My favorite story of all!
It is how God turned my morning into dancing. I sit here and day dream about it because I love winning. One time a friend of mine told me I was competitive and I said No I’m not. I realize now I lied! Darin used to say let’s get divorced don’t you want the best don’t you want better for yourself? I would say that is exactly what I want, the best, so I’m going to wait until I get it!
Anyway, when Darin made the phone call that he wanted to come home he asked me if I was okay with him coming home for any reason. I said yes I do not care what your reason is. We were not fixed at all. God had done a tremendous work in my own life and heart but things between us were just as bad. He told me that night on the phone that he could not handle being away from Macy one more day and wanted to come home.
Although things were terrible I knew that after so many years we finally had the right tools and if he could just come home God could begin to do a work. God gave me incredible grace and understanding during this time. All along we continued to see our counselor once a week.
In saying that when he came home I began to get very angry at him and angry at Satan. I felt as if our lives had become Satan’s trophy! I kept telling the Lord “we are his trophy, we are his trophy!” I was so angry that I could not sleep in the same bed with Darin. So I slept in the living room with Lilly our dog.
At the very beginning of our problems when I would be angry with Darin and refuse to sleep in the same bed with him Lilly would come get me and stare me down until I got into our bed. I would then go into our bedroom pretend to go to sleep in our bed until Lilly fell asleep. Then I would get out and go sleep in our guest room.
So now it is several years later and Macy has taken over the guest room. Lilly is used to us not sleeping together because we had been separated so she stays with me out in the living room on the couch. I did this for several weeks. The counselor kept telling me this was not good but I could not get past it. I just couldn’t! I was so angry. My ‘sweet nice 1 Peter 3 self’ had disappeared.
It was a Sunday morning service our Pastor spoke on joy. At the end of his sermon he asked people to stand if they needed joy! So I had to stand up. I clearly needed joy it had been zapped from my life. I didn’t want to stand up and admit it in front of everyone but I had too I was miserable. So I stood up along with many others and they prayed a simple prayer over us and we went home.
That night Darin was in our family room watching TV and I was in our living room trying to read a book fuming inside. Reading the same paragraph over and over because I was so angry I couldn’t remember what I just read. I decided to pick up the Bible and start reading. I turned to Romans and that is when God literally replaced my anger with true joy. God turned my morning into dancing! This was the verse.
Romans 9:26
and,“In the very place where it was said to them,
‘You are not my people,’
there they will be called ‘children of the living God.’”
In that moment the Holy Spirit spoke to my heart and said Julie your marriage is not Satan’s trophy your marriage is My Trophy. The very place Satan was dancing around laughing at you is going the very place’ You will be called the children of the living God.’
I jumped off the couch skipped into the family room which was 10 feet away and said to Darin I can sleep with you, I can sleep with you. He looked at me and said, ” You are crazy!”
That night when I got into our bed. I just laid there with the biggest smile on my face. God had turned my morning into dancing! I did not know or care how long it was going to take to work through our issues I was going to win!