“Second Marriage; I Had to Trust Him for His Promises”

"Second Marriage; I Had to Trust Him for His Promises"

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Leslie, how did your restoration actually begin?

My restoration began when I accepted that I was wrong and had to depend and believe in God. When I filled out my marriage encouragement questionnaire and they asked why I came for help I said, “The first thing you should know in order to know me and my situation is that my marriage is a second marriage for both of us. Both my husband and I had finished our first marriages long before starting our relationship.

“I think we both got married under the wrong terms and in any case; according to what my husband tells me about his first marriage; there was no real love from anyone. I think my case is a bit more complicated.

“My current situation began several years ago when my husband was unfaithful to me. I thought I had forgiven everything, but now studying your book, I realized that I did not forgive in my heart because I always held onto the doubts and jealousy from this episode.

In my current marriage, soon after we married, there appeared a child. A child that my husband did not know if it was his or not. The mother refused to perform paternity testing and actually my husband never made an attempt to do it.

Some time ago he told me he wanted to take over custody of this child, and to be very honest I was scared. But I knew I had to support him if that was what his heart wanted.  I told him to do the test first to make sure it was true, since his relationship with the mother was only one night.  Deep in my heart I wished it was not his but God decided that it should be different. I accept his son into our lives knowing it would take so much love and me supporting his child’s welfare. My husband didn’t see my support as help, so we had many problems.  A few months ago, my husband told me he was leaving the house and no longer felt he loved me. I am not sure whether or not he was with someone else at the time when he first asked, but a few days later I learned he had someone.

As I said in my questionnaire, I loved my husband very much and really desired to make this marriage work. I’ve asked God to do that. To turn his heart, to make him reconsider, to remove the blindfold, and to return home. In my heart I simply could not accept that he no longer loved me, since we were together for so many years and he was always such a loving man.  I felt that I expressed my love for him, I honestly loved him dearly. we were a united marriage and happy, so much so, that even after he was gone many people could not understand what had happened because everything happened so very fast.

I've come here so very tired of being told that I just needed to accept that everything was over. I felt so defeated. Yet, even though I thought of myself as very close to God, in the months since I found RMI, I now have my priorities right. He is my First Love. My HH. I now know that nothing is impossible for God! I no longer feel alone. I was also relieved that I no longer had to fight for my marriage, because He said HE would do it while I watched.

Clearly, very few really understand what makes restoration harder than it needs to be. Simply find Him, find your true love, your HH and everything will fall into place.

Before this everyone said they could help me, but instead they pushed me deeper and deeper into despair and told me to do things that made everything worse. Oh, how I would have appreciated, so very much if just one person had given me hope. Not just for my marriage to be restored, but the true love I’ve lacked every since I was a child.

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

He gave me peace to trust His promises once I experienced His love. I think the most important thing I realized is that the more I learn about Him, the more I am involved with the Lord and His teachings, the more committed I am to live according to what His word says, what my heart feels, the easier the journey is. You move forward more quickly once you realize that this journey is about knowing Him more than about restoration!!!

This is why I get up early, every single day with the purpose of knowing Him.  I strengthen my heart and my relationship with the Lord as this is the most important thing I can do on any day. HE is the center of my life. If I live in communion with Him, since that’s why we were created, it’s easy to keep His commandments, easy to follow His principles (but first you have to know them). All of this proves my love for Him. If we say He is first, then the most important thing I can do is to spend time with Him. This, then, is the solution to every one of my problems, He is going to work in my life and change it while I keep my focus on Him!!.

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

Faith, peace, patience. As I went through your amazing courses, this is what stands out in my journal.

I think what happens is that each chapter creates a great need to know more about God and about His principles.  Each time I want to know Him more and I find that I need Him and want Him more and more.

Each chapter makes sure that the Lord will work on my problem with my husband, while I work on my relationship with Him. Only He and His infinite love for me will bring my husband back and will restore our love and our marriage.

I have a confidence based on my faith that the Lord is working on solving my situation no matter how hopeless or complicated it seems.

Any time I think of it, or someone asks me, I give the Lord my relationship with my husband, I let go of my husband even more, with faith and hope that the Lord will bring him back when he thinks I'm ready. And not before. Dear sister, if you want restoration, then He welcomes you to first feast on His love. Each of our meetings is flooded with love, His love, and as a result I walk away from these encounters with more forgiveness, faith, love, trust, humility and respect for Him and everyone.

