Last night at Bible study, I felt com­pelled to bring a print-out of the “agape” email he wrote in 2010. 

I wrote my prayer request on it, and hand­ed it to the Gen­er­al. She gave it to Star­la, and as Star­la prayed, the Gen­er­al, Dar­by, and San­di sur­round­ed me and laid hands on me. 

Star­la prayed for him to walk a straight path and not turn to the right or the left, to break the addic­tion that’s on him, and that the truth would set him free. Dar­by said she still has hope for him, as she had come across some­thing she wrote when she was going through this her­self: quit feed­ing the prodi­gal in the pig­pen. When he was in want, is when he came to his senses.

I want­ed to anoint the email with oil, and so by myself today, I prayed, anoint­ed the email, all the pic­tures of him in the house, the kids’ beds, mir­rors, instru­ments… and my divorce fold­er. I can’t explain why, oth­er than to say faith and obe­di­ence to a prompt­ing. What did I have to lose?

My son was so upset this morn­ing, so I decid­ed to sur­prise him at lunch (with a cup­cake!). We’re going on a moth­er-son date tomor­row night.

I hate this tug-of-war. I know what I “see” dur­ing wor­ship and prayer, when I’m at Bible study and church and one-per­son mar­riage coun­sel­ing. And yet what I hear from my fam­i­ly is the com­plete oppo­site. It’s redemp­tion of the past vs. hope for the future. Do they co-exist? 

Yes. He will be rec­on­ciled to God. But it doesn’t mean he will be rec­on­ciled with me. As bit­ter as that is to accept, it’s what God has always shown me to accept. The pos­si­bil­i­ty is always there, since God can do any­thing. But HE wants me to sur­ren­der, trust, and move for­ward. So I sur­ren­der, I trust, and I move for­ward. I don’t put my hope in a par­tic­u­lar out­come, but in God alone. So like the min­is­ter in this Cody Carnes “Noth­ing Less” video says, “I don’t fol­low my dreams. I fol­low Jesus, and my dreams fol­low me.”