Finding Strength in the Midst of Disappointment - Lysa TerKeurst Part 2

I feel like if I can report having freshly licked the floor of hell and I can still give a report that our God is good and our God is good at being God and if I can say that maybe people can find that same hope in their story welcome to the focus on the family broadcast helping families thrive John last time we started a powerful discussion on what to do when we're faced with disappointment lisa turkish began sharing her story last time with us we're right there 25 years of marriage she ends up with her husband art hitting the wall where he had an affair and they are mending that even now and then medical issues came to bear we're gonna pick the program up right there but here focus on the family the bottom line is we're here to help you that's what this is all about is to relate a story from someone who's gone through that kind of pain and I know you're there it may be 10 people it may be a hundred people it may be several thousand people this program is for you to encourage you that God even though your circumstances may not be suggesting he knows where you're at he does Lisa welcome back to the program thank you as I'm becoming more familiar with your story I mean this is a downward spiral I mean you've gone through the marital issues as we left off last time you were having pain in your abdomen your family took you to the ER the doctor says you have a twisted colon it's in serious condition pick the story up right there what was the further diagnosis what happened and where do we go well I've been going through a lot of emotional trauma in our story and I think it's important for the listeners to understand it wasn't like I discovered what was happening with my husband and then there was a quick turnaround there wasn't it's been years of ups and downs and uncertainties and so in the middle of those uncertainties where I had no idea how the story of my marriage would end I woke up in excruciating pain my family rushed me to the hospital they could not figure out what was wrong with me they ran so many tests they said we're going to meet you to the hospital because you're in so much pain we want to help you manage the pain but we really cannot find anything wrong with you and so then my mind goes off in a million directions like am I making this up is this emotional pain translating out to physical pain but I knew something was wrong with me so I laid in that hospital bed on a morphine pump and the morphine pump wasn't even taking the edge off the pain I was literally just weeping and writhing in pain Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday finally on Friday morning a surgeon came in and the surgeon said we're gonna run one last test now let me tell you what was going through my heart and really through my soul spiritually at this point this was a real breaking point in my relationship with the Lord because I thought to myself why God why would you add this physical pain on top of so much emotional pain on top of so much hurt and anxiety that I've already been walking through not knowing how things were gonna be in my marriage and it was just really really really hard and I started to develop this thought in my brain God you can fix anything so why in the world won't you fix this so now it's abandonment and so now I feel almost abandoned by God and so the surgeon goes and runs one last test comes back in my room and so at least I finally know what's going on with you he explained that the right side of my colon had torn away from the abdominal wall wrapped around the left side of my colon cutting off the blood flow and he said your colon has distended four centimetres past where it should have ruptured and if it had ruptured your body would turn septic and you would die so we have to rush you into surgery right away we're gonna have to remove most of your colon and I'm not sure if you'll make it through the surgery and so I did make it through the surgery and the the surgeon came back in my room several days later and he said you do realize that as much as you were begging us to take away the pain and I translated in my head as much as I was begging God to take away the pain the surgeon said Lisa it's actually the pain that saved your life because had the pain gone away on Monday you would have gone home your body your colon would have ruptured your body would have turned turned septic and you would have died and you wouldn't have felt anything you would have just gone to sleep and you would have passed away and he said it was the pain that actually saved your life and now I have a completely different view of God now I picture that it took every bit of holy restraint for God to not answer my prayer and take away that pain because God loves us too much to answer our prayers at any other time than the right time and in any other way than the right way remember I was talking Jim like we're going through something really hard and horrific and we look at the landscape of our life and we only see the hard and horrific we have to remind ourselves even if I can't see God right now I can trust and know simultaneously he is working and he is working for good and so this was one of those times I got to glimpse God's story being woven into my story yes my physical reality was very bleak my husband was not sure that he wanted to stay married to me we were going to counseling but it didn't seem like it was working I am now laid up in the hospital having had most of my colon removed I am devastated emotionally physically and at moments spiritually as well so the physical reality of what I saw was not very good but the spiritual component of recognizing God loved me too much to take away my physical pain he used that physical pain to save my life that helped me so much physically emotionally and spiritually you know that's where some people they get to that point where