May I share that several times I’ve gone back to read Lissa's testimony in Week 1 of the RYM Course. I love reading Chapter 3 “Have Faith” and to see how incredibly inspiring it is to see the power of our beloved Lord in her life, how He sent the help she needed when she least expected. Like her I think it has happened to many of the people who seek help, to me in particular.  It was a great blessing when I received the book How God Can and Will Restore Your Marriage from someone on Facebook. This is why I set up my own facebook page offering to pray for others. (I use my chosen BNN). I know as I pray, and offer each the same book How God Can and Will Restore Your Marriage on my web page, praying for hurting wives, and adding in His word only when they ask for my help. Each time it’s like I have received such a blessing. It’s all because of you here, due to how I was given so much from each of you. Each of you has been such a blessing—a mouthful of water in a dry and barren desert.

May I also add that every testimony I've read motivated me to persevere and not give up. Also to receive and listen to the teachings of my Dear Heavenly Father, and my sweet Heavenly Husband who remains beside me.  Because of this, l no longer fear evil. Thank you Lord for Your infinite love and Your infinite mercy. I purchased each of the testimony books since it is the testimony Revelation 12:11 says, that will help us triumph over evil! It’s by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of each testimony that makes us no longer afraid to die.

Each time I finish reading your books, absorbing all your teaching, it’s such a tremendous boost to approach and be closer to my HH. Every moment of every day makes me feel more desperate to receive the Word of the Lord and to seek the Word of the Lord in my life.

Thank you, Lord, for your love. I love you Lord and I want You in my heart every day of my life.

I have learned that to restore my marriage, I must first restore my heart and give my love to my Lord.   He must be the most important thing in my life. In addition, I gladly give God my will and take on His will so I can experience His love every minute of my life.

I think the most important thing I've learned is how wonderful the Lord is. He is working in us and building our faith to remake us and guide us on the path He has chosen for us. God’s Word is our only path to happiness but only when we make the Lord the single most important Person in our lives. Only then will we be happy. Never ever forget this if you want to experience restoration.

HE loves me and it’s His wonderful love that helps me feel closer to Him everyday and need Him more and I hunger for His Word and His teachings.

When we put Him in first place in our lives, we realize that many things we were doing go against His rules and laws.  Our commitment and our love for the Lord begins when we change and avoid situations that displease him.

I must be steadfast in my love and devotion to the Lord or what else do I have?What were the most difficult times that God helped you through Leslie?

When my husband told me that he did not love me, when he left home and my son asked why dad did not come. Yet He said...

“All the paths of the Lord are loving and faithful for those who keep the demands of his covenant. For the sake of your name, Lord, forgive my great wickedness. Who is the man who fears the Lord? It will be instructed in the best of ways. You will have a pleasant life, and his descendants will inherit the earth. The Lord gives those who fear him, and gives them his covenant. My eyes are always on the Lord, for only he can get me out of the trap "Psalm 25: 10-15.

Had I not read His Psalms and Proverbs everyday, throughout the day, I am sure I would never have made it through the difficulties He knew He would bring me through.

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

When I honestly began to leave everything in the hands of God. I stopped fighting for my marriage and instead sang to Him His most deserved LOVE Songs.

I continually bring the Lord into my life, constantly, so that it is He who has control of my life. My actions changed from being a very difficult woman to a woman who “smiles at the future” and is agreeable and pleasant.

One day, early on in my journey, I wrote in my journal, “Lord take my anguish, my sadness, my pain, my despair, my love for my husband, my love for my children, my depression from me. Lord, I know that You must be my everything and that there is nothing impossible for You. I know that You love me. So, take all this Lord and let Your will by my will. Let your Love be reflected in my life Lord. Your love, Lord, who directs my thoughts, my feelings, my words, my actions.

“Lord, I give You my husband and my restoration. Although this man and this marriage may not be what You wanted for me, because it is a second marriage for both of us, I offer it to you now Heavenly Father. If you want it restored, You restore it. But if not, I have met Your Son and He is all I want and all I need.

Lord I pray in Your name. Amen

Jeremiah 29:11 "I know the plans that I have projected upon you - says the Lord -: are plans of prosperity and not disaster, to assure them a future and a hope."

Though some people and some ministries say God won’t restore second marriages, I’m thankful that RMI never put God in a box and has allowed hope and the impossibilities of God’s power to flow freely.

