Sandy and I were just listening to the latest sermon of Elevation Church where Steven Furtick talked about sometimes your greatest faith will be you staying in the boat or storm when it would be easy to just get out. Even the world would tell you to get out of the storm if you can but God may be saying stay and I will meet you there.
As you know, I went through 19 years of addictions within the first 5 years of our marriage. It was heck for my amazing wife because of those addictions until God healed me over 10 years ago.
Sandy stayed strong even when she could have left. She would have been well justified to leave, because she went through a lot of crap with me, but she chose to stay and fight. She chose to meet God in the middle of our storm. She felt like God would eventually heal my heart and felt like God wanted her to stay.
If the world would have seen what was going on, the world would have called her crazy. The world would have said you deserve better and they would have been right. They would have said you can leave anytime you want but Sandy chose to believe anyway.
Sandy had no idea that God was working on my heart through all of this. She would be in tears most nights and pray for healing of my heart. She knew the kind of husband I could be. She knew the kind of husband I wanted to be. She knew the kind of husband that God called me to be.
Before marriage we had long talks so she knew what was inside of me. She didn’t understand the demons I was fighting but knew we had a bigger God. She chose to stand strong when I was weak. She chose to stand in the gap when I couldn’t.
So many women in her shoes would have put me down through it all but she chose to show me the love of God through her. She focused so much on loving me until my heart was healed enough for God to transform me. She chose to believe when most other women would have turned their backs.
This was a dark time in our marriage. She had no idea if I would ever change. That’s why it took great faith staying in the storm. The easy way would have been for her to just get up and leave. It was not easy for her but she knew God was with her in the middle of the storm.
I could tell our story to 100 women and pretend its going on with someone I know and say I wanted their advice. Do you know what kind of advice I would get in this day and time? 99 of those 100 would tell me to tell my friend that they deserve better and should leave immediately. 1 year, 2 years, 3 years or 4 years is way too long.
But the 1 out of 100 would tell me to tell my friend to pray over it, love the spouse and ask God what you need to do then do that. They would go on and say God will meet them in the middle of the storm if that’s what he wants for them.
I thank God today that my wife was that 1 in 100 because I would not be married today if she wasn’t. We would not have our amazing 6 year old boy because all of this happened before he came.
The timing was right for the growth that God had me on. Yes, it was rough. Yes, she did deserve better, but now here we are at 15 years of marriage stronger than ever. We have an amazing life together and a connection and passion between the two of us that is 2nd to none. I can’t imagine a life with anyone else.
People tell us that she allowed me to walk over her in those early years and to the world it looked like that. Looks are deceiving sometimes when God’s in the mix. What she did was allow me to experience the love of God through her. That’s significant! That’s FAITH!
I am grateful that she allowed God to use her to save my life because if she didn’t, who knows where i would be today! That’s pure LOVE!
Living an Inspired Marriage,
Chris Benton
P.S. The vision God has over our marriage would not be happening without Sandy standing on her Faith in the storm!
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