“Better for Me Then, than Now”

“Better for Me Then, than Now”

☊ RMT Atarah Audio

.It all began in February 2012, a couple of days after our 7-year anniversary. My sister-in-law came to tell me that my husband was involved with another woman and that a year prior had been involved in a relationship I knew nothing about.

Sadly, I handled the situation all wrong from day one! Of course, I was devastated and heartbroken and had a feeling of unbelief like (IS THIS REALLY HAPPENING TO ME???). Unfortunately, like so many women do, I confronted my husband and the OW at their workplace as they worked together, and just continued to handle the situation all wrong by snooping, asking questions and confrontations.

Of course, my situation only got worse and worse and a month or two later my husband asked me to move out and find a place for my daughter and I to live, while. He moved in with the OW. And because I continued to pursue him and again confronted the OW, the OW forced my husband to divorce me. During all of this I was seeking the Lord and I became a part of the "Stander’s Ministry", but there was a lot I still did not know and had to learn, but the Lord did give me peace regarding the divorce.

God did start changing me as I started growing closer to Him due to the heartache I was experiencing seeing my husband with another woman.

As I desperately prayed, things started getting bad between my husband and the OW and a couple of months later their relationship came to an end and my husband moved in with me (but we were divorced) and it caused my contentiousness to worsen. I snooped on my husband’s cell phone and found a pic of him with a new OW and that’s when he moved out and in with a friend.

At that time, I became heartbroken again, my heart felt like it had broken into a million pieces. I cried out to the Lord in desperation asking Him why? Why was I having to go through the pain and heartache of another OW, this was the third time— I could not understand! I thought after my husband moved in I was “experiencing” a restored marriage. It was at this time I truly believe the Lord heard my desperate prayers and led me to post a prayer request on a website which was answered by a woman who sent me the RYM book. This was the turning point and from the time I read the RYM book!

Reading RYM is when I started understanding and started experiencing a peace that surpasses all understanding. God’s Word says that we shall know the truth and the truth shall set us free, but I up until the point of reading the book, I was being destroyed for lack of knowledge.

God taught me to forgive, especially in the beginning when I found out about the OW, this was an area I prayed a lot about and it was not easy but I knew I had to. Now looking back, I thank God because I now realize the new OW that entered my husband’s life was a chance for me to put into practice the principles I learned from the RYM book and a test for me to again work on my contentiousness and letting go.

After reading RYM, I also completed the Free Marriage Encouragement Questionnaire and received the Daily Encourager with it’s amazing testimonies of women going through similar situations. I was sent the lesson regarding “Intimacy when Divorced” and I started my first lessons with RMI.

Ministry Note:  Stander’s ministries encourage women who are divorced to be intimate with their husbands, which is why his moving back, after they were divorced, made Atarah believe she had experienced a restored marriage.

When I came to RMI another important principle I learned was tithing, since embracing this principle and tithing here to my storehouse, I have not suffered lack, not a day went by that my daughter and I did not have what we needed!

When I was without a job (another Praise as I started a new job in the same week I got remarried to my husband), I did not lack as whenever I was really low on funds and would not even have money for bread—my  Heavenly Husband would always provide for us in the nick of time! What I learned was that when we tithe He does rebuke the devourer!

The most difficult times that God helped me through was after my husband left the second time (after I believed I had experienced a restored marriage) and we separated again. The very first month I lost a lot of weight and struggled to come to terms with what I was going through. I was very desperate and at that time I did not have such a close relationship with the Lord. In my desperation, I asked God for a sign or to show me what I was going through or why I was going through it, anything. On two separate occasions, God spoke to me.

The first time was through a vision where He showed me a leg that was full of pus, and the pus had popped and it was healing. Then He showed me a sore, then a scar and then the sore completely healed with no scar. Then on the second occasion God spoke to me through a colleague who told me about a sermon he had watched on T.V. The preacher was preaching about how snow falls on the ground and how it can destroy a crop, but that the destroyed crop is what prepares the soil for the next crop because it destroys all insects and weeds from the soil.

I guess God needed to speak to me in these ways because at that time I was not reading and studying God’s Word like I do now through RMI. Now because I read the Bible everyday and do the lessons daily through at RMI, God gave me hundreds and hundreds of promises through His Word that I was reading and studying.

The turning point in my restoration happened when I started reading the “How God Can and Will Restore Your Marriage". As I read, God started showing me the areas I needed to repent of that led to the breakdown of my marriage. Applying the "Letting Go” principle and the "Intimacy After Divorce" principle led to HUGE positive and immediate changes!!

I suspected and believed I was close to restoration as soon as I started reading your RYM Book and especially as I started doing the free lessons. Being a “Stander,” I suffered a lot of setbacks and frustrations where things seemed to be going well, but then something would happen and I would fall to pieces every time. You see my husband and I got along very well—even when he was living with the OW "other woman," we would chat and were quite close. But the missing link was the principles I learned through the free lessons, which kick-started my Restoration Journey to completion!!

I would recommend everything that RMI has to offer: the books, the videos, the Daily Encourager and most of all the Bible. Reading the Bible everyday in conjunction with doing your lessons everyday and praying God’s Word, packs a powerful punch! I would also recommend doing the 3 x 5 cards which RMI teaches us to write down and read throughout the day and to also memorize as many promises from God’s Word. Hide them in your heart so that the enemy cannot steal God’s promises.

