Love and Respect Reunites a Divorced Couple!

You will find no better story or example than in the below e-mail to illustrate better the marriage-saving, life-impacting power of learning to love and respect each other according to God’s Word.  Stories like these is what motivates us at Love and Respect Ministries to continue plowing forward teaching and sharing God’s not-so-secret “secret” to marriage found in Ephesians 5:33:

As I think of how I should start this e-mail, goose bumps and chills are creeping up and down my chin and neck. I pray that God will give me the words to convey just the right message that is in my heart. Over ten years ago, I was a young, broken wife; in pain and distraught. I was guilty of contemptuous and hateful feelings toward my husband, the man that I claimed to commit to honor and respect for life. (There are those chills again . . .) However, I didn’t really know what respect or honor looked like or what that really was. I found myself searching for God more than ever; I wanted to save my marriage and even myself, but didn’t have the tools or the resources to even begin.

I found myself at a church in Michigan, not realizing at the time that this would be important in my future marriage and even in meeting Dr. Emerson. Wandering into a prayer room, I touched the walls and absorbed every word I saw, breathing in every emotion I could feel from every person that must have been in a similar situation. I picked up a marker and I wrote to God. I wrote of my pain, my anguish, my love, and my heart. It wasn’t long, but it didn’t have to be because God knows me as he knows all of us.

Sometime after, my husband and I found ourselves at a Love & Respect conference at that very church. I brought my Love & Respect book and waited in line for Dr. Emerson to sign it. I told our story and he was so kind and encouraging; truly thrilled to hear of our reconciliation and our efforts to turn toward each other in our faith and love.

In 2011 we divorced but I still kept the book.

Here we are in 2017 and we have grown, and God and our commitment and faith in one another has been unyielding. (There are those chills yet again . . .) We have worked, loved, prayed, committed, studied, read, and practiced; in 2018 we will be re-marrying in the presence of our closest family. Without Dr. Emerson’s message, this would never be possible.

Respect is the life blood and the heart of what a husband needs and love is truly what a wife needs, and we have never been happier nor felt more understood. Our story was originally printed in a newsletter years ago, but this is truly an even happier ending for us.

Thank you kindly.

J

What a testimony! How many couples in the world today who once viewed marriage as an unbreakable bond have since separated and now view their divorce as an unrepairable division? It doesn’t have to be! In fact, God, the creator of marriage and the author of miracles, wants to do the miraculous in your seemingly broken marriage.

But as the above couple learned, it takes unyielding faith and commitment. It takes relentless work, love, prayer, and practice. But does it sound like they would say that it was all worth it? Absolutely. Do you think other struggling marriages around them have been inspired and reignited to learn to better love and respect each other as God intended? For sure.

And do you think any current or future children of theirs will be eternally grateful that mom and dad remained committed to God, each other, and their family, even after the Enemy had thought he had won the battle of their marriage? A resounding YES!!!

-Dr. E