For the brokenhearted:

Good morning... I know, it's been ages. I stopped getting up at 5 am when In A Pinch took off. I felt like that whole idea was maybe what I was supposed to get from the whole blogging thing and just went with it. I don't feel bad about it. I will update you on In A Pinch some other time.

This morning, my heart is heavy, because I can see all around me that Satan is attacking marriages. Its everywhere, and its heartbreaking. This week alone I have heard about 4 couples who are separated and some have filed for divorce, and I know of others who are struggling. Friends, this morning I'm praying for you and for your marriage, and for your broken hearts. I feel like it is time to share my story. It's long. Stick with me til the end. 💜

Before I go into that, here is the passage that I can't get out of my head:

Isaiah 61:1-3 (NIV)
The Year of the Lord’s Favor
61 The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
    because the Lord has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
    to proclaim freedom for the captives
    and release from darkness for the prisoners,[a]
2 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
    and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
3     and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
    instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
    instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
    instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
    a planting of the Lord
    for the display of his splendor.

God does not want us to be captive, brokenhearted, mourning people. He wants us to have freedom, joyful hearts, and praise. Anything from the first category is not from Him. I hope you know that. Also, I do feel that I need to say that if your marriage is struggling because of domestic abuse, please please please get help. Never in my marriage has my husband been physically abusive towards me or my girls. He has had his fair share of anger issues, and still struggles at times, but we have never felt in danger of violence. If you have, I would encourage you to remove yourself from that situation immediately. And here is the phone number for the national domestic abuse hotline. I'll just put that here: 1−800−799−7233.

Ok, with that disclaimer, I'll start my story now.

I got married when I was 18. It was a whirlwind romance, we were kids, we moved way too fast, and got married a month after I graduated high school. (July 2004) I realize that works for some people, but it did not for us. The story I want to share starts after this one ends. To be honest I have blocked a lot of the memories from my first marriage. Sometimes I even forget I was married before. But you need to know that that happened, and that there is hope after that happens.

After my first husband and I got divorced, I moved back in with my parents.(September 2007) I was brokenhearted, obviously. I didn't want the marriage to end, but it did anyway. I found a lot of healing, as funny as it sounds, in chatting with people online. I should have turned to Jesus for validation, and I did to some degree, but it helped my self worth to talk to strangers. I joined a christian dating website, and met friends on there. I never met anyone in person. That's not what I was looking for or needed at that point. I just wanted to talk to people.

I started going back to church after the divorce. I had gone some while we were married, but not consistently, I don't think. I honestly don't remember. (Seriously, blocked a lot of that crap out.) I jumped in to church with both feet, started volunteering in the nursery, went to all the events and bible studies and Sunday school things that I could. I started feeling called to go on a mission trip, so I signed up for a WGM trip to go to Africa. I went to Africa.(August 2008) It was AMAZING. I wanted to move there to be a missionary! A month later, when I got home from Kenya, I was going to plan a way to do that. And then 3 days after I got home, I met Eric.

Eric and I met in a bar.(September 4. 2008) He was my bartender. I was there with a friend because they had $1 pitchers of beer. I was telling her about the mission trip I had just gone on to Africa. (Yeah, I know...) Eric thought I was cute, I thought he was way too attractive for me and I actually thought he was hitting on my friend, until he gave me his phone number. I waited a few days to text him... didn't want to seem desperate, you know?

So I texted him, we went on a date a few days later, and things moved fast. We moved in together after dating for 2 months. (Yeah, I know....) I was terrified of marriage at that point, rightfully so... I had only been divorced about a year when we met. So we lived together for 8 months before he proposed. (July 2009) We were married on Halloween, October 31, 2009.

I maybe should just write a book. I don't know how many of you will read this to the end. It's good, I promise! Keep going!