there's nothing left in the tank and then in some ways your heart begins to open up I mean like you said the Lord spoke that pain analogy into your heart you had that observation in some ways that gives you hope right that's the moment that hope sparks yeah and I also I had that conversation that I mentioned the last broadcast about God telling me just a few weeks before I found out my marriage was falling apart in at the end of a 28 day time of praying and fasting the Lord spoke so clearly to my heart and said trust my timing and love your husband I had that to cling to and you know sometimes when we can't understand what's right in front of us sometimes we have to go back to a moment in our life where we know we had really strong faith then we heard clearly from the Lord and and almost grab that past faith bring it into your present situation and cling to the last time you clearly heard the Lord encourage you or help you so that it can strengthen you in that moment but Jim I was just at the point where almost I was just saying to God you know it's okay if you want to take my life because honestly at this point it would be a relief yeah I mean and that's that's despair I mean that's where you're at the bottom and you can be a believer you can be a non-believer that's just the human condition where you you get to the end of your rope you speak in the book about the counseling and you referenced it there a moment ago about you and art fighting through the difficulties not knowing where this would end up not really seeing counseling having an impact I believe you talked about your counselor giving you his Purple Heart yes to take you fill that in for me why did that make such a profound impact on you and what was his point in doing it well we were at the point in our counseling where we we had we had spent so many hours with the counselor and I thought we were at the end of our journey how much time was this this was over 75 hours worth of counseling at this over a year or two yeah for the better part of a year okay and I really thought at that point that we were almost ready to graduate from our counseling my hope was that we would renew our vows this would become this beautiful amazing story and I was already running ahead writing the redemption story so that's where my heart was but I think our counselor in one of the the last sessions that we were with him during that year I think he sensed that we weren't coming out of the battle we were just heading into it and so he went over to his wall he pulled the framed picture off the wall he toured the back off he reached inside and pulled out a Purple Heart the highest honor that you can be given and it was given to his family because his brother-in-law was killed in the line of duty and he took it out of the frame and he placed it in my hand and he said Lisa if God were giving out purple hearts today he would surely pin one on your chest and he said um I want you to take this and I want you to carry it with you so that when the battle gets really intense you can remember Genesis 50:20 that what others meant for evil this will be used for good for the saving of many lives and he said you know you have been wounded in this battle but you've demonstrated courage and God sees your courage up to this point but he needs you to have courage to keep going and so I walked out of the counselor office that day holding his Purple Heart and I kept it for two years I just returned it just in the last couple of weeks but what I couldn't have known at that point is that leaving that counseling session I would discover what I thought had ended and that the healing had begun was nothing it was that was not the case I made another discovery and the second round was so much more fierce than the first round the same the same situation same topic affair and there would be a natural inclination to say turn him over give up what kept you from doing that well you know I continued to have hope that what I had said to my husband the very first day that I discovered something was going on was this isn't who you are I continued to cling to that because art is a great man he is but he got caught up in some things that blinded him and I pictured him somehow the Lord allowed me I had days where I was angry please don't mistake in that but there were other days where I could see he was in the Battle of his life and so instead of anger I could have great compassion not on what he was doing but I could have great compassion on the hurt that had to be underneath this to cause such an amazing man to walk out choices that I never ever thought he would make and so there were enough moments where the Lord would give me a glimpse of art in the middle of a battlefield that was just fierce and horrible and he was getting so beaten up and so I could see again the story behind the story and no man does this know no man does this to his family without there being such such significant hurt underneath and so I could have compassion for the hurt but there did reach a point where I had to draw a line finally and it was in June of 2017 where I finally just had to draw a line and I just said I can love you I can forgive you but I cannot share you and I posted on my blog that day that unfortunately read reached a place where it was no longer going to be possible for me to continue the journey as it was and I asked people to please pray for art and I have to say I thought that blog would unleash a fury of people coming against me because that was my fear in that moment and there were some vocal people that came against me but a bigger part of what happened is it unleashed an army of prayer warriors and when I asked for people pray for me and I asked for people to pray for art that's exactly what happened now I will say there are some friends of ours that think that that's the worst thing that I could have ever done but if art were here today he would