Giving Your Marriage a Second Chance (Part 2 of 2)

Proverbs 14 one. The wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands.

The foolish one, tears hers town I had torn my own house down.

I was watching I was the one that ignited flames. That's one of Michael's talking about some struggles in her marriage and a long, long road to reconciliation with her husband and her struggles might be your struggles to hear more of her story today on Focus on the Family with focus president Dr. Jim Daly, thanks for joining us today on John for John, I think so many married couples last time they were relating to wanted story wanted Terry and they were what we say leaning in toward the radio or toward their smart phone. Whatever they were listening to because it was so refreshing to hear the vulnerability of Juana tell her story how she came to the Lord. The way she was ready to leave the relationship after being married for two years simply writing a note to her husband saying you know what we give a try. It's not working out well and have a good life.

It had been more hard in it than that. But the point of it is that she thought she had married the wrong guy. Terry was not the man for her. If you're in that point of disillusionment with your marriage.

You don't think you married the right person or it's over or whatever it might be.

We have caring Christian counselors here focus that are ready to talk with you and to give you some advice. Some biblical advice on what you might do.

I would like to say we don't like divorce.

It Focus on the Family Scriptures clear that God himself does not like divorce. He gives you an out for infidelity and abandonment but that is it.

So if you're in trouble emotionally.

Call us if you're in trouble.

Physically, if you're in danger, you do need to get to safety. We would not subscribe that you stay in a physically abusive situation and seek the help of your pastor, your church if you don't go to church. Call us here, focus, and we have some ideas on what you can do, but for those that are in that pit of despair and you don't know what to do were here for you and now working a welcome back.

One of Michael's to the focus program want to. Thanks for being back with thank you for having me. Can I say it really is a point of encouragement.

Thank you for being so vulnerable last time and sharing painful memories of where you and Terry had really messed up in the fact that you gave your heart to the Lord and how the Lord did that on July 4 in the evening. I also want to thank that pastor who challenged you about your faith even though you're that little girl going to church regularly from a broken family.

Your dad made that little gate that you could get to church and hear the Bible stories it didn't translate into relationship with Christ as relates a great reminder for all of us as parents to make sure our teenagers are kids actually understand what it means to have a relationship with Jesus is locked down the road as you lie down as you go that way. Think this should be a natural part of life that Scripture comes out like breathing and into plaster life right and in what we want to do today's pick up the conversation. I left with your dedication to the Lord your yielding to him your embrace of him now you gotta wake up the next day and you decide what your next steps.

When you talk to Terry and you said you become a born-again Christian. What happened I made a list that night in the wee hours of the morning to the sounds of fireworks in the background.

I made a list a list of all the areas where I had send this to thighs against tyranny and before that night when the scales were still on my eyes. I didn't think I did anything wrong. He was always 15 EFTA but just in the blink of an assembly sonic self who I was with a sinner.

Some of the things on that list included. I sought to be understood and try to understand. I sought to be heard rather than to try to listen 14 things and I presented that list. The next day to Terry, to which he said thank you very much and he folded it and he put it in his pocket and he said that I no longer want to be married to you, and that had to be devastating because you're on the on the mend here on the uptake and here he is now moving away from you in the more aggressive way. What did you do what did you say to Terry when he says I don't to be married to you. I was very calm. I just received Christ in my life the night before. I had been praying for him to show me who he was.

He had just shown me a miracle I had experienced a miracle, a miracle of salvation and the atonement help person's life can change an instant in the Bible says when you creation. I was a new creation. The first day of the rest of my life.

I consider all of my life.

It was either before that watershed event in my life or it was after, and I consider all of my life in these times.

Now Christ make a tangible difference in my life. On Tuesday afternoon. On Friday morning you petty tests because of the cross because the cross so I just experienced a miracle.

I had known all the Bible stories going up. I couldn't see how I could come to Christ because he wasn't real to me and he had he had reached down and salvation is it's a rescue. He rescued me from myself and my sin.

