"If hope is what you’re after, I can take it and turn it into rain

Your tears become laughter

I will catch them and turn them back again" For King and Country

Numerous people have asked me how I chose to stay in the fight for our marriage when the odds were so heavily against us. To be completely honest, it’s not an easy answer, and though I spend a great deal of time expanding and unpacking the journey in my perspective in our book EXPOSED, I believe these words are important to help you, the reader, get a small glimpse of my heart--a heart betrayed, a heart renewed.

Not much can prepare you for the worst storm of your life, even if you may see ominous clouds on the horizon or feel the barometric pressure change. I for one was too busy, being busy, trying to outrun my own pain that I simply dismissed the alerts popping up all around me. To be even more candid, I had bought into the lie that those of us in Christian leadership must be perfect, even if you are dying from the inside out.

Then came the day I was faced with the choice that would mark my life journey thus far personally, as a wife, and a mother. Only someone in a high profile existence can empathize with the pain and subsequent devastation that comes when your very public life crisis becomes headline news. The pressure and rejection is almost unbearable…and as hard as I ran to avoid the reality of it all, there I stood at the intersection of tragedy and choice.

Haven’t we all been there to some degree at one time or another in our life? I can remember my fateful intersection as if it were yesterday. Upon hearing that my perfectly imperfect world was now shattered, I stood face to face with the reality of my juxtaposition to the God I had professed belief in for most of my life. Who else do you run to when the oxygen has been forced out of your lungs and you are gasping for the next breath? Who else do you call upon when every earthly hope is gone? In my shocked and panicked state, I reached out to the only one who could save our family now…Jesus.

His response to me in my state of utter chaos was as sweet and caring as any I have ever experienced, and the echoes of his love encouraged me to stay and fight. Fight not only for our marriage, but also for a renewed identity in Him, for our three girls and their children yet to be. It may be hard to believe, but His words spoken directly to my heart were all I needed that day. You see, I had witnessed my Heavenly Father’s faithfulness displayed in my life numerous times before this tragedy to trust that He sees my life laid out before Him, and as such, when He bids me go right or left, I have to believe it is He, not I, who can see the road that leads to life- as hard as that road may seem.

If I choose which situation I will listen to and which I think is just off limits, then I make His power in my life null and void. The very real truth is that I had to take His encouragement and wake up each day for the better part of a year and choose and choose again to stay in the fight for restoration. It has been the hardest endeavor I have ever embarked upon, and I would never choose the specific circumstances in a million years. What God did in the midst of it however, is quite simply the greatest love story ever told because it points us daily to the redeeming love of Christ.

James and I acknowledge that God has done a miracle of great proportion. We call it our miracle of “generational” proportion knowing that our Father has given us the strength to break bondage that was meant to be carried into our children’s future. I find myself smiling these days when someone refers to us as, “the miracle couple,” because behind that smile is James and I metaphorically high-fiving Jesus, with our bruised knuckles and repaired fractures, weary muscles and recycled tears, we agree… a miracle indeed.

To the friend who is reading this and feels hopeless and abandoned because your story didn’t work out they way ours has, or you are in the midst of the battle for your family right now. May I offer an encouraging word to you? You are loved, and though your situation may seem impossible, or you need help desperately, you have a loving Father who cares about you. He cares deeply about what you care about, and is working a miracle of great proportion in your life too. What you will discover is that He is truly able to turn your tears into laughter, your pain into joy, and your brokenness into a beautiful legacy.

"Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think." Ephesians 3:20 NLT

If you are looking for help in navigating pornography addiction or marriage betrayal, please see our "Services' and 'Resources' pages for ways we can be of help to you in your journey.