He came home after a long night of gambling and said, “I’ve met somebody else, and I want to separate.” I was in a dark place with my marriage. I definitely felt just unwanted in that situation and unloved by him. He would wound me with his words per se. “Nobody will ever want you. Nobody wants you.” I would feel those wounds and that hurt and just that brokenness.
So when my mom called me and asked me to go hear my uncle’s testimony, I said “Sure, of course,” because this is my mom and my uncle. I don’t remember his testimony because it was like I was arguing with God. God wanted me to come. As soon as the altar was to open up, I was supposed to come, but I wasn’t having it. I had spent weeks searching Him and felt like He didn’t want me. My husband didn’t want me. God didn’t want me, so I wasn’t going to go, but I do remember that at the end of his testimony, I was on the floor weeping with these ladies.
I’d been searching so long just to feel wanted and loved, and I just felt loved by them, and I really felt the love of Jesus, just in that time where He really met me in that moment. I finally experienced that change. I started journaling again. It was something I had done in my youth, and I picked it up again and started journaling again. It was like I was writing to God, where I would just pray that He would fill my cup and that He would quench my thirst and fulfill this longing I had for Him.
While I thought that they were special things, my husband at the time found that journal and thought it was really weird, really strange, and told me that I was really weird. The more close I became to the Lord, the more strange I became to him. I spent a lot of time in Psalms, especially Psalm 139, just remembering that I am “fearfully and wonderfully made” and just the thoughts that God has for me.
He actually left me one morning. He came home after a long night of gambling and said, “I’ve met somebody else, and I want to separate.” I would just spend my time listening to songs that speak truth from his word. There was a song, I believe it’s called “Beautiful” by Bethany Dillon, and it would tell me that I’m beautiful and that I’m beautiful because of him not because of anything I’ve done and that I’m not ugly or unwanted because of my past or things that I’ve done wrong and mistakes I’ve made and my own poor choices or anything like that, but that he loves me exactly as I am and that He desires a relationship with me right then and there, that I didn’t have to change anything about who I was.
I’ve watched that over those coming years, Him just restoring my self-worth and helping me see that I have beauty and value in Him because of who He says I am.
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