With all the earth-shaking events happening in the news this month, I can’t think of a better time to dish out some really good news to our faithful readers!
When your testimony revolves around a healed marriage 15 yrs ago, it’s easy to coast and think, “We’ve got that covered.” We’ve had a couple of boosts since then, but nothing like what happened to us 2 weeks ago. The Richards highly recommended this 5-day version of an 18 week course, started by a couple from Bethel Church 3 yrs ago called Love After Marriage. This is the same church that has fueled our inner healing ministry and whose teachings have transformed our minds and spirits in the last year. So when we found out that a bi-lingual training course was happening over in Germany, we eagerly set aside the week (to celebrate our 25th anniv. + my birthday a little early) and watched the 1100 euros come in to cover all the costs!
The actual course is well-described on their website. Here is OUR testimony from 50 intense hours together:
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I discovered hidden self-rejection that was hindering my ministry and my marriage, got rid of it, and have tools to attack it if it comes back!
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We learned to stop trying to solve relational problems with our minds, which fed arguments and rarely worked. Now we ask the Holy Spirit for revelation instead. Wow – it came in waves that week. We could suddenly see the spiritual roots of our behavior and attacked the evil spirit attached to that sin (often in our family line) instead of each other.
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We learned a method to reconcile with each other to heal important wounds that were 25 years old and that we had given up on ever resolving. Behold, He really can make all things new and it’s even better when it happens in the springtime when creation is doing the same thing!!
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We were asked to write and then read a letter from Jesus to our spouse, with the help of the Holy Spirit. David had me in tears as he recounted how much Jesus loves to dance with me. The bonus was that our 10-hr days of sitting were broken up by learning to dance as a couple to a certain romantic worship song, and by Friday, we were in perfect sync, like I’d always dreamed of!
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We were reminded that our physical intimacy is of high importance to God because it is a declaration of the restoration of being emotionally, physically, and spiritually “naked and unashamed” with each other and with Him through the sacrifice of Jesus. We “nailed to the cross” a list of issues that have kept us from having “a more perfect union” and we have invited the Holy Spirit into our bed to break us out of old patterns and help us walk out the Song of Solomon in deeper ways…
I have heard that the French tend to believe that passion can only exist in a context of adultery, so one of our “ministries” is marital public affection. We are a very visible couple in the church, so our actions give a model for the youth and create hope and desire in the broken marriages around us. Our pastor and school founder is desperate for help in this area, knowing full well that healthier couples mean happier students at our school.
We also know that when we lead worship with deeper love and unity between us, it can only enhance greater intimacy in worship for our church body, and we saw concrete evidence on the Sunday of our return: the husband/father of the little boys that I help care for unplugged his computer recently to focus on writing music. He had also gone through an inner healing session with us about a month ago. His countenance and demeanor have changed drastically and his song that we sang could have been an advertisement for what David and I had just lived! We have been waiting a long time to see the French write their own intimate worship songs from healed hearts (instead of singing translations) and it has happened! And the second time it was played (in the context of our 12 hr. tabernacle) couples started waltzing to it!! It brought tears to my eyes…
This year’s royal wedding in Britain has become a prophetic sign for me – William and Kate decided to wed at the same time that God is restoring us for the second half of our married life! What a wonderful reminder that God is preparing us all for the ultimate royal wedding with King Jesus. The marriage at the end of Revelation takes us back to Genesis: access to the Tree of Life in the garden await us in the new heavens and the new earth, but now the snake is forever trapped in his lake of fire. We will spend eternity naked and unashamed with everyone else who has ever said, “I do” to Jesus while on the earth, but why not join us and start living eternity now ?
Noah and I leave for Phoenix on Saturday. I will miss David like never before…
Love, Angela