So we got married. Man, things were rough. We loved each other, but that was about all we had going for us. We were so unstable financially. We got evicted from our apartment in Indianapolis (we had a roommate but it ended abruptly and we couldn't afford the place on our own.) and had to move back to Marion with family. (His mom? My parents? I can't remember.) Later, I found out that he was spending a lot of money on drugs. (I knew money was missing but I didn't see what was happening, I think because I didn't want to see it. And he was a really good liar...)

We were able to find an apartment pretty quickly here, and I was able to actually work for the landlord and got our rent for free, so all we had to pay was our electric bill. It was a pretty sweet setup. Eric worked for a landscaping company, and I was doing my photography business and going to school or something... Things were decent for a while.

The apartment we lived in was pretty crappy (it's condemned now!!) and the landlord wouldn't fix things, so we moved in with my parents after a year or so (I can't remember the timeline here honestly.) We were there for a few months, both working, trying to save up, and just trying to deal with life. Eric was still having his own issues, a lot of anger, a lot of lying, but he loved me, and I loved him, so I stuck with him and prayed for him.

So, to back track a little bit, Eric and I had been trying to have a baby for about 3 years at this point, since before we were even married. Eric's mama, Dawn, was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma, and we wanted her to be able to know her grandkids. So shortly after she found out she had cancer, we started talking about marriage and kids, and trying to have a baby.

So here it is, a few years later, married, living with my parents. Eric and God are not friends at this point, and haven't been. Still on drugs (I think), still lying, still angry... I had been able to talk him into going into church every once and a while, and he was a good sport, but he didn't really believe. My dad would invite him to a men's prayer group every Wednesday, and every Wednesday, he would make up some excuse to not go. It was months of this, and finally, one night, he agreed to go.

I may have already shared this part of my story in the blog somewhere, I think. So I'm gonna shorten this bit. Long story short, Eric goes to the prayer group with my dad and when they ask if he had any prayer requests, he asked for closure on whether we were going to be able to have a baby or not. We had been trying for so long, and due to some of my health issues, it just wasn't happening. He prayed, for me, that we would get some answers.

When they came home from the prayer meeting, I was standing on the porch waiting for Eric with a positive pregnancy test. This was the first big way Eric was able to see God in his life. This was a big turning point for him.

He continued to have a really hard time in life with his anger, and just personal junk he needed to deal with but was just trying to push down under the surface. Even after Avery was born, he was just so angry. I remember for several years in a row, on my birthday, I would promise myself that this was the last year, by next year either he would change or I would leave. It was different after I had Avery. I didn't want her growing up in that kind of environment, thinking that was normal. But God gave me tough skin, and I was able to still stand next to Eric, trying to nudge him in the right direction.

After Avery's 2nd birthday (November 2013) we had a Christmas party and Eric had too much to drink. The drive home (I was driving, obviously) was BAD. We got in the worst fight ever. And after that, I was done. I couldn't do it any more. It had been too bad for too long, and I had to get out before Avery was old enough to remember that that was how life was when she was little.

In February 2014, when we got our tax refund, I gave him half of it and told him to move out. Guys, it was so ugly. Life up to that point was ugly. I'm not sharing all of it, because God has allowed me to forget some of it, and I don't want to dig too deep back into that, but trust me, the only way I lasted as long as I did was by God's Grace.

So Eric moved out a few days later, got a crappy little 2 room apartment and we passed Avery back and forth every day. He has always been an amazing daddy, no matter what he has been going through. He loves his girls. As time passed and we were separated, he would ask me what it would take to get back together. He wanted his family back. He wanted me back. He would promise me things and tell me what he thought I wanted to hear. He even told me that he felt like God was telling him he was called to be a pastor. I knew he was just saying that to get me back. It was repulsive. I wanted nothing to do with him. Being around him made me nauseous. I cringed when he touched my skin. There was no going back. And when he asked me that, what would it take, I answered "You would have to be a different person. There is nothing you can do to make me come back."

