He was an alcoholic also and he cheated on me several times. He was abusive about the first eight years of our marriage. He was physically abusive until I stood up to him.
I was nine months pregnant and he started shoving me around. I shoved back. I said; “No more! You’re never going to lay a hand on me again.”
I had a gun pointed at my head one time and he said; “I could blow your head off.. right now.” I think if I would have said something in response to that he would have.
He continued an off and on relationship with his abuse, his drinking, and his carousing. I endured that for twenty-four years and gave him permission to abuse me. That's what I feel I did. I didn’t know how to get out of it.
I had three children by that time, didn’t know how to break loose of it. I was coming home one night just weeping and crying from work and praying about it and I said; “I don’t know what to, God. You’ve got to show me what to do.” I said; “Should I divorce him? Should I not? Give me an answer.” The only thing God said to me is; “What do you want to do above anything else?” I said; “I want to serve you. I want to be there to do what you want me to do about anything. I don’t care. Anything else, it doesn’t matter.” He said to me, I believe He said to me; “What you do will be my desire for you because I have given you the desires of your heart.” That really set me free. It gave me the courage to go through with what I needed to go through. I went ahead with the divorce and it felt like a hundred pounds of weight lifted off of my shoulders when I walked out of that office.
I know God wants us to stay in relationships, and try to make the best of relationships. I’m not condoning divorce. I believe that God has a plan for each one of us and I believe that he brings us back full circle because He has restored to me everything that I have lost. He’s restored to me a new husband and we’ve been married almost twenty-five years now. He’s given me a man that truly treats me like I should be treated. I asked God one day as I was laying there, I said; “God, why did I wait twenty-four years? What’s the purpose of that? Why was I in that relationship for twenty-four years when I knew it was wrong?” He said; “You were in that relationship not only for you to learn, and to grow, and to find me but you were in that relationship because I was drawing him.”
Toward the end, he passed away, four years ago. Toward the end of his life, he came back to God. He restored his relationship with God and I am thankful for that. I’m thankful that he did find forgiveness.
I believe it’s a message of hope, hope that no matter where you’re at in life, it doesn’t matter if you’re with an abuser, or if you’re with an alcoholic, or if you’re in that situation of being, I mean I had a choice, I could’ve been an alcoholic. My father was one, generations of family members. I could have chosen to be an alcoholic or I could have chosen to be promiscuous and go on with my life that way, but I chose not to. It wasn’t because of my strength, it was because I relied on God to do that for me. In myself, I can’t do anything. No matter what situation you’re in, there is hope and God is able.
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