When my husband and I were deciding what day to commemorate as the anniversary of the restoration of our marriage, it would have made sense to choose the day he moved back into our home after being separated. But after some discussing, we chose the day he left. Because that was the day God started things into motion that we had no idea were about to happen.
It was our Exodus.
It was a day full of the unknown.
What was I going to tell people? What was I going to do? How was I going to tell the kids? How was I going to do this alone?
It was the day I came out of hiding.
It was obvious to my closest friends at church that I was definitely NOT okay. So, what do good friends do when you try to shove them away? They show up with pizza and kleenex. They sit on the floor and cry with you and for you. They don’t try to fix things or save you because they know you’re already saved. They don’t tell you it’s going to be okay because they know, deep down, because our God is bigger than all of it, that you already know it will eventually be okay. They just get messy with you.
Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.
Romans 12:15
Explaining that the perfect marriage they saw us living was a lie should have been difficult.
But it was FREEDOM.
It was turning on the old water pump and letting the brown, yucky water that had sat too long in the pipes run out until it was clear. It was coming up for air after diving too deep into the water. It was letting go of a tug-of-war rope that had left my hands stiff and cut and worn. It was the beautiful, blinding sunlight pouring in as you open the shades in a dark room.
You see, we thought this day, several years ago, was a day of lament, of pain, of endings.
But God knew it was just the beginning.
For I am about to do something new.
See, I have already begun! Do you not see it?
I will make a pathway through the wilderness.
I will create rivers in the dry wasteland.Isaiah 43:19
It was the first day of our freedom. God had begun something new in us and for us, but we couldn’t see what was to come.
As the Israelites gathered up their things and departed the land they had known for generations, there was uncertainty. I’m sure it didn’t feel like freedom those first days away from slavery. It was all they had known.
But God gave them promises.
Those first days after Mike left, I didn’t know what to do, so I dove into the Bible like I had never done before. I would write out questions in my journal, and God would bring me reassurance, comfort, and guidance through His tender Words. I was so empty of anything and everything; It didn’t feel like freedom.
But God gave me promises.
Many months later, when Mike and I compared our journals, we found God had given us several of the same scriptures as promises to the both of us.
Here are a couple:
Psalm 90:15
Give us gladness in proportion to our former misery! Replace the evil years with good. (Thank you, God, for Your faithfulness!)
Deuteronomy 30:15-20
“See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you today, by loving the Lord your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish. You shall not live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to enter and possess. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you LIFE and DEATH, BLESSING and CURSE. Therefore CHOOSE LIFE, that you and your offspring may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.”
We left slavery behind.
God gave us a NEW thing when we couldn’t see it and didn’t consider it possible.
He didn’t need us to have a plan, He had the plan.
He just needed us to trust Him and step out into the wilderness, as uncertain and scary as it may have seemed, even when we didn’t know what lie ahead.
So when those feelings of uncertainty return, my husband will whisper those promises to me,
“We are choosing LIFE. LISTEN to His voice, HOLD FAST to Him.”
Let us hold on firmly to the hope we profess, because we can trust God to keep his promise.
Hebrews 10:23
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