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A SISTER IN THE LORD TESTIFIES ABOUT HER PERSPECTIVE ON DIVORCE
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I RECIEVED THIS MESSAGE VIA E-MAIL AND THOUGHT IT WAS A WONDERFUL MESSAGE WORTH POSTING ON THE INTERNET!
From: M.T.Reese@juno.com
My precious young friend and Mother, mama - I love these words.
By the way, two of those Bibles belonged to my Dad, L.L.Thomas. Mother said the LORD put it on her heart not to keep them but to share them that others may come to know the Saviour.
You can tell which one he used. The entire time he read from that bible he was a very lost man - he called the Holy scriptures - "common horse sense," and he would always take the verses and use them to hit us over the head - like a club.
He never looked into the word with an open heart, but would say, "I got my life straightened out in 64 when I had a nervous breakdown."
But the glorious truth is that God hates divorce, and my precious and faithful mother stayed with this cruel, vile man. How that lifelong committment did cost her and our entire family - oh the hurt and damage and scars and pain and distress.
Yes, there were several times throughout those years that she had to flee for her very life and she came close a few times to a complete breakdown herself. The last time she had to flee she came here for 2 mo. because my husband saw that she was desperately "low".
When she left my Dad, she never wanted to see him or talk to him again, but after 2 months of healing and restoration the LORD told her to go back - and she obeyed.
During those first long years she took a young woman and her 6 mo. old baby boy into their home and into her heart - this young woman, like a hunted animal, was running away from the occult. (The Lord told mother that if more of His children were willing to open their homes, more precious individuals could escape the occult.) My mother was willing, only by the grace of God.
B.J. had 4 more precious children during these years, all illegitimate. I have no conception of all the daily sacrifices my mother made to love and care for and nurture these children - holding on to God's command and promise to her; "You just love her with My love and be a spiritual covering for her, and leave the rest to me."
At age 65 (when it was physically impossible to do) mother took in 3 more little children ages 1, 2, and 3, out of this same family, who had been abused, not cared for or fed properly and at least one child had been sexually abused.
For 2 years mother trusted God for the daily strength to care for 9 people in her small home (with a difficult husband who only made work on her, a down syndrome daughter to care for, and B.J. who never lifted a hand to help.)
After 2 years and with mother close to a breakdown, the Lord intervened.
The 3 little children were sent back to their drug and alcohol addicted mother in Fla., B.J. and her children moved out, and mother and June came to our home for a time.
The final reports are not in on this woman and her children. God has brought them into our family - we love them, we are praying for them.
We hate sexual sin, as does our Heavenly Father, but we are thankful that she gave life to these children and did not destroy them.
At least she will not have the murder of her own children to give account for in the judgment. J
onathan 18 and Jessica 16 are out on their own - B.J. is now taking the 3 little boys to church regularly. They are still very needy. We are still praying and trusting..........God is at work - He is not finished.
But my dad was 78 - proud, vile and arrogant - even after surviving 3 operations, chemo and radiation - still he would not bend his knee before Holy God.
But there was a wife who had been willing to pay the price and stay and pray and trust an Almighty God - a God who is faithful to His own and Who answers prayer -a God Whose will it was for my Dad to be saved (at any cost).
I can remember Mother telling me more than once that she had prayed a desperate prayer - Lord, save my husband even if it cost me my life.
Well, it did cost her her life - day by day - daily sacrificing to stay with him and serve him and pray for his soul.
On Nov. 28, 1999 the Lord gave my Dad one last opportunity to repent. Five blocks from their home he was T-boned going thru an intersection he travelled daily. You should've seen the car - he should've been dead-on-arival.
But God out of the storehouse of His mercy permitted him to be struck down, and then to live for 5 days. This is what it took for my Dad. He had to be stripped completely down to that helpless estate.
Up there in that trauma unit at U.T. hospital mother talked with my Dad and read scripture to him, as she had never been able to do.
Oh how completely humbled he was there with his body all broken up, dying and facing eternity. These are the verses the Lord gave to my mother: Ps. 146:9 "...but the way of the wicked He turneth upside down."
There on that bed of affliction where he lay dying, my Dad truly repented of his sins and won the victory - he was in an awful struggle - satan just knew that he had him and that he would be utterly destroyed in hell forever. BUT GOD, BUT GOD, BUT GOD is more merciful than we'll ever know.....
86:5 "For Thou Lord, art good, and ready to forgive; and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon Thee."
On the 5th day the Lord woke mother up at 2am and told her He would take my Dad's breath on this day - and He did.
God hates divorce.
We believe if my mother had divorced my dad as he surely deserved, he would've come out from under that umbrella of divine favour and grace upon his very life by being married to a believing/praying/trusting wife and that he would've been completely destroyed in hell.
We believe that divorce damns precious souls to hell.
Now that it's all over each one of my family members is so happy that God made it possible for our mother to stay the course, to remain faithful to those sacred vows she made before Holy God. (One God, one lifetime, one man, one woman.)
All that we went thru seems like only momentary light afflictions as Paul referred to in 2 Cor. 4:17.
God opened the door for mother to give a precious and powerful testimony at dad's funeral - she has been experiencing real revival in her life since my dad's genuine conversion.
Mother and sister June have a loving and peaceful home now and our dad is with the Lord. And tho my dad's life was never a testimony to God, mother has had so many, many, many opportunities to witness for Jesus concerning my dad, since his death.
Because divorce is the death of a marriage and a home; I personally believe divorce is satan's way of dealing with problems - because the word tells us in John 10:10 that satan's work is to steal, kill and destroy.
Divorce is the world's way of dealing with marriages in trouble.
Divorce gives ground for satan to come in and do his work.
Divorce sends trouble and distress to the very depth of a child's being and says to them: God is not real, God does not "work". After all, who wants a God who cannot deal with the problems in a marriage and in a home?
Divorce slams the door in God's face and gives "me" man's legal authority - a "paper" with which "I" can move on with "my" life. Oh that we'd give more thought to what it is that God says He hates - D.I.V.O.R.C.E.
MALACHI 2:15-16.
We pray that God will use this testimony for His glory. How much is a soul worth to God?
What is this life of denying self all about, that this Holy God calls us to?
How sacred is this institution of marriage that God has given to us, and how sacred are the vows we make before this Holy God?
If I am in a "difficult" marriage, can God open my eyes to see that my own needs are not really what is at stake, but precious souls for the glory of God.
Marian
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