Our Marriage Testimony

Divorce rates today are staggering.  Marriages failing right and left, people struggling just to hold on…

And my heart aches as I think of faces where one involved didn’t want marriage enough to fight for it to make it work.

I think we all have seen the effects of broken families, felt the sting of anger and bitterness, been wounded by the lives shattering all around us….

And yet, doesn’t God use the model of marriage to call us unto Himself?  Didn’t He design us, His children to be the bride, scripture telling us He is our bridegroom?

But if we despise the one we’ve had union with or let the scars of the past define us, how can we reflect Him?

Maybe today, you are hurting as you read this.  Maybe you are someone who never thought your marriage would end in divorce.

Or maybe you believe that your union could never find joy or reflect His goodness after what you have been through, because someone has messed up far too big.

But friends, there is hope in His promises!  There is no wound too deep, no scare that can’t be made new by the love of Jesus.

And although the road to healing is never easy, the journey called “marriage” cane refine in a way that may not always seem comfortable or convenient….

So don’t give up now….God has the power and the desire to heal you!

O.k. Before you go and start thinking me or my husband is perfect, let me humbly share the reality of our marriage…

It was a cold, rainy day. My mom planned almost all of my wedding because I was so sick. I couldn’t even think straight.

My dress was borrowed from a divorced lady.  We got married in a hall because I felt so much condemnation for not going, or staying pure before my wedding day….

Then to find out, I was not only marrying a stranger, but keeping this bundle of a secret in my womb, not telling anyone at the wedding the reality of why we were tying-the-knot.

Then, to make matters worse….my soon to be husband and I found out we have nothing (and I mean nothing) in common. We were opposite in literally every. single. way.

• He was Spanish, I was Caucasian.
• He spoke one language, mine was another.
• He was raised going to church only on Easter as a Catholic. I was brought up in the Holiness movement and grew up encountering the Holy Spirit.
• He grew up wealthy and extremely extravagant. My family was pretty simple, casual, and common place.
• I was dyslexic, lost in a public school education. He grew up trained in a private, English school who gave him the best education.
• He is wildly extroverted. I was painfully shy and cried at the time when I had to be in front of large groups of people.
• He loved to cook and was used to five courses. I was far from domesticated and grew up with stew and t.v. dinners.
• He was parented by his own personal nanny, having maids, cooks, and butlers to do everything. I came home from middle school, let myself in and sat isolated in front of the t.v. until my mother came home from working.

Nothing about us as a couple was even remotely the same.  And yet (here is the hope part), WE are living proof that God can take the most unlikely of people and by grace, make something beautiful out of them.

God uses EVERYTHING and NEVER throws away ANYTHING of what we give Him.

And one thing my husband and I both shortly after marriage gave God, was our lives. To put it simply, God was our only common denominator.

God can take the two most broken and damaged lives and bring beauty from the ashes, if we let Him.

He can also take a single person suffering from the brokenness and deep scars of divorce and by grace, do the unthinkable…giving you the marriage of your dreams.

Are you feeling lost, discouraged, disillusioned, hopeless in your marriage or existence today?  Let me encourage you…

If God can take two strangers who said, “I do”, me pregnant and puking on one dreadfully raining day…and keep them married twenty -three years, give them a ministry of foster parenting and adoption, have them lead and disciple people in so many avenues together….

God can redeem you! 

Will you trust me? He can redeem your situation!  He can take what seemed repair-less and bring beauty out of what seems like nothingness and despair.

Will you join me on our journey?  Will you continue reading as I share thoughtfully how God could take two messed up people…

And do something beautiful?

Let’s cling to Him friends. He is our hope in our hopelessness, our joy in our difficulties, our power to conquer the most impossible situations.

He is the perfect bridegroom and all we need.

Our God will never discard whatever faith and hope, and grain of truth we bring to Him. He is the Redeemer of EVERY life and family.

I know, because our family is living proof.

(To Read Marriage Posts, click HERE)