No second chances

Before I walked out of our apartment and out of my marriage on Thursday 14^th June 2018, my husband was on his knees, literally, begging for a second chance. And yet I didn’t turn back. He was playing the song that I walked down the aisle to 19 and a half years earlier. He had bought flowers that were as close in colour and kind as those in my wedding bouquet. His heart was desperate; but my mine was resolute. And broken.

I flew out of Prague with the children 5 days later and went to a place of refuge, where I thought I could begin healing. Something I had been ‘learning’ all my life but had never had the opportunity to test was now realised in my heart – that Christ was, is and will forever be enough for me; He was all I needed.

Some people may think that I changed my mind and gave my husband – gave our marriage – a second chance. But that is not what happened. I actually wasn’t willing to do that. I couldn’t give a second chance to someone I had no faith or trust in anymore. The risk was too great and the pain was too deep.

My heart did not respond to desperate cries from my lost husband that day. But it did respond to a gentle invitation, just ten days later, from Jesus himself. He invited me to follow Him into a bold and reckless plan, and to trust Him with whatever the outcome. It was cunning and it was slightly crazy, but my God had never failed me yet and so I said yes, and with slight giddiness in my heart, booked a flight that would arrive in Melbourne two hours before Stuee’s plane. I would surprise him at the arrivals. Completely uncertain of the future, I was completely at peace in God’s hands.  

Many Christians would say that God gives second chances, and third, and fourth… But I heard something expressed this morning that resonated deep within and brought me, and my husband, to tears in our loungeroom. “God isn’t the God of second-chances. He is the God of new-beginnings.”

A second chance is given to someone who has hopefully learned a lesson from their mistake and, in good faith, is entrusted to ‘do the right thing’ from here on. God doesn’t do that because He knows that in our humanity and weakness, we would continue to fail, over and over and over and over. Instead, through Christ on the cross, God offers us a new beginning. A new heart. A new LIFE! We get to be born, all over again and to live, not in our humanity and weakness, but in his spirit-filled power and strength! That happened for my husband, in a hospital in the Czech Republic (that’s its own story). But it also happened for our marriage, at Melbourne airport on June 26^th, 2018. When my husband walked through the arrival gate and saw me standing there, he fell to his knees and wept. This time, his heart was not desperate and there was no begging. Our hearts were both surrendered to Jesus, in awe of what He had already done and believing that He would continue.

The almost two years that have followed have been filled with joy but laced with pain. Healing hurts. And even though I live in the power of Christ, I also live with the sadness of memories, the torment of unanswered questions, and my struggle with lies and with shame.

I heard recently that the extent to which you are willing to share your story is the extent to which you are able to receive healing. I share my story – repeatedly- because I believe it carries the power of the cross and it offers freedom and hope to others. I am not whole because my marriage ‘worked out.’ I am whole because Jesus has healed my broken heart. My husband and I – and our marriage – are full of life today because Jesus is alive and he breathed his resurrection-life into us. Believers, what has Jesus resurrected in you, your life, your family?

“This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” (2Cor. 5:17)