boldly say me posting that blog was the best thing that ever happened to him because it finally made him face his issues and go and get real help Wow and that is that is the goal right for healing it's just how long will our patience endure and how long can we stick with whatever it might be in ourselves or in our spouses or in our children our prodigal children that's fit this pattern as well Lisa you want to equip people to understand and withstand the enemy's attacks and first of all you have to figure out what what is the attack plan that he has against you you've identified I think three ways what are those three ways that you have since Satan coming at you the three ways are temptation deception and accusation and you know I think one of the enemy's most favorite places to enter into even knowing how to tempt us is through the doorway of our disappointments because we're we're disappointed we're eager to have that disappointment fixed and so the enemy handcrafts temptations that he'll put right in front of you he can't read our mind but he can certainly listen to the words we speak and how we express our disappointments right so it's no secret to him exactly what will tempt us and so he'll handcrafted temptation then put it right in front of us and his big lie there is this will make it all better and so he puts this temptation in front of us and it seems kind of small and subtle it's usually not this big epic horrible sin it's usually just a slippery slope that if he can if he can tempt to pull us in in this way then he enters into that second strategy after temptation it's deception and what a whisper to us and deception is you're the exception everyone else can't handle this that's why God says it's wrong but you can handle this and so as if he can ten just get our attention we will steer where we stare so we keep staring at that temptation and eventually we'll start to believe his deception but please know the enemy never wants to coddle us and make our disappointments better he never wants to comfort us by providing this thing that he has convinced us we need know the enemy wants to crush us and the temptations and deceptions are all a big set up for us to keep our mouth shut about the goodness of God and there's no better way than if he can if he can tempt us and deceive us lure us into sin once we sin then he comes in with that third phase and that's accusation and that accusation is that you'll never be good enough you you God could never use a person like you because remember in Revelation we're told I think it's in Chapter 12 we are told that the enemy is defeated by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony through one of his main goals is for us to never ever ever share any testimony about the redemption of God the forgiveness of God the mercy of God the goodness of God right he wants to keep our mouth shut so if he can tempt us deceive us accuse us Lock us in shame we will keep our mouth shut Lisa let me turn to the next phase I mean it's not over yet for you and again when I look at this I have sympathy for you my heart breaks for you you're going through this with art you have this you know near-death experience with your surgery and now you get a diagnosis you know with time there I don't know the timeline but the third big fast ball that the Lord is throwing you to use a baseball analogy is diagnosis of breast cancer mm-hmm so what's left in you to say okay lord I can do this I can fight this seriously yeah at first I did have some of those feelings and what's funny though is I didn't say seriously god you're gonna do this to me - I didn't that's not the way I phrased it the way I phrased it is Lord do you know how many people are gonna be so upset when they hear now that I have breast cancer this is not gonna make you look good that's a negotiation I'm not saying that was right that I said that I you know I just I just remember thinking like how am I gonna tell my parents this how am I gonna tell my kids this how am I gonna tell my friends who have loved me through this season of my life now this you know but I kept saying I've got to make sure that I have left room for God to do a miracle and that's such a tough place because you want to see the Lord on earth that's right in your pain that's right but you can stick with this marriage even though it is going from bad to worse that's right and to have friends it's like Joe to have friends come to you let me ask you this about what you learned through that experience with your friends saying to you do the right thing be done with it what motivation do they have for that why are they are they looking out for your best interest are they trying to rationalize well of course you know I mean I think some of their motivation and let me clearly state too I had lots of friends who said Lisa I will walk this out with you no matter how hard it gets no matter how deep it gets you know and and they encouraged me that they believed God could work a miracle and that was a gift to me but then there were some who had pretty strong opinions in the other way but you know where does it come from I don't know everybody has their own experiences everybody has their own secrets they're hiding everybody has their own dynamics in their life so I mean how can we possibly figure out the motivations at their heart what I knew that I had to do was listen to those people who I knew were praying more words for me than they were speaking about me or to me and the Lord made it really clear I could really sense when I was talking to people how much they had really prayed for me and if they had prayed a lot I knew they were listening to the Lord and so that those were people I kept very very close but you know when I was saying we've got to leave room for a miracle I could see evidence even in the midst of my breast cancer of such a miracle so remember when I said you know life kind of imploded