Tell us HOW it happened Leslie? Did your husband just walk in the front door?

God began to restore, little by little, the more I put my HH first. Then one day, without warning or any fanfare, he opened the back door and came in. The day he returned home, before even moving his things in, he went into my jewelry box where he’d left his wedding ring and put it back on.

Leslie, did you suspect or could you tell you were close to being restored?

Yes, in a way I did. I did not know how close I was but God in his promises let me know and I could kind of sense I was close. I’d already read that when you really are content to having your HH only, it’s almost a given that your restoration is close.

Yes, I feel blessed, we've already been restored 3 months, but I must confess that it has been difficult, and it is true that what brought me to where I am, is what will keep me moving forward. Keeping Him first, keeping Him as who I long to be with when I wake up. Who I dream about and speak to all day long.

Yes, I agree I am not deserving and this should not have happened to me. But we all know that His wisdom and His plans are greater than ours. Though so many say the same thing, it’s true, that once He is the most important in our lives anything is possible!

At the beginning of my journey by accepting the Lord as my Savior and my guide, I received through a sister on a Facebook page your book How God Can and Will Restore Your Marriage and that book is what became my light. That light is what the Lord sent me, to guide my way to Him. It led to wanting to Find the Abundant Life He had for me. But it was your first book, by reading it, that I realized I was acting very badly and I headed in the wrong direction. You book, all your books and resources, helped me to meet the Lord and His Word guided me throughout this once in a lifetime journey.

My marriage is still in the healing process, it’s restored but our hearts need healing. My husband, due to being with an OW, travelled far from the Lord. But I am committed to continue my healing and my restoration with my beloved HH knowing that God will do the same for my husband, because He already has. Our relationship is completely restored and now all that needs to take place is our healing. We are both heading in the direction that the Lord has intended, for each of us to have our own deep relationship with Him.

I rely entirely on the promise of the Lord that HE will complete what He started. I’ve already seen His miracle in my marriage, when He turned my husband’s heart back home and could see in my husband’s eyes the immense love for me he once had that I never imagined I’d see again.

It is the Lord who is guiding our family in His ways and has led my husband into his task of being the head of the family and for me to be the wife God designed me to be. So that together we as parents are the example of a marriage that God restored and what He wants us to show our children. To show them our marriage as His testimony and proof of the love of God and trusting in His will. To prove that no matter what looked destroyed can and will be restored to the Lord because there is nothing impossible with Him.

Jeremiah 32:17 "O Lord God, well I see that you created heaven and earth by your great power and your strong arm! Nothing will be difficult for you"

Isaiah 40:31 "But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength soar on wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary;

they shall walk and not faint "

Praise and glory to the Lord.

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

How God Can and Will Restore Your Marriage and also A Wise Woman. Read and marked all of the available By the Word of Their Testimonies books and I recommend going through each of your online courses, doing that first thing in the morning or before you go to bed at night. I also highly recommend discovering your HH by going through your Finding the Abundant Life Course. Finally, either start a prayer group for women in marriage crisis like I did (discreetly using your BNN) or at least send people on other prayer sites to HopeAtLast.com. God will honor you and fulfill this promise to you in Luke 6:38, “Give, and it will be given to you. They will pour into your lap a good measure—pressed down, shaken together, and running over. For by your standard of measure it will be measured to you in return.”

If God isn’t moving in your life, ponder this truth, “There is one who scatters, and yet increases all the more, and there is one who withholds what is justly due, and yet it results only in want. The generous man will be prosperous, and he who waters will himself be watered” (Proverbs 11:24–25).

Do you have favorite verses from the Bible, Leslie, that you would like to share with women who read your testimony? Or Promises that He gave you?

What God united is not separated by man.

Proverbs 3: 5-7, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths Do not be wise in your own eyes... Rather, fear the Lord and shun evil"

Isaiah 64:8, "Now, Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, you are the potter; we are all works in your hands"

Romans 8:28, "We know that God causes all things for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

Psalm 147:11, "The Lord favors those who fear Him, those who wait for His lovingkindness."

Would you be interested in helping encourage other women Leslie?

Yes. I will continue my prayer group on Facebook and expand my ministry as He leads.

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

There are only two things that stop the promises of the Lord: the faith we have and not having the strength to trust Him for those promises.