A Marriage Restored by Radical Forgiveness

Gregory and Eileen met at church and immediately caught each other's attention the first time I met him I loved his eyes the way she talked was very sweet he's very secure of himself I approached her personally introduced myself and that is something that called my attention she was very gentle he's very intelligent I think those were the things that caught my attention and you know stirred something in me he has been my only boyfriend we got married when I was 23 and he was 24 and of course the expectations was that everything was going to be perfect I thought that I was getting married to be happy but after a while I realized that it wasn't anything as years passed Gregory became very involved in leadership at their church I was very passionate I started working with youth and and then I started singing I love singing then I became you know one of the worship directors he was my hardest working day it was a Sunday and I was a full-time worker in the bank that I would used to work for Elaine was so different from Gregory she wasn't crazy about the busyness of his schedule or the amount of social activities they had at church I was very timid and I prefer to stay back at home and being with people I was very frustrated not to have my best friend to share my passion in ministry and every week every two weeks that we had an argument on that as time progressed Eileen gave all of her attention to motherhood while Gregory threw himself into work and church as a result their marriage grew increasingly distant I gave myself to my daughter and also at the same time I left my husband to his work and to the church and to what wanted to do so my life was pretty caught up in doing getting too involved in the doing rather rather than in the beam and you start to lose track a little bit because of what you do what you do when you are serving the Lord after the birth of their twins Eileen found herself incredibly lonely but that motivated her to join a Bible study produced by revive our hearts called seeking Him it was the right time for me to do that because God confronted me with my sins and he made me focus on what he wanted to do in my life nobody else's life with mine not long after the study was over Eileen went with a group of women for her church in the Dominican Republic to the very first revive our hearts National Women's Conference true woman oh eight in Chicago I need to ask overwhelming when we got there and we saw all these woman Wow incredible [Music] I was going back home with a backpack full of information to put in practice and with a lot of resources and think that I had to think about changing my life when Eileen returned from true woman she began helping to translate seeking him into Spanish but this time Gregory also joined her in going through the study my wife and I were doing seeking him together she was translated but separately I was being ministered in a very personal way through through the same material I was supposed to translate chapter 10 I think that it was about purity and every chapter started with the story that particular chapter in seeking him told the story of a family that was unraveling due to sexual sin and while I was translating that the Holy Spirit came over me and asked me you have to ask your husband about this but I was concerned about my husband spiritual health I said that something was wrong I first gave him the book to read the story and after he read the story I asked him looking into his eyes is there something that you have to tell me I felt that us that was the day that the Lord was also preparing me to be brave enough to confess to her I I got too close to to a female person it was within the church so it was a Christian version at the end of the day something happened I and I slipped and I ended up seeing it again and it gets got with this person and against my wife but I didn't say anything it was the consequences of doing anything was too high I was I said if I have to slay myself and save the church I'll do it my biggest fear who has to damage the church and to my reputation and then my mind try to play tricks with me saying you know for the sake of the church and this means that it's growing so much and I mean you're the one of the faces of the church it's better you know if we leave it like this and I'm sorry you know Laura I'm sorry and we thought that that everything could be okay but the Lord knew better and I felt of course a huge burden in my soul in my spirit and the Holy Spirit continuously confronted me and the Lord used the material the book seeking him from with our hearts especially in those chapters in which your your soul is searched through in a very deep way and I was confronted with my sin I was very very mad betrayed I asked some questions about him and this other person and then the Holy Spirit showed me that that anger and I just experienced what I seen as bad as what he had to confess to me that I was also a sinful before Christ after this shocking revelation Eileen knew that the only way to move forward was through forgiveness so in the midst of her own pain she chose to forgive her husband who had hurt her so deeply when my wife decided to grant me her forgiveness was a some refreshment from the grace of God so having her forgiveness it was like a second a true second chance Gregory and Eileen began the long journey of public confession counseling and reconciliation during this time prayer played a huge role in changing their hearts toward each other one of the things that after the restoration process began was that we started praying for each other if I wanted to be consistent with the forgiveness I was given to him and to this other lady I had to bring as they prayed they changed dramatically Gregory you had once been so over committed distant and secretive began loving giving and serving his wife and Eileen who had been resistant timid and not invested in their marriage began serving her husband and also serving others around her I've had the chance to watch Gregory and Eileen go through a lot of this journey and what a joy it is today to see a marriage that is marked by such a sweet unconditional powerful love even though we have gone into struggle in our march and difficult times because of the presence of the Lord in our heart I can tell you that even though my husband has hurt me deeply I love him more today than when I met him only God can do all things new well when I look at my wife today I see a woman which is covered by His grace now I see a woman that really is putting God above everything else and then our marriage its second and her husband is her priority and then together we take care of everything else I constantly say to each other well God has been so good because of the relationship we have this awesome I humbled myself every day and tell her we need God every day we need the gospel every day and help me every day because I need that and it's such a blessing to have a fulfilling marriage and he's my favorite person in the whole wide world and now she's my first fan we share everything gap can make all things new and even better [Music] you

Channel: Revive Our Hearts

Views: 73,959

Rating: 4.909699 out of 5

Keywords: Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, changed lives, Revive Our Hearts, the beauty of the gospel

Id: VqNFcpZFmAE

Length: 11min 0sec (660 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 28 2017