And so as to what he told me he no longer now wanted me actually sat there very calmly me who always has something to say who always wants to try to get in the last word with a client and he asked me how can there and I told him that I had received Christ and I was can be okay. I knew I'd be okay and had gone in my life and he left that day now between us right here as soon as he left. I balled my eyes out. I laid on the bed and balled my eyes out but I was able to just hold it together there because of like I had just done in my life, but want to let me ask you because some the fragile nature of being one day old in a relationship with Christ. Having that discussion with Terry him responding with. I want to be married you some would now challenge God. Why would you do this to me because they've already now preconceive the I gave my life to you, talk to my deserted spouse and it's all gonna come back together God because you're got miracles, how come it didn't disillusion you. Terry responded the way he did well. It took a long time for us to get into the mess we're in Weaver head leaving bad routines bad habits and this was the beginning of a new life. Learning new habits, conquering sins that need to be conquered. Transforming my mind being changed into word. We need to be changed and it was going to take time and Terry was no not a believer so she didn't have the help of the Holy Spirit, and I knew that Grace was there. You are able to extend grace, not give up hope and you move forward. So how did that communication continue with Terry. Well, we went on a roller coaster that lasted the next one and 1/2 years that look like just describe some of the interactions he would want to date me.

He didn't want to date me he wanted to see me. He didn't want to see me.

He was in a total state of confusion and what it was is and I didn't know at the time found out later he had so much anger and unforgiveness towards me, but he didn't even have the capability to forgive me. It is only through Christ can you really have total restoration and he wasn't going to come to Christ till really some seven years later, but I'm getting ahead of the story well and I want to say you did something really wise in that moment, and often times we don't do this and that is you sought out mentors to help you to I think if I were in your shoes would've been to provide some stability in perspective, why did you do that. Did somebody encourage you to do that and who did you find and how does it work a couple of godly committed Christian couple actually reached out to me. We heard your story.

They knew I was a new believer. They knew I was separated and they took me on. God bless them.

They took me on. They took me under their wing. They took me with them on holidays because they didn't want me to go into a nonsupportive environment. They taught me Scripture I coming out of the first Scripture. They taught me to memorize was Romans six what shall we say then shall we go on sinning that grace may increase by no means he died to sin talking you live in it any longer and that was Paul and making UV that share their life with me.

They demonstrated Christ love to me by sharing themselves with me and so that helps you again get balance to better Terry was how long did they walk with you about a year and 1/2 so right through.

Nothing of it. Oh yes and they taught me the ways of God and lots of meals together. Lots of conversation together. Did you have down days every night.

I can't imagine the struggle going on here and I'm assuming that at some point Paul and Megan had to come lift you up and pull you out of the pit of despair. Describe some of those moments lest I remember when Terry would call and he would call me for the fourth time and say it's all over. I don't see anymore and in the following week. You may call and say well I got tickets for a basketball game would you like to go with me. And of course I always said yes. I never called him it was back to dating world. Even though we were married I wanted to be married in every sense of the word, but I had to take what I could get. And then he would call me back a couple weeks later and say it's it's it's all off and I remember just saying and I called Megan crying and crying and she would console me on the phone always point me to Christ and pray with me but I was growing in him, even though it was painful. The term was still there. My life was in turmoil. There was this the store going all around me. But you know what perfect peace. Is it possible you have perfect peace in the next these horrible horrible circumstances that you don't want, only you don't want that you created it and as I sign everyone in my books.

I always sign them with Proverbs 14 one.

The wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands.

The foolish one, tears hers town I had torn my own house down.

I was watching I was the one that ignited the flames and so I was now reaping the consequences. But God always promises us that he will be with us through the storm. It will not overtake us. The story there it was every bit there that he was with me.

Those are powerful connections for people for all of us to hear in the way that you're sitting there your root reaping the consequences of your decisions, but you're in that waiting. I mean, some people find it hard to rely upon the Lord in that waiting.

And some people you know what, in your case, Terry comes back in working to cover that. But some people it will be much longer if ever, that God will restore that and speak to them about that waiting. Were you prepared to just keep going and trust in God if it were a year and 1/2 or five years or 10 more years or 15 more years. Yes, I was learning to wait on God.

I was not waiting on Terry had some family members that were very upset with me. That said, Terry doesn't love you.

He wants a divorce. Just get on with your life. Get on with your life, but I was experiencing life. I was waiting on God, you, that's a very active word.

I was watching and waiting to see what was connected. This was my problem. It was God's painful event with the price he was in charge of my life I was holding his feet to the fire to say and what ever he was going to do with good with me. Yes, I wanted the marriage but it got so sick to not allow that can be okay because now to control my life anymore.

Not that I could but thought I could but now I had the King of the universe guiding me want to let me ask you this. As you move through that.