for art and I in February of 2016 so now this is June of 2017 that I discover that you know he had not ended the affair I thought he had so that's very painful going through all that counseling and then the affair had not ended so that's when I posted the blog and when I posted the blog art went off to treatment and he did it himself and I was very thankful for that but I decided to take a season off so I took a good long season off and I'm such a high achieving person that I could only sit sad for so long right so then I decided well I'm just going to make all the doctor appointments that I don't have time to do one of those appointments that I made was a mammogram appointment I would not have made it right then right if I wouldn't have been in this you know season of taking time off and I never with my breast cancer I never had a lump I never had any physical indication at all mine was a flatline and they discovered it from that mammogram and they were able to diagnose me so early that I was able to have a double mastectomy and I did not I didn't have to have chemo I didn't have to have radiation they caught it very early and so leave room for God to work a miracle I thought the miracle would be okay God now you're gonna miraculously fix everything in the marriage and he's like nope actually must save your life again by making sure you have a season of slow where you get your breast cancer detected and we get that taken care of and that in and of itself is going to be a miracle right then and so you see we can't we have to be so careful that we don't run ahead of God and write the story we have to let our story unfold and look for the hand of God in the midst and that's one of the themes that comes out strongly in the book is this idea of slow and the virtue if I could say it that way the virtue of slowness and how have you learned to go slow with God and the beauty of that well because when you're in a situation like mine you really don't have a choice any other way he slows you down yeah and it's it's hard you know it's hard to plan for the future when today still feels a bit uncertain it's hard to dream big dreams for a year down the road or two years down the road and you know when you're not even really sure what tomorrow's gonna look like you know art and I have not lived together through the wise counsel of really smart people helping us through this who know what they're doing we haven't lived together in two years and I can tell you those are the hardest times when I go home at night and this season of being an empty nester you know I went from having five kids in the house being so full to not everyone's left home and even my husband's not there and so you know it's it's a it's a daunting daily reality so you have to go slow so that you can catch your breath and and remind yourself tomorrow's a new day there's still hope now I will say I think it's important to say that art and I are pursuing the path of restoration we are we have a plan that we want to renew our vows but Trust is built time plus believable behavior there's a lot of believable behavior now we just have to have more time I appreciate that and I appreciate that update particularly it feels like you've lived a modern-day version of joke I mean it really does you're the you're the poster person why do you think God has said you're my girl yeah I'm gonna do this through you I have no idea you know I end the book telling an allegory where I've cried out to God asking the why question so much and surprisingly God hasn't scolded me for asking why and I don't think he ever does actually yeah instead he has helped me see that my why questions all those wise have actually made me wise Debbie you ISE and that's how the book ends is an allegory of just saying the I feel like the Lord has said to me Lisa you'll never understand why some of the facts of what happened do you happened you'll never understand that on this side of eternity but you'll find your answers for purpose for the pain in the eyes of other people who had drowned in their own sorrow if not seeing that it is possible that you survive so so will they I mean that's what it's all about right that right there that's what testimonies are and to give people a glimpse that our God is good and even more importantly than that our God is good at being God and no human should have to carry the weight of trying to be their own God and figure out why do we all have bad stuff that happens to us in our life no human should have to carry that weight but so many people do and so I feel like if I can report having freshly licked the floor of Hell and I can still give a report that our God is good and our God is good at being God and if I can say that maybe people can find that same hope in their stone well Lisa you have said it and again that vulnerability has been refreshing maybe even a little unsettling because we're not used to it but I do think this is the early church on display this is they were out there you knew everything about your neighbor and there are people who are hurting right now I mean I can feel it I know that there is pain that's what life is to a degree and you give people hope that they can lean into God not away from God Lisa thank you so much and you know again I just love your actions they demonstrate that you're a child of the Most High God thank you for being and living it out we so appreciate it thank you hey I'm John fuller and thanks for watching get more info about focus over here and more from our guests over there and be sure to subscribe to our channel as well

Channel: Focus on the Family

Views: 186,347

Rating: 4.916842 out of 5

Keywords: Focus on the Family, Lysa TerKeurst, Proverbs 31, Proverbs 31 Ministries, Disappointment, Strength, Marriage, Infidelity, Heartbreak, marriage problems

Id: 4AeJd1Tj5ow

Length: 27min 4sec (1624 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 14 2018