Category: Restoration

Should You Stand for Your Marriage

There are many of you who are in a difficult place right now. Your marriage is in trouble. And all you know to do is stand your ground and believe in the restoration of your marriage. You’re in one of the greatest challenges a person can face in life. And I know some of you ask yourself how much more you can take.

I want you to know Janet and I admire and appreciate every one of you facing this battle. It takes a lot of courage and conviction to take this stand. As many of you know I have been there, and I know too well how difficult it is.

Your story may be different from what I went through. But I understand the delicate balance you have to walk between heartache and hope. One minute your heart is so torn and broken you don’t think you can go any further. Then the next minute your heart is so alive with hope for your future. If you can just hang on a little longer. Read more

Where Marriage Healing Begins

The desperation I felt to save our marriage was tremendous. I had waited so long for signs of hope and yet so many times it seemed my hopes were dashed. I had no problem accepting the fact that I had hurt our marriage. So all I could think of was trying to find some way to fix the problems I helped create.

After a good while into our last separation, my wife finally decided to go see a counselor. There were a lot of issues she had been dealing with from her childhood and she finally reached a point where she said enough is enough. She wanted the stuff that had tormented her all of her life to be gone once and for all.

Is Your Behavior Sabotaging Your Marriage?

My dream was to be married for life; I had made that life decision when I was thirteen years old. Yet, I kept finding ways to sabotage my dream. My behavior toward Janet and toward our marriage was destructive.

I remember once when I was seeking the Lord in order to save my marriage and I heard the Lord remind me in a gentle way, that I had reaped what I had sown.

I knew right away that He was not putting the blame on me for anything Janet was doing wrong. He was simply letting me see how I had destroyed our marriage with the hurtful ways I had treated her.

Those words broke my heart and gave me hope at the same time. I needed to know that our marriage problems were not all Janet’s fault. Just because she had chosen to give up on our marriage, the Lord would not let me get away with pointing all the blame at her. And at the same time, I felt hope, because I knew that sowing and reaping could work for my good as well if I would start sowing good seeds of love. Read more

Jack’s Boots

It was my choice for him to leave and with reluctance, he agreed. Jack and I had done this many times before. We knew the routine; we knew how to break up. This was the fourth time and we knew it was final, no question in our minds. There was no slamming doors, no screaming, no ugly words, just a sad calm. And the occasional turning away from each other to gather ourselves as tears would run down our faces.

There was always a cloud of sadness to see him leave and we always cried together. I could never understand that. Many times we could not go through with it, so we would stay together. Although this time the fighting had ceased and we had been trying to rebuild, we found we were too wounded and numb to even know how to rebuild. We knew it was final, it was over, he was tired and so was I.

We had been through nineteen years of fussing, arguing, fighting against one another and not understanding one another. Over the years we had beat upon each other emotionally so bad that the only hope for a bright future was to go in separate directions.