I didn’t have Any Money for a Counselor

I'm taking Course 1: Restore Your Marriage and I have a Praise about my marriage relationship. My wife and I have been married for 41 yrs. During the majority of those years, I was an emotional abuser of my wife and my children. I was both a drunk and a pornography user. This led me to commit adultery when I was in my late thirties. I made life all about me, and I never bothered to build an emotionally intimate relationship with my wife or my children.

Also, intimacy in our marriage was something I used to control and to manipulate to my own advantage and I never took into account my wife's needs or desires. In 2000 the Lord came for me and drew me back to Him. As a result, I gave up drinking and pornography and we returned to the church. However, like in the Old Testament, I didn't remove the "High Places" and I continued to be an emotional abuser and I did not work at building any emotional intimacy with my wife or my children. A month or so back everything came to a head as my wife could no longer bear the hurt and the pain of the emotional abuse that I had been inflicting upon her through all the years of our marriage.

Over the past month through volumes of tears and tremendous pain she has poured out her feelings to me of how she feels our marriage has been dead for years and how she doesn't love me anymore. When this first began to happen I cried out to the Lord and He began to show me that everything she was saying was true! I knew I needed help fast, but I didn't have any money for a counselor. Then in answer to my prayer, the Lord reminded me that among my books I had a copy of How God Will Restore Your Marriage that I had picked up in a used book store several years before. I tell you truly, I felt the Holy Spirit telling me to go and get it! That there would be a way of help there for me! Praise God there was!

The path to the reconciliation of our marriage is a day by day journey. Some days wonderful healing takes place and some days are so horribly painful that neither one of us feel we can bear it. Many times I have watched as my wife has wept uncontrollably over the wasted years of our marriage and the terrible loss and spiritual death of it. I know God is using this pain to show me the evil of my actions over the years. To bring healing to a great wound in our lives. To resurrect what is dead and to bring about Godly change in me. I'm so grateful that the Lord led me to your website and am ever so grateful for your ministry. As my wife and I continue on our journey toward the restoration of our marriage, we thank you for your support. God bless you all!

Isaiah 41:10 So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

There have been many times when my wife has said very painful things to me. Things that have caused me to be totally dismayed and filled with fear. When those times come I always stand on the foundation of this verse.

Jeremiah 31:3,4 NKJV The Lord has appeared of old to me, saying: “Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you. Again I will build you, and you shall be rebuilt"

I cling to the two promises in this verse. 1- God loves me forever. 2- I shall be rebuilt.

~ Ron in California