He would buy me gifts, bring me flowers, he was trying so hard. He came to church every week, and he just was trying to show me consistently that he could do better. But he couldn't do better, he wasn't any different, and I knew that. Everything he did to try to help just made me more angry and pushed me farther away. I didn't want anything to do with him. I had the opportunity to get out of town for a week and I jumped on it. My parents were going to some bible conference in Tennessee and I couldn't wait to not be in Indiana, to go a week with out the drama of my life. So before we went, I printed up divorce papers and filled them out, but I was too busy to get it sent in before we left... So they sat on my desk at the bakery ready to go. I was gonna go to Tennessee and find myself a good christian man.

So we leave for Tennessee. It was wonderful to get away. I felt like I could breathe for the first time in a long time.

Avery at one of our vacation picnic stops in Tennessee. 

Like I said, my parents were there for a church conference at some place called Cross Style Church in Lebanon, TN. I didn't care what I was doing as long as it was somewhere different. I was happy to go to the sessions and listen to people preaching. I wanted to feel like I was finally getting my life on track, and to be encouraged. And I was! But not how I expected.

The very first day, one of the sessions was talking about how when you enter into a relationship with Jesus, you become a different person. I felt like I got slapped across the face. It was the exact phrase I had used to tell Eric he didn't stand a chance. And here was the solution, right in front of me. As the week went on, God spoke to me.

Eric will be a different person.
We will be getting back together.
He will be a pastor.
We will move to Tennessee for him to go to ministry school.

I was so angry. I didn't want that. I wanted a "good christian husband." I wanted a fresh start. God told me that Eric was going to be my "good christian husband" and that we were getting a fresh start. So I went to the alter at the end of whatever session we were in, and I prayed. "God if this is what you want me to do, you'll have to take away the anger. I can't stand to be in the same room as him. I get nauseous when he touches me. You have to take it away."

It was almost instant. I could feel it. God took the hate, and replaced it with a softness I hadn't had in a long time. I cried so much. It was a huge weight lifted off of me.

There were a few days of the conference left and I used that time to just wrap my head around everything God was saying to me. It was a lot to take in. A few days later I called him when we were about to be heading home. I asked him if he was sitting down. He thought I was going to be asking him for a divorce... he knew it was coming.... he was so shocked when I told him what God had been speaking to me. I told him we could get back together if he enrolled in ministry school. He didn't hesitate to say yes, even for a second.

So when I got home with my parents from our vacation, Avery and I moved in with him in his little crappy apartment, and we prepared to move to Tennessee. I sold my share of my bakery, he enrolled in school, and in September 2014 we moved to Lebanon, Tennessee.

Tennessee was a very healing place for us. It was a fresh start. He was learning about Jesus, and even though he struggled, a LOT, he was trying. And God was slowly changing his horrible traits into not so bad traits. God renewed my strength to deal with the messy crap that I had been so done with. So we worked, together, at building the relationship we both wanted to have, with Christ as the center.

Downtown Nashville ❤

In June 2015 we moved back to Marion, and Eric started preaching a few Sundays here and there at Hanfield's Born Campus as an internship. In September 2016, he met with the District Superintendent of the United Methodist Church, and she appointed him to a church.

I've shared a bit about our story since then, and I'm going to stop there. And, guys, thing's aren't perfect in my life. We are in a rough patch right now, honestly. But our marriage is strong, our relationship with each other is steady, and we are working through life.

The point I want to make is that even if you think your marriage is hopeless, it isn't. God is still capable of miracles. Even if you're separated, it can be restored. He can give you beauty for ashes. He can give you strength for fear. He can heal your broken heart. It can take time, or it can be instant. Even if your not both seeking God, He can still touch hearts. Prayer is the most powerful weapon. Talking to other people helps a lot too. If anyone wants to talk, I am happy to meet with you and listen, and try to be an encouragement.

I hope our story helps someone. God has restored our marriage when it was so broken and messy. If He can fix our mess, He can fix yours too, I promise. Send me a message if you need to talk. 🙏💗