“Remarried Sober After 15 Painful Years” 

HIS Testimony 

Fifteen years ago, things just went bad. Me and my wife argued a lot and we had a lot of single friends and started clubbing. My cousin said I must try this drug cocaine, which will make me feel better. I kept on saying no, and he kept on that it will make all my problems disappear. I gave in and started using cocaine. I said I didn't want Janine anymore, but that wasn't what my heart felt. A lady working at my sister's business overheard my mother and sister talking about me and Janine and how bad it was going between us. She started phoning me, and it was a lady I would never have previously looked at. She said I must go out with them, and I did. She made it easy for me with everything. She just did everything right and knew how to play it right. 

Me and Janine started having boys nights and girls nights and we drifted further apart. I moved out at the end of that year, and I guess I wanted Janine to fight for me, but instead she gave me a number to get divorced for cheap and I thought that was what she wanted, so I got divorced just over a year later. I even went to church but it was to keep my father happy but it wasn't the right way, because Thursday to Sundays were my drug days whereby I would even stay awake for 3 days. It numbed the pain I had with Janine. From the beginning, I was sorry that we got divorced, but I kept on telling myself that Janine didn't worry about me. And the more Janine fought, the more I told myself I was doing the right thing.  

The OW kept on buying me gifts and supporting me financially, and more and more my self-confidence disappeared. At first, the gifts comforted me, but later it didn't even comfort me for an hour. I started caring less and less. And the bad thing is I didn't tolerate anything wrong from the OW and she knew it. I asked her to marry me under the influence of drugs, and on our wedding day, I wasn't there for most of the reception because I was driving with my friend in his Ferrari. On our honeymoon, I phoned my parents to join us because I didn't want to be alone with her.  

Holidays and Christmases were the most difficult times because I missed my family. I didn't want to go to places where me and Janine went because it was too painful. More and more I looked for a hobby to keep me busy and for me, it was drugs and gambling, and the OW provided for that. I didn't care about the stuff she bought me and sold it quickly for my bad habits, but the stuff Janine bought me I kept.  

I couldn't even drive where me and Janine used to drive. I avoided places where me and Janine had gone to. And it was even terribly painful for me to just see her, it was like a knife in my heart if I saw her. I tried to keep myself busy the whole time, not to think, and it was with drugs and gambling, and if I wasn't on drugs I slept. Songs even reminded me of Janine. The OW was the easy way out, or so I thought. My personality changed even more and more. I went my own way and the OW didn't fight with me, I could even go away with Janine for a weekend and she would ask me if I enjoyed it. I did everything bad that would normally cause the OW to just leave me, but she didn't.  

My advice to women waiting for their husbands would be, if he divorced you don't tease him and don't have intimacy with him because it was easy when I had my bread buttered on both sides, I didn't have to choose. And don't keep on texting him and phoning him, Janine did keep on and she didn't give me the time to miss her. The more you cling to the person the more you push that person away. The moment she stopped phoning, texting and being intimate with me and let go, things changed for me. The OW also started changing then, and when I saw the OW with another man it wasn't painful and it didn't worry me, and my sister even asked why didn't I confront her. But if it was Janine I would have beaten up the guy for. But don't go and get another guy because that is not the solution, it will make it just worse. I went back and forth with Janine but I was still on drugs, and I would fight for nothing with Janine. 

On February 11 I just broke down and I know it was God that just brought me to my knees. God told me the only way I would get my family back is to go His way. I just wanted Janine by me and phoned her. At that time I lived by my mother and would have walked to Janine if she didn't come to talk to me. She came over and I cried and cried, and didn't even worry who looked at me. She held me and when I said I lost everything, she said no I didn't. I wanted to go with her to church because I saw a change in her. I even said to her, previously she wouldn't have forgiven me so quick. On February 14th I went with her to church and I won't ever turn back to drugs again. At the right time, God brought us back together. I wanted to get married quickly and we got married on March 11.  The most important thing is to give everything over to God. God took away my selfishness, and with that my desire to use drugs. I always felt sorry for myself and that made me more selfish, and God even took that away because that also pushed me to use more drugs. 

~ Leonard in Botswana 

HER Testimony 

Leonard was my school sweetheart. A year later, I walked away with him and wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. Two years later, I became pregnant with our first son and on December 6, we got married. He was 19 at the time and I was 21. The first 2 years were awesome, but the third year we started arguing more and more. We started clubbing and I felt I had my young life back again. We were married just three years when he came home and said he felt we needed to give our hearts to God, but I said no and that I was enjoying my life too much. He even came home once and asked that I help him because he started using drugs, but I was so full of myself that I said he must sort out his own mess, and if my parents were to find out I would divorce him.  

I knew he was unfaithful to me and I wanted to take revenge and was unfaithful to him. When I went through his phone I found this one number and confronted the OW, but she replied that they were friends and there was nothing I could do about it. I just fought more and more and one night it went so bad he admitted he slept with a lady, and I was so furious I admitted I too slept with somebody else.  

On December 1, just 3 months after we'd given our hearts to God, he moved out and I gave him a phone number to divorce me and I really didn't think he would go through with it. I just broke when he did and I started going to church but I didn't do it for the right reasons, I just wanted my husband back. I phoned and texted him and her like crazy. At a stage I even got involved with drugs and would drink 9 ecstasy pills and sniff coke at once, it was only God's grace that kept me alive!! I just felt worse and worse and went into depression and tried to kill myself, and when I was in the hospital, I let them phone Leonard to come and fetch me because I just wanted to be with him. He immediately came but I was so hurt I also just wanted to fight with him, but it just pushed him more and more away from me.  

