Married in the Trenches – With and Without God
“Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her.” Hosea 2: 14 ESV.
I thank our Lord for saying these words to Hosea. Everytime I see or hear these words I’m reminded of our Lord and Savior’s unending love for me, for us all. I would like to share more of my life and testimony that brought me to the end of myself so that I could trust Him with my whole life. It is true that many of us only turn to God in times of trouble, and I wouldn’t take that away from anyone, since this was the very thing I needed to finally say, “I’m done living for myself and I need you, Jesus, all of you.”
If you read the first chapter of Hosea you can quickly see that God is displeased with Israel for their love of others (idols) and not the Lord. Hosea is a book of redemption. A book I needed to break free from all the idols I thought I didn’t have in my life. He was so gentle when He met me in my closet as I innocently prayed asking Him to expose any hidden places in my heart that I hadn’t fully given Him access to.
I’ve been married for 19 years and in today’s culture it is such an uncommon accomplishment. But getting to year 19 was surprisingly easy. I laugh out loud as I type that sentence. Because this is to encourage you and by our 19th year it has become surprisingly easy, but it wasn’t always that way. If you don’t know- I just accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior in January 2020. We had only passed our 15 year anniversary then and little did we know God was coming to allure us out into the wilderness.
Years 1-12: I met my husband when I was 22 years old. I fell madly in love with him, and for the first time in my life, I completely understood the phrase, “head over heels”. I fell hard and gave every bit of me into this marriage without hesitation. In a life of just knowing about God and not inviting Him into mine, I suffered greatly.
I didn’t know how to give love, grace, and much less than any of those, forgiveness. I didn’t know what gift I had been given from Jesus, so how could I have ever been able to give something I didn’t know I had. I have parents that love each other and have stuck by each other through thick and thin because divorce wasn’t allowed, or at least for them it was not acceptable. That’s all I knew.
I was a party girl and my husband was definitely a party boy. We loved to party. We partied together all the time and when you party hard lines can become blurred. We had been married only 2 months when we were out dancing and he was drinking. While dancing with my husband behind me I felt another pair of arms slide around him and when I turned to look it was another young lady that he had known from before me dancing with him. I stopped to figure out the situation as I couldn’t believe what I was seeing only to realize he didn’t stop dancing and didn’t show signs of stopping. In a fit of rage I went after her but was quickly pulled away and out of the dance hall by my husband and his brother. My heart shattered, but my whole life I was raised to believe I can do all things by myself.
At this time I was also pregnant. I didn’t give him the silent treatment, but he realized he messed up. He of course being young and without God as well didn’t know what to do to repent or apologize for his actions. I led him to believe all was well and all that happened to me was that my heart began to harden. Within hours it had formed like a titanium wall around it. I no longer loved him like I just had a day before. I wanted him to feel what I felt. However, we are not the same. What hurts me may not hurt him, or anyone else for that matter. He was kind and he knew he messed up and he spent the next 12 years trying his best to make up for it. Twelve years of hell. Think about that. Twelve years of me trying to make him feel as bad as I did in that moment over a dance.
The anger and unforgiveness that plagued me because I gave my everything to him- all my love, my hope, my expectation rested in him. Poor guy, he didn’t have a chance to ever do anything right. He stuck through it though. It was sometime in either the 10th or 11th year that I messed up. Drowning in my own anger and seeking revenge for that one moment I had two affairs. I was so broken and was looking for love. I had nothing to give and I certainly wasn’t going to trust my husband to love me even though he tried. This man was like a saint, he tried his best to love me though I know I was exhausting to deal with, as I always looked for a reason to fight with him. It’s a miracle that we even went on to have another child.
