Obedience is faith in action

This month Brett and I celebrated 14 years of being remarried. I can’t believe how far we have come! I never expected us to be in this place at this time. In my post https://marceehess.com/weddings-to-avoid/ I share about our first wedding. But I would love to share with you a little about second wedding. After being married 9 years, Brett and I divorced. After those years of marriage the only redeeming value was the two beautiful girls God blessed us with.

Obviously, after our terrible marriage we had lots of pain and baggage we had created. But during our divorce I did my very best to destroy every shred of hope that was left. Not intentionally, but my every action seemed to speak otherwise. When Brett and I separated, I thought I knew what I needed and how to make that happen. I was determined to find a way to create those missing pieces in my life. I wanted hope, and stability. I wanted to be cherished and loved. I wanted to be valuable and important. Anyone who’s had much experience with addiction, you know those relationships aren’t defined by these character traits.

My dating relationship during the divorce was not successful in providing what I longed for. Although it might have appeared to be better, it failed to provide my deepest needs. But desperation didn’t keep me from trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. And in that desperation, many compromises took place. It became a compounding effect on my already broken and damaged heart.

Just months before what would have been 2 years of divorce, quite suddenly it all began to change. I knew all my choices had been wrong and I was creating more of a mess in my life, so I took a some time to get away to think. Brett and I hadn’t talked that last year of our divorce. It was too hard and emotional, so we avoided it. But during my time away we had an opportunity to talk a bit. It was still difficult but I began to thing that maybe all the hurt and hopelessness I had felt before might not always be the case. It was like a spark in a dark place. Not a fire but just a spark. It was enough to see the beginning of hope.

Brett and I began talking more and more over the next couple of weeks. It was awkward and difficult. Brett had gotten clean and had a radical transformation while we were divorced. He was totally new but still Brett. But I had wounds that hadn’t been healed and so did he. It seemed like mountains to climb to get past even the smallest parts of healing. It was like having your closest friend with you but everything said and done blows up. Those buried land mines were everywhere and we didn’t know how to navigate through it all. Really all we knew, God had spoken to both of us during those weeks that we needed to be remarried.

All rational thinkers understand we should have had years of therapy and counseling then considered remarriage, but for us, we understood God called us to obedience even before all the issues were fixed. It was a giant leap of faith! So after only speaking for 2 months we were remarried. It was a beautiful wintery night. Freshly fallen snow and our closest friends and family. All were excited and in awe that details had come to this moment so quickly! Brett and I were excited as well but we were both nervous how this would work itself out. I mentioned landmines before and just because we were getting remarried didn’t mean those landmines disappeared. We were very aware of them. We hope and prayed that in our step of obedience God would intervene and do miracles.

That beautiful wintery night we said I do, again. Only this time the I do’s included working through past pain we had created and looking to the future with hopeful expectation of what God was going to do with this mess. On our faces there is joy as you can see from the picture. Pictures only reveal so much. We were joyful but we had lots, I mean LOTS, of things to work through. Our girls, Toddy and Tylee, have both said recently that they didn’t believe that we would stay together for years after this wedding because they saw the pain daily, the tears, the uncomfortable silences. They saw us “working” through the pain.

But, slowly, day by day. Pray by prayer. God began to ease the hurt. He spoke to each of us about forgiveness and grace. He placed us around people who would speak truth to us and help us see when we needed hard truth and loving affirmation. Days, turned to weeks, weeks to months and now months to years. In the moments, it was hard. Looking at the years, it was easier that I thought it would be. God has been faithful! He has restored what was destroyed. He brought life to death and in the process created something totally new!

That step of faith we took 14 years ago was, for us, a defining one. We choose that day, to lay down our lives, hurt, pain and expectations. We had to lay those down often afterwards as well but each time we did, God worked to heal, restore, create newness, and hope. Today we stand amazed at what God has done. I couldn’t have imagined we would be here at this point. Out marriage is far better than I could have hoped for. The wounds have healed in ways I could not have seen then. God continues to use our story each day as we share what He has done in us. We haven’t achieve any amount of perfection but God has helped us thus far and just like that beautiful snowy day 14 years ago, today we lay our lives down and pray for continued healing and hope as we walk out this restoration each and every day.