heat comes; but its leaves will be green, and it will not be anxious in a year of drought nor cease to yield fruit." Jeremiah 17:5-8
So we started again and at first, I thought he was going to change, however, more than two years later he had become much worse. I discovered he’d entered the social networks and fell into a world of unimaginable prostitution. I wrote more about this but remembered it is important to remain discreet not advertising what the enemy is doing "It is shameful even to talk about the things that ungodly people do in secret." Ephesians 5:12.
Well, as you teach here “For on account of a harlot one is reduced to a loaf of bread, and an adulteress hunts for the precious life. Can a man take fire to his bosom, and his clothes not be burned? The one who commits adultery with a woman is lacking sense; he who would destroy himself does it. Wounds and disgrace he will find, and his reproach will not be blotted out.” Proverbs 6:24–33 my once rich and successful EH (earthly husband) lost everything, his job, and position, friends because he was so focused on a virtual world of sin. He never left his cell phone, night and day. One day I couldn't stand it and told him to leave the house. When he left he went to live in another city with his sister, then just after 2 weeks, he started dating OW (other woman) that he met through these social networks. I heard she was 10 years older than him and was a rich widow, so the doors the enemy opened for him were very wide.
I grieved a lot after this especially after being publicly humiliated and because he’d taken his other daughter (from the OW (other woman) born out of wedlock, which I had forgiven) and then began posting pictures of himself with the rich widow and his other daughter sharing everything with his family. Then at various times there were pictures of their many trips.
How did God change your situation, Jacelyn, as you sought Him wholeheartedly?
It all changed once the suffering became so severe that an aunt of mine gave me the book "How God Can and Will Restore Your Marriage", I read it immediately then reread it about 4 times, when GOD turned me upside down and inside out! Before this book, I just looked at his sin, then I started to see how I was foolish, quarrelsome, and everything else that a man didn’t like in a woman (regardless of his sin), God spoke deeply to me through this book, from there I entered on the RMI website. I took all your courses, and everything you had to offer. I started my day with the devotionals, purchased all the books with the testimonies, reading the word of God daily and in 3 months read through the entire bible for the first time in my life. Each and everything offered was like medicine that I took daily to keep myself alive and in the presence of God. Over time, I realized that God had removed him from my life so that HE would be my first love for the first time. I never really knew the Lord, didn’t realize God was my Father, but when all that changed, so did I!
What principles, from God's Word (or through our resources), Jacelyn, did the Lord teach you during this trial?
During this ordeal, He used you to teach me several principles, the most important and difficult for me were "winning without words" and "letting go." However, as you tell everyone, I sought God a lot and acknowledged He was restoring me, molding me. Most precious is that I found the love that I could never feel from anyone else. I finally felt what a Lover felt like, so much that I doubted if I wanted the restoration of my marriage because my HH (Heavenly Husband) was everything to me. The people around me were shocked to see just how much I was changing. Even though I felt kind of weird calling the Lord my Husband I had been rejected, I was grieving before He called me, so I started calling the Lord my Husband and it began to feel so right. “'For the Lord has called you, Like a wife forsaken and grieved in spirit, Even like a wife of one’s youth when she is rejected,' Says your God"–Isaiah 54:4-6. The old contentious woman was no longer in me.
What were the most difficult times that God helped you through, Jacelyn?
The most difficult hours were when I saw his and OW’s (other woman) pictures spread on all social networks, I didn't have social media anymore, after letting go of it but my family and friends watched and kept commenting or wanting to show me! Also when he disappeared, seeing our children and the suffering mainly with our son, was very difficult. He became very sick, almost went into a deep depression. To help, the OW (other woman) gave him a lot of money, material things, like cars, motorbikes, trips, pretending that his dad’s life was perfect.
Then, after a year and a half living there with the other woman, my EH (earthly husband) asked me for a divorce because he said he needed this to allow him to secure a land deal with the OW (other woman). I didn’t fight, I didn’t hesitate, I simply agreed with my adversary, giving him everything he asked for and ask God how I could give more as the principle says we are to do. After I signed, I simply asked the Lord to get rid of the divorce, but that if it wasn’t possible, if this was His plan, then to please just help me get through it enthusiastically as the book says.
Jacelyn, what was the “turning point” of your restoration?
Right after the divorce he already showed signs that things there were no longer going well, however, I said that he would only come back if it were by the hand of God and not by mine. I understood as a divorced woman, God gave us the option in 1 Corinthians 7:11 to either be reconciled or to live as His bride “she must remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband...she is happier if she remains as she is.”
Even though I didn’t want restoration, I wanted above all for His will not mine. So I always spoke to him when he texted me and said that his life had turned into hell and that nothing in his life was working, that he wanted to get rid of OW (other woman) and that he couldn't stand living anymore, and that he was sorry. I just listened and said very little.
Tell us HOW it happened, Jacelyn? Did your husband just walk in the front door? Jacelyn, did you suspect or could you tell you were close to being restored?
Well, it’s been close to three months since we married again, yes, the Lord showed me he would be coming back and to make the most of the time I had left alone with Him. So I did. And to make sure just to confirm that he wasn’t just stopping here but would be off, I did wait before submitting my testimony.
I submitted praise reports each time things began to happen. He also left things behind because he had no money to bring them back home, then we heard she’d given all his things to charity posting it on social media. I knew that Erin and several testimonies that I read said that it would not be easy, that the enemy was going to provoke and that has been the case. Ever since he returned the fights started again, but this time I say nothing and just speak to my Lover when he goes off.
Would you recommend any of our resources in particular that helped you, Jacelyn?
How God Can and Will Restore Your Marriage, I have already gifted more than 12 women with this book and just ordered a case from your bookstore to give away. There are so many women who need and want this book after they saw what God did for me. I also love the book A Wise Woman and began a small group that meets in a nearby park so we can bring our children. I love the devotionals, too, and have continued the daily reading of the Word of God and hope to get through it again finishing at the end of the month. Everything you offer has helped and transformed me a lot.
Would you be interested in helping encourage other women, Jacelyn?
Yes
Either way, Jacelyn, what kind of encouragement would you like to leave women with, in conclusion?
Besides sharing what He’s done for me and reading my testimony, I don't know what more I can say to help encourage other women. I suppose to say follow what all of us did is where to start and to notice how much having a HH (Heavenly Husband) is needed not just to complete the journey and be restored, but because you will need Him more after you’re restored. The more you understand and experience Him as your Lover, the happier you will be no matter your circumstances.
For more understanding and to overcome the hurdles: #Contentious Woman, #Letting go and #WWW "won without a word" simply click on the #TAG linked to Restored Marriage Testimonies.
Filed under hashtags#: contentious, letting go, www, tithing, courses, HH, RMT, RYM, OW
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You'll find this in By the Word of Their Testimony (Book 10): "Blessings will Come and Overtake You"
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