But God…
He showed up in the person I least expected it from. My youngest sister, who claims not to believe in God, was the one who spoke God into my life. One night as we were getting ready for a night out of partying (because I was broken and dead inside looking for life, I found moments of feeling alive in the darkness, drinking, and dancing) my sister was over to take care of our kids. An argument broke out between us and I was kicking him out of the house. We had already lived separately twice before this and this would have been the third time. My husband told me, “If I walk out this time I will not be coming back, this is it. Are you sure about this?” I had the enemy in me and I had something else fighting for my life inside me. I felt the internal struggle and I couldn’t even bring myself to speak.
My sister saw me and jumped in between us because I’m sure she saw something in me that she knew wasn’t well. She told me to stop. Then we began to argue. I never argued with my siblings. I couldn’t even believe myself in the moment that I was speaking to her the way I was. She loved me through it and kept on, urging me to stop. She said I know you believe in God, why are you acting like this? I growled back to her, you don’t believe in God so don’t tell me how I should be acting. That’s when she said it, “I do and the only reason I do is because of you two. I see how y’all are with each other, I know you love him and he loves you.” First of all, what kind of lie had I managed to live if she thought that our marriage was so great. Second, she is eleven years younger than me and she was only eleven when my husband came into her life. For the past 12 years she had grown to love him as her big brother and fought for him as fiercely as she would fight for me.
God knew she was the perfect vessel for this assignment. In those moments something broke inside me and I fought to keep my husband.
Years 12-15: It was not sunshine and rainbows after, but we tried. We still had one more grand argument after that where he told me he didn’t know if he loves me any more and I thought for sure this is it. I broke him. The very thing I had set out to do has come to pass, but now I didn’t want that any more. I was done living in these trenches without God. God began speaking to me and I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it, but he was there leading as I stumbled and hit some walls along the way trying to figure it out. My husband forgave me and apologized for telling me that and we moved on. God moved us from our home town away from the comforts of familiarity and dependence away from him. He brought us to the wilderness to become dependent on him. Now before we move on, the affairs I had, I had prayed to God and repented to Him and asked for His forgiveness. I was far too afraid to tell my husband in fear that he would most definitely leave me.
Years 15-19: We are in our new city, far away from our past and only new adventures in front of us. He also brought amazing God-fearing and God-loving people into our lives. The great thing about God is that He won’t leave you where He found you. He brings you with Him showing and guiding you along the way how to be like Him. I had asked Him to search out my heart. He did and didn’t leave anything in there for the enemy to grab hold of. We were going to deal with this affair.
I cried and pleaded with Him that I had repented so why was He asking me to tell my husband about this. Trust me I had fear gripping me tight and I knew the only release from that fear was to walk in truth. But during that struggle I hear His voice call me and tell me, “My beautiful daughter, why would you think I wouldn’t have prepared the path?” And I knew then that it was time. I went crying and confessed to my husband and I told him everything then I apologized. He asked me, “Why are you sharing this with me?” I told him, “God said to tell you so that the enemy has nothing to hold onto in our marriage.” Then my husband told me, “haven’t I told you many times that there is nothing you could do to make me stop loving you?” This was March 2020 when I knew my husband had fully surrendered his own heart to God because there is no way someone could just love you that much.
In the following months I did come to realize that that was our moment of redemption. I was right, no one can love you and forgive you like God. You have to have the Holy Spirit in you to understand the Father’s love. My husband to this day has never thrown the affair in my face or even brought it up. We haven’t been perfect, but if we have to be in the trenches it is much better to have God in there with you. I know it’s a blessing to have tangible proof of God’s great love. He lured us to the wilderness and spoke to us tenderly.
I’m here to offer encouragement that if you have walked through something like this there is hope for you and your marriage. There is nothing greater than God and nothing that our God can not do. (Jeremiah 32:17) Your marriage is the reflection of God and the church here on earth and it is his will that your marriage succeeds.
MEET THE AUTHOR
Selena grew up in the church with two loving parents who trusted in God, loved, and knew Him well as their Savior. It took Selena 37 years to give her life up and surrender it all to Him to be both her Lord & Savior. When Selena took the step after He found her, her life has never been the same. “It has been a whirlwind of learning to seek, listen, and obey.”