Marriage Lost and Found - UBM [David Eells]

My wife and I have been separated and near divorce twice since the year 2000 because we loved "our sin", plain and simple. The first separation was in 2002 and 2003. This separation wasn't as bad as the second, but there were a lot of lies and deceit practiced by both parties during the first separation. We got back together in 2003, where our "Mother in the Lord" renewed our vows. The only problem with this is that we were still mocking God in our walks with Him and still "playing church". We had made a "confession" of Jesus Christ but we were not being taught the "whole counsel of God" so we thought the Lord forgave our sin at the cross and we were "Covered in the Blood". According to Matthew 12:43-45, when we confessed Christ and His blood cleansed us from our sin and the curse, we allowed that sin to remain in our lives. The demons, which plagued us, brought seven more back with them stronger than the first. Thus, we were worse off than ever before.

We thank the Lord for His mercy, grace and long-suffering with us. In 2004 came the second separation. This time the Lord had given us both over to the desires of our very own wicked hearts and allowed us to sink to levels of darkness that we never knew we had in us. During our second separation, the Lord allowed us to see just how sick the human heart, will and emotions really are (Jeremiah 17:9). This time when we separated, we both fled top-speed back into the world and both returned to our old ways. I began to smoke pot again (all day EVERYDAY) and she began to drink more than she ever did. We both began to sleep with other people outside of our marriage. We were separated for nine months and the number of people we slept with between the both of us was 16. The Lord really allowed us to fall to the bottom of the depths of the sea of sin, which our lives had become.

We were going to a little Pentecostal church at the time when these separations took place. It was here we met a woman I considered to be like a mother in the Lord. She loved my wife and family with all of her heart. She took time to come to our home and share the scriptures with us once a week for an extended amount of time. She believed with her whole heart we were "called" to the ministry. She would call me in the middle of the night and say, "I woke up in tears praying in tongues because I just had such a burden for your family". The Lord would end up using this mighty woman of God and her fervent prayer life to reconcile our marriage and heal our family. She also told me during the 2004 separation that the Lord gave her a dream where He showed her my family living together in a home happier than we had ever been. This, of course, did not matter to me at the time because my heart was full of rage and hatred.

I don't believe in accidents; I believe in the sovereign God written about in the scriptures. In January of 2005, I took a trip to Florida with a woman whom I had been committing adultery. We drove down together but for some reason at the end of the trip I made her get on a plane and I drove home alone. On the trip home, my wife and I started to talk again. The Lord also began to really convict me of my sin. Even though, at the time, I did not understand the meaning of "conviction of sin". All I knew is I had an overwhelming feeling of guilt for what I was doing. I knew that a change had to come.

In April of 2005, my wife and I really started to talk again on a regular basis. At the beginning of May, we had been together for the entire weekend when we received a phone call from a lady with whom we had gone to church. This lady had news that would shake my wife and I to the very core of our being. She told me that my mother in the Lord, Shirley Summers, was dying of cancer. Well, this is where we know the Lord began to heal our marriage. When the woman shared this with me on the phone, I began to weep. With tears streaming down my face, I shared the news with my wife and we shared tears together. She looked at me and said, "I am going to my parents' house and I'm getting my things and I am coming home".

That was on May 4, 2005. The next day my mom called me on the phone and told me that Shirley had gone on to glory. The reason this stands out as one of the most important events in our marriage is because this woman prayed for us fervently (James 5:16). She never stopped believing in our call to the ministry and she stood in faith for our marriage when we couldn't. Also, the number "5" in the scriptures signifies "GRACE" and we didn't realize that until a year later --that our Mother in the Lord had died on 5/05/05, a day of GRACE.

The Lord was very long-suffering with my wife and me. It was not until after we reconciled that we ran across a website where we began to hear the "full Gospel" being preached. We had never heard all the important doctrines taught throughout the scriptures. We had not been taught about repentance, obedience, holiness or real Bible faith. We also realized that neither one of us were truly saved, as spoken of in the Bible. The scariest thing of all is we realized that if the Lord would have called our numbers we would have gone to HELL! It has been a long journey for both of us, as we got rid of the leaven in our lives after leaving the organized church. Over the years, we have had to learn what it means to repent and to truly come to the Lord, believing who He is and that He rewards those who diligently seek Him.

We thank the Lord for UBM for standing for the "TRUE GOSPEL"!

Deuteronomy 4:30 When you are in tribulation, and all these things come upon you in the latter days, you will return to the Lord your God and obey his voice.

Matthew 3:3 For this is he that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.

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