There was a moment where confrontation occurred you you you and Terry had to begin talking about where you're going, because you're in the suspended state of relationship and on off on off and nobody knows where this is going. How did that come about. You did something very bold, which was to move back in with him yes talk about that and why you chose to do that and what were the repercussions. I can remember it like it was yesterday.

Jim, the phone rang and Terry called back and everything was off again for about the 10th time in this year and half.

Since I came to Christ and I hung up the phone. I was calm with him, but I started stomping around that apartment. I was stop in and I knew this was the enemy causing all this confusion in Terry's mind and that God was not the author of confusion and I made a decision. I was moving home that it was wrong that I left and I was can make restitution and I was going to do the right thing.

I was coming home to the next day I called the power company and asked him to turn the power off at that apartment. I contacted landlord and asked them to shut the lease down that I was moving and she said oh you like your hat has been getting back together. I said, not exactly, and didn't tell anyone. I told no one and I called movers and moved him.

Terry actually was not there when I got there, there were no lights on.

I told the movers where to put everything I moved home and went to bed that I was Terry reacting in that moment of your your move back and all of a sudden you're there you go to the bedroom to the ironic thing bed. The irony is that he had been to a NASCAR race in Charlotte and the night that I had left the note. He had been to a NASCAR race had not been to one before sense and he came and he said as he tells it that he saw the light on and he came in and there was the kitchen table, which had been absent for two years and there was and he knew I was home and I heard his footsteps coming up the steps. I sat up in bed and he opened the door and he was so angry with me and he's said a few words to me and slept in the guest room and he said I'm moving out and then he moved out, which now she was on the right foot because he was truly leaving me, which was a true picture of what the situation where you come back to him and now he's acting out of his anger and he say wait a minute I said I don't want you so know he moves out. How long was. Of time that he was a strange from years living away from you. That went on for many many many months until one day he had to have some surgery, some minor surgery and I had not heard from him again.

I didn't call him unless he called me and he told me he had some minor surgery and what I come to the hospital and I went to the hospital and in the hospital. He allowed me to comfort him, and to hold his hand. At the conclusion he asked me when I go home with him to the house that I was then living in that we had built some two years earlier, and after a two-year separation, almost to the day we went home together when you say you went home together. Talk about that outside of the physical sense of it. You went home together. But what was happening emotionally, emotionally, it took quite a while. Terry did not put his ring back on immediately. It took a while for him to please ring back on. It took a while for him to trust me again because he knew the old Juana.

He knew that I was flighty.

He knew that had no foundation and could he trust me. Secondly them again and now had the Lord in my life.

The Lord was my stability and my rock and my Redeemer. And he was guiding me he was helping me to do the right thing and to be the kind of life that I really wanted to be now wanted to be a wife from a Christian perspective. In the past as it was the dearest dearest today was first Peter 3127 read it now, it is wise in the same way, submit yourselves to your own husbands, so that if any of them do not believe the word because he had remembered Terry was not a believer. This time, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives when they see the purity and reverence of your lives. Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry, or find claims rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight and I have to tell you that I was not born with a gentle and quiet spirit. I come from a long line.

My mother Hispanic and we do not come from Alina ready to wrestle generally very independent person and it takes the grace of God working in my life.

But here it's guiding me saying God is saying is your behavior. It's not preaching to him is not leaving things that no man wants to be nagged into doing what is why think they should do.

Your husband is 80% of what you want all that nagging. Maybe my move up to 81 four would be a whole lot better to have a wife that loves you and looks at all your strengths and all that you are instead of being like what I call grandmother, Eve in the garden she had anything she could want and more. And she looked at the one thing she didn't have she fixated on that and we mess ever since exactly so, but one I need to get to the Terry part of the story because I didn't in the story with just you coming to him. He continued to work through you in Terry's heart and his life what happened and how long did it take before Terry said okay Lord on yours. Well two years actually reconciled.

We had our first child.

Our first daughter was born, and then three years after that. Our first son was born than two years after that another son and three years after that another daughter, but seven years after I became a Christian, Jim. I shudder to think all what a mess had not gotten on God's path to God's path is always there when you want to get off here but seven years after I became a Christian through a ministry called Bible study Fellowship Terry sitting right there in his seat on the second night of class, he gave his heart and life to Christ. It was a study in the New Testament on Paul and as he was reading that scripture and hearing it right in his seat. He gave us his heart and life to Christ and our son was one year old well and that happened because he saw such change in you. I would think that that testimony of yours made such an impact in him that he opened his heart to the possibility that maybe God is who he said he was his affair.

