RESTORED Marriage Testimony: “Our Daughter’s Illness Made Me Run Back”

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, Julie, so our readers understand just what a miracle your restoration is.

Julie, how did your restoration actually begin?

Everything began just two years into our marriage when our daughter was only one. I was still very immature and inexperienced, so when I discovered a betrayal of my husband with another woman, I began to destroy everything. I discovered everything like so many others through a message on his cell phone. I screamed and told everyone that I could that I had been betrayed. I even sent him away, sent him packing, but that same week he came back. He said he'd change, but the problem was I did not change. I decided I was a victim and I always accused him of destroying our marriage.

In fact, at that time, I had not the slightest knowledge that it was I who was wrong. I have always been contentious and argumentative, shouting at him and treating him like a child. I was never once submissive and never respected him as a wife should respect her husband. When he returned, I vowed to make him pay for what he'd done to me. That began my trajectory path of pain and suffering.

Not to anyone's surprise, my husband continued to betray me. By this time our daughter was already three years old and we discovered she had liver cancer (but her healing is another testimony I owe God to write). But I mention this because, since our first betrayal we were both far from the Lord. Even though we met in the church, were both Christians and had made it our lives to serve God as a family. It was our daughter's illness that made me run back to my Savior. In great pain, I realized I was alone and at one point, my EH also came running back to Him. But neither of us surrendered to the Father with all our hearts, so because we continued to make the same errors even this catastrophic event didn't change either of us.

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

My EH got involved with another OW which lasted only a few months. I foolishly caused myself more grief because I was always snooping on his cell phone, in his email, and searching his personal photos. So I discovered everything. Once again I got desperate, and this time I called some brothers from our church and asked for "help"—as if some human being in this world could help me in that moment. The pain that I was living was excruciating. This stupid act only made me demoralize my husband more and more before the people we knew and the church we went to. It was then that we changed churches and went to another of the same denomination. We also moved to a different neighborhood where no one knew the history of our failed marriage.

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

Even after that, I did not change and I consider this the worst part of my testimony. In this new church I got involved in various ministries, including the Praise Ministry. I really loved being in the house of God. My husband also got involved in church ministry, but again, soon drifted away from God. Foolishly, I kept going to church without my husband because I thought that was the way to get closer to God. Instead, I finished tearing down my own house. I became involved with a man in the Praise Ministry. So the struggles that continued in my marriage became ten times worse than before.

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

It was then when I was surrounded by hurt, and hatred myself due to the OM I had in my life. Then I heard that the OW had given birth to a daughter who was my husband's child.

With a log in my own eye, a mile high, I made the worst decision of my life: to take revenge. You see, I was in church and involved in ministries but without the spiritual cover of my husband as my spiritual leader. Yes, I learned this danger in RMI but I ignored it, thinking it couldn't affect me.

Finally, I was able to see my own adultery, against God and against my husband. Immediately, that same week, the preaching in my church was about going to the one you wronged. So I drove to the house of the OW and I confessed everything to him, which made things worse because I believe part of me wanted to hurt him.

He said he would not leave me, but he said that he did not forgive me either—just as I had never forgiven him. After this, though he remained at home, he got a job very far from home and there he got involved with another OW. And again, I made the same mistakes as a contentious, argumentative woman, I logged into his private Facebook, checked his emails, his photos. I discovered everything and again as a deadly cycle, everything was repeated in my life. The crises, the quarrels, and what led to a point of aggression on my part. The real hell I lived was about to get worse.

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

So I started to search for help on the internet and my life changed when I discovered the book "How God Can and Will Restore Your Marriage" and a "Wise Woman." I read everything that was there and began to apply it in my life. The teachings in Erin's book were hidden in my heart. I got pregnant with my second child, a boy, It was in a turbulent pregnancy. Even though my husband was farther away from us and I was suffering, suffering, suffering, I kept trying to change the situation in my own strength. Nothing changed, not until I left the church. It was for selfish reasons, I was tired of going alone, and I'd stopped my relationship with the OM and he and his wife moved away.

Soon my husband left this job and this OW, he said he would be faithful to me again if I believed I could do the same. I told him that the OM and I were over and that's when I finally put into practice the teachings of the book. I stopped following, and snooping on my husband and I set him free. I let him go completely, embraced my HH. That's when I was finally free.