Leonard married the OW 3 years after I'd given the phone number to divorce me, and I also got a boyfriend and thought that would be the solution. Yes, it made him jealous, but it was the worst thing I could have done because if I had stayed on my knees in front of God, I know we would have been back together sooner. I didn't keep boyfriends long because my heart longed for my husband Leonard. My doctor said she had to admit me to a hospital for depression but I asked her to give me one week to sort out my life. I threw away the depression and sleeping pills and asked God to help me, and ever since been free from pills. Leonard went on going back and forth between me and OW and 2 years after Leonard married the OW, I became pregnant with his son, but I also kept on fighting with him because of how could he put me through it alone, and of course I made matters worse. The OW didn't leave him and just held on more to him. I would always say to him what if she became pregnant, and when we fought I would say to him I know she is going to become pregnant. And then, she did and they had a baby girl in November, 2 years after I'd had our son. It broke me and that’s when I learned what power our words have. I stopped using drugs after getting pregnant with our baby boy and I tried to move closer to God. But still, I didn't stop phoning him and texting him. I begged him to come back but he wouldn't, and my fighting didn't stop.  

Four years after me trying to move closer to God, I learned about “standing,” I asked the ministry if I could stand for my marriage even after he was remarried and the reply was yes. I know I didn't do it right, standing, but the most of the time I was too busy with my own feelings. About a year later, I went to this new church where I started giving over more and more to God and it was a pastor that didn't believe in getting married again. Two years later I stopped with all the texting and phone calls and just let go of him and I started watching my words. Then about a year later, I got prophetic word from my pastor that God is going to give me my family back. I know if I had given everything over to God sooner my story would have been so different, but again I know I had to go through all the pain to warn others not to make the same mistakes I did. Give everything over to God from the start and let go from the start, don't you try and fix it with your own plans and schemes. I felt the OW starting losing interest in Leonard when I started giving over more and more to God and watched my words, and when I started talking less to other people about my situation and let him go.  

Leonard started phoning me more and more and he even started saying he missed me more as soon as I let go. But he kept on using drugs, but I prayed more. On February 11, he phoned me and asked me to come and see him. I just felt I had to go, and at that stage, he just broke down. I held him in my arms and we cried together not even worrying who was looking at us. He said he had lost everything and I replied that he hadn't and that I just wanted him to get his life right with God and stop using drugs. He said he was finished with drugs and just wanted his family back and that he would go with me to church (which he previously said he would never do).  

On February 14, he went with me to church, it was the best Valentine's Day ever, without gifts, but this time with God (oh yes but he gave me a chocolate with the words “I love you”, which I still keep, I can't eat it, it's too special, lol). He wanted to get married again very quickly, and on March 11 of this year, we got married, and it was just us and our pastor and the kids, and of course God. A week before our wedding I said to God, this time I can lose Leonard, but I can't lose God and I know that was He has changed me because God is my first love now and will always be. A week after our wedding he said, “I know you feel shocked because this all happened very quickly, but get used to it because this is for life, and get used to my face because I am going to get old and you are stuck with me for life.” He is such a changed person and I'm treated like a queen, and that is all because of God! 

Don't let your own feelings get in the way of your restoration. Humble yourself to God and do it as quick as possible, not like I did it. A week before our wedding I got a beautiful vision from God: God showed me a very black thick curtain and that Satan wants us to think that it is a very thick wall and that there is no hope because of the darkness you see in front of you, but it's only a curtain and God is working behind that curtain and at the right time God will pull away the curtain so that you can see the beautiful picture God was working on, so don't believe Satan's lies. I know 15 years was a very long time, but if it can help only one other person not to make the same mistakes I did, then it was all worth it!!! 

We still have so much to say but me and Leonard said bit by bit. We wanted to share more in our testimony but so much happened in those 15 painful years that we hoped would help encourage other couples. 

~ Janine in Botswana 

Janine's FRIEND 

I praise the Lord for the restoration of this marriage. I think I am more pleased for my friend’s restoration than I will ever be for my own:):):). He is so faithful and wonderful and the reason I am adding to this already amazing Restored Marriage testimony is because I was led to give my view from the outside.  

So, I will start with my relationship with my dear friend because in this you will also see how our wonderful Heavenly Husband works. We used to work in the same building since 1999 and though I knew of her, I did not know her. Years later we met again in the building we are currently working in. We said Hi from time to time, but I never really felt comfortable in her company because she would speak so freely of the Lord, and I did not want to hear because I was not even sure that He really existed. And though I may not have been ready to hear the truth, the seed must have been planted because when my marriage fell apart, her name came up when I sat in church. So I went to her and she sowed the How God Can and Will Restore Your Marriage book in my life. She also gave me the Prison to Praise book.  

Later she told me that she was talking to the Lord one morning on her way to work and asked Him for a true friend. Well, the Lord answered that prayer and so much more. In each other we found comfort and together we learned to turn to the Lord for everything we need.  

As I was starting with the RMI and learning the principles of the Bible, I could see the Lord teaching them to my friend as well. I could see the wonderful change in her and ladies we all know that we have changed once the Lord gets hold of us:), but seeing the change in someone else is breathtakingly beautiful. From the first time I started reading the Bible, she made me think of David, because she had a heart for the Lord, and although she was not as obedient as she should have been, I could see a love for the Lord in her that made me crave Him even more.  

My friend came from the background of a “stander” and if you have done the Renew, Rebuild and Restore online courses in this ministry, you will see the pitfalls within “standing”, but for our wonderful Lord, nothing is impossible!!! So as my friend became closer to the Lord I could see her letting go of her then FH and I could see the Lord glowing out of her.  

I cannot praise the Lord enough for what He did for my friend and to tell each one of you: “Be encouraged, what He did for her, He can and will do for you!!!!!!!!”