I encourage every lady reading this to never, never ever give up!! Just continue to do your lessons daily and if you’re not doing them—sign up for lessons!  And please don’t be just a hearer but be a doer of the Word and do everything that you are taught. You are so very blessed that the Lord has led you here to RMI to teach you the truth of God’s Word.

So be sure to hide God’s Word in your heart, memorize as many scriptures as you can and always remember that FAITH moves mountains! God is a God of the impossible and He is MORE than ABLE! His word never returns void but ALWAYS accomplishes its purposes!!

“Better for Me Then than Now”

☊ Atarah Audio

It has been a month since I experienced a restored marriage and I have been very happy, my husband and I are so in love. It is everything and more than what my heart desired for a restored marriage. As happy as I am, there has been something missing and I know all too well what it is....

My First Husband. My heart, mind and spirit (in the busyness of work, my home, my husband, my daughter, washing, cooking and tidying) longs for, pants for, my Husband and we both want to get back what I had together: the time alone with Him, speaking to Him, hearing Him speak to me. Once you know THIS awesome HUSBAND you cannot go back.

When you SEEK HIM, He will show you as He showed me. As I read the "What Now" that was sent to me from RMI after submitting my restored marriage testimony. This is what the Lord showed me and it is so funny, LOL, because before I came to RMI I used to pray this same scripture for my then estranged husband, desperately, feverishly—when he was living with the OW!!

Hosea 2:7 “She (I used to put he or my husband) will run after her lovers, but she won’t catch them. She will search for them, but she won’t find them. Then she will say, ‘I’ll go back to my first husband. Things were better for me than they are now.”

Back then, I used to pray desperately for my husband, praying that as he ran after his lovers he would not find them, that he would look for them and not find them. AND NOW I KNOW.

These scriptures were for me, yes me!! What struck me was these words from the verses above "I will go back to my husband, it was better for me then than now"!

During my time of being divorced, looking back it was "better for me then than now", my relationship with my Husband was idyllic, I lived for Him, I spent so much time with Him. I loved Him and He loved me; it was such a special time, it was glorious, it was marvelous and it was awesome 🙂 🙂 I loved it!!!!

Ladies, I want to encourage you to enjoy your time with your Husband (while it lasts), because before you know it, if you fall in love with your heavenly Husband and let go of your EH, you will be restored to your earthly husband and long for your time you once had only for Him.

I praise God for showing me how better it was for me then than now, because my attention and focus was Him and how He taught me through RMI to put Him first. “Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first.” Revelation 2:4.

God is so awesome and so in tune with you when you pray, as He shows you great and unsearchable things.

Jeremiah 33:3 “Call to Me and I will answer you and show you great and unsearchable things you do not know.”

So I'm happy to run and jump into my Husband’s arms, His love is amazing!!

~ Atarah in South Africa was now our Evangelism Minister. Since her coming to RMI she has been filling in the gap between “standers” and was one of the first to truly experience a RESTORED marriage.

“Remarrying My Earthly Husband”

My praise report today is based on today’s Daily Encourager, “Where Would I be Without Your Love”, because I have been so encouraged by it. I cannot allow the enemy to steal the joy of what God is busy doing in my life right now.

“Through the praise of children and infants you have established a stronghold against your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger.” Psalm 8:2

I have been thinking about what to write in my PR but have been putting it off thinking I would write my PR after my vows have been said, yes ladies you read correctly, my remarriage to my earthly husband is at hand and I Praise God and give Him the Glory!!!

“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Romans 12:12

“If anyone is in Christ He is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” 2 Corinthians 5:17

“Be made new in the attitude of your minds; and put on the new self, created to be like God.” Ephesians 4:23-24

What I would like to encourage you ladies about today is this: Don't be afraid to leave behind the old self, the old mindsets (thoughts), the friends, the family, in-laws, and embrace being alone with the Lord making Him your heavenly Husband  and allowing Him to be Your Husband, Provider, Comforter, and Strength.

Do not be conformed by and pattern yourself like this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. This verse resonated through me after feeling so far away from the Lord during a 3-day fast, and after SG, He showed me that I needed to have His Word stored in my heart and mind, that I needed His Word to fill me up and be my focus. So it was back to my 3 x 5 cards to not only read but this time to memorize. When we have God’s Word filling up our hearts and minds, the enemy can't steal our joy in the Lord!

Ladies, I want to encourage you, many, many PR of Restored Marriages are at hand!! Stay focused on the Lord, make Him our heavenly Husband and given Him the No.1 place in our lives. When my earthly husband  and I were dating, he used to tell me that “I'm perfect for him”. I wondered if I would ever hear those words said to me again. Well, I did ladies! :), and for this I can only give the Lord the highest Praise!

“I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; Be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.” Psalm 27:13-14

At RMI we are taught Revelation 2:4, “For I have this against you, you have left your first love.” I am certain that this restoration journey will always and forever be a success when we “delight ourselves in the Lord” and we know that “He will give us the desires of our hearts”!!! 🙂 🙂 🙂