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

One day the unexpected just happened. My husband left home to go to work but came back after 10 minutes asking me how much I loved him. He confessed that he had become involved with another OW, but this time it was with a married OW. This time I had not discovered anything, so I was shocked, how could I let it go?

I couldn't but He could. I simply gave it all to Him. The log was finally out of my own eye, I no longer thought myself so clever and always above reproach. Just as His word says, it was my humility that changed the spiritual climate.

The second unexpected event happened when my husband wanted to go to a new church. On the day we visited he asked to speak to the pastor, and then with tears, holding my hand, he confessed his sin of sexual weakness. He asked for God to help him as he slid from the chair and got down on his knees. Then the pastor prayed for us both because I too explained I had succumbed to the same weakness. We are now members of this church. Even though I go under the protection of my spiritual leader, my spiritual meals come from RMI and my closeness to my HH is found in my quiet time with Him.

He has told me on several occasions just how sorry he is for everything he did and that he wants to start a new life. He explained everything I did that displeased him and what he said practically pushed him to get OW. I'm thankful that what he said was exactly everything I've confessed here, the screaming, the way I would treat him like one of my children. Anyway, it all comes down to the contentious and argumentative woman that I've been through all those years and explained that the only way I was able to change was by finding my HH.

Would you recommend any of our resource in particular that helped you Julie?

Though I bought and read all the resources, it wasn't until I went back to RMI and began reading in the daily encouragements about the courses. I changed for the first time during Course 1, understood more in Course 2, was prepared for restoration in Course 3. But when everything changed, when the impossible happened, was during the second week of the Finding the Abundant Life Course. I’d even heard how this was “dangerous” for restoration but I read too many restored marriages that said otherwise.

Dear friend, God restored my marriage not because I deserved it, but because He is merciful and infinitely good to me. Your problem may be great, dear sister, but GOD is GREATER than anything— any sin. He will calm the storms in your life if you will only make Him #1.

Would you be interested in helping encourage other women Julie?

Yes, I really want to help other women.

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

I still do not feel prepared for the restoration, I continue struggling to let go, shut up, have a quiet and gentle spirit and kindness in my language. This is because I practiced doing things in the flesh for so long. I know I must remain in the RMI courses that help with being intimate with my HH. I am asking God every day to have a closer intimacy with my HH.

More than restoration with my EH, I want to know the voice of my HH, I want to hear Him speak to me. I want to have a relationship with Him above all else. I long to be His bride and I want Him to be my Heavenly Husband because this is where I've found real peace and love.

The process of marriage restoration is not over when your husband comes home, even after he repents. Once he's home is only the beginning. If you don't have Him as your HH, and He truly is, then you and I can't expect to stop our foolishness and spiritual arrogance. We need to continue clinging to the only One who can help us with our lack of forgiveness, our contentiousness. Only He can help us put into practice the wisdom found in the books, lessons and testimonies we have each found here at RMI. Without ongoing support, I would surely continue to push my earthly husband into the arms of yet another OW.

I apologize for the delay in writing my testimony, that is not how I imagined it, but I have too much to thank God for. He is absolutely in love with me, so for His infinite kindness and mercy, because His plans are far better than mine, I needed to make sure I fully confessed everything to all of you.

HERE are my FAVORITE PROMISES OF GOD:

"For I know the thoughts which I have toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an end, which ye hope for: then ye shall call upon me, and pray to me, and I will hear them. I will seek you, and find me when you search for me with all your heart. I will be fond of you, says the Lord, and I will change your lot." Jeremiah 29: 11-14

God is not a man, that he may lie; nor son of man, that he should repent. If he hath promised, will he not do it? or, having spoken, will he not do it Numbers 23.19

In this battle you will not have to fight; Stand ye, stand still, and see the salvation of Jehovah to you, O Judah and Jerusalem. Fear not, neither be you dismayed; tomorrow go out to meet them, for the Lord will be with you. 2 Chronicles 20:17

And he said, Hear all Judah, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem, and thou king Jehoshaphat, so the Lord says to you, "Do not be afraid, nor be dismayed at this great multitude; powder The battle is not yours, but God. 2 Chronicles 20:15