It's it's all God's grace Jim. It's all God's grace I want to tell you that I messed up so many times and we even skipped over that in those times and we would see each other before we were reconciled. He he wanted to tell me all the things that were wrong with me and was as part of that hidden anger he had against me and I back a few times was to say how did you emotionally handle but did you rationalize that okay he needs this time to process.

Sometimes you do sometimes it sometimes.

I blew it and I would go back home. I get along with God, ask God please give me another chance to forgive me for lashing back at it Terry that I had had the help of the Holy Spirit. I had his love and forgiveness and Terry didn't have to. And here I was acting just like him.

He would say all the things he did like about me and I was able to say one thing that you don't like and I would get to sit back like a tennis match. Yes yes I God's will and that's the beautiful part of this and wanted you said something to me off Mike that I want to capture because it was beautiful.

You said you and Terry still struggle and you still you know battle.

These old behavior patterns and I think that again is so refreshing my real struggle more.

We might even struggle, but you're committed. We are totally committed.

We are totally committed but no mention of Israel were going through to get to the promised land they they encountered more wars and more struggles in their blessing. And that's kind of what happened with us. It is not an easy Terry can be in the same car with me when the same room with me and the message that he says to me is not the message that I pick up and then altercation cannons.

It is just we are still a mess but thank God we we both love and want to serve the Lord. We are totally committed to our marriage and we know that the chance of our children were playing the first wedding of our daughter in a month. The chances of any of our four chilling divorcing go up so much higher with divorce if they know that they have parents that are going to work it out no matter what.

What encouragement that is to our children is a great model that that is one of the biggest things I'm concerned about is when I speak to so many Christian young people will say marriage I don't think is the way for me simply because my mom and dad divorce. I never saw it work well.

Always such a tragic and so many people told Terry to just there's more fish in the sea go find someone else. It doesn't have all his baggage. Everyone no one told him to pursue his marriage and with me. Yes, people, I told myself I owed it to myself. I was a peacemaker in my family growing up. Hey, it was my time now where there's not one shred of evidence in the Bible that I owe anything to myself I owe everything to God and to everybody. God's call me to love and serve. I don't know anything to myself. One of this is been so strong and powerful and you are speaking to the hearts of people who are hurting and that's exactly how the Lord uses are stories in our testimonies. Now, if you've been listening to the program and your marriage is in a tough spot.

I want to encourage you to contact us want to talk about how mentors engaged or let us be the first mentor for we have caring counselors who can talk with you. We have resources and tools to help you begin the road of restoration in Christ and in your relationship with your spouse. We hear often from husbands and wives who have simply given up hope. But you don't need to. God is in your corner and were in your corner and we want to give you the tools to fight for your marriage and I'm telling you what folks when you look into this culture.

Right now we need Christian marriages to be strong. I think the Lord is shouting for us to repair the breaches and to show this world. What it means to be committed to one another and I would encourage you if you're not in that healthy place in your marriage find it get it.

Do everything you can and we're here to help and for those that help us financially. Hey, let's go on offense. Let's stop playing defense and the culture.

Let's mount a campaign to help marriages thrive in Christ and that's were about here Focus on the Family that's why Wanda was here today and last time was to share her story of what God did in her life and then and her husband Terry's life that could be your story to God is for you, not against you, and we want to be there for you if you'd like to speak to one of our counselors here at Focus on the Family about issues that you're experiencing in your marriage.

Our number is 800-232-6459. That's 800 the letter a in the word family and can also find the help you need in our episode notes and let me say again, thank you. Two generous friends who support this ministry financially. Your partnership is crucial as we produce broadcasts like this one, and provide resources like one is book or website. Some of the counseling that we mentioned, if you can please consider making a monthly pledge to Focus on the Family agendas that I do that and it's can help stabilize her budget and planning process as we anticipate rescuing more marriages and equipping more parents and strengthening even more families in the months ahead.

Anything you can do one time gift is very helpful and we make a donation of any amount today to say thank you by sending one is book choosing him all you can donate by clicking the link episode notes or call 800 K I'm John Fuller and on behalf of Jim Daly and the entire team. Thanks for joining us today. Went to be with us next on what you once more help you and your family thrive in Christ