Are you suffering difficulties and strife in marriage, even separation and divorce? God can heal your broken relationship.

Rose and I (Dennis) were both widowed. Before the death of my first wife, Therese, I experienced God’s love, mercy, and forgiveness in healing after divorce.

By faith, in confidence, with perseverance and obedience to God, my marriage was saved from the pit of death. God is faithful. He never gives up on any of His children. Was the pain of my divorce worth it? Was standing eight years for the healing of my marriage worth it? Were the sorrow, pain and loneliness worth it? Was having my marriage restored only to have my wife die two short years later worth it? Yes, by the grace of God, it was worth it!

“Death has been swallowed up in victory.” “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. 1 Corinthians 15:54-58

Jesus was put to death, like a common criminal, although He was innocent of any crime. He was arrested, beaten, falsely accused, and found innocent, yet He was sentenced to death because the crowd was getting out of control. He was stripped of His clothes, whipped so brutally that His flesh hung from His bones. A crown of thorns was put on His head to mock His kingship. He carried a heavy cross along cobblestone streets to Calvary where He was nailed to it. He was spit upon and jeered. And He died.

Was it worth it? Yes, all of Christ’s sufferings were endured for your salvation. Yes, it was worth it. How about your trials and sufferings? Do the pain of marital strife, separation or even the breakup of a family have any redeeming value? Yes, when they are joined to Christ’s suffering on the cross.

But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation—if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant. Colossians 1:22-23

Paul endured great suffering for the sake of the Gospel. Are you enduring great suffering in your marriage in the midst of strife, “until death separates” (Rom 7:2) in honor of the vows you made on your wedding day? Have faith that Jesus can bring healing to your bruised and broken marriage. I pray that you will hear the words of Jesus echoed throughout the Gospels, “your faith has healed you” (see Mt 9:22; Mk 5:34; Mk 10:52; Lk 8:48; Lk 18:42).

But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead…Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:7-11, 13-14

Do not lose hope. Do not give up the fight. God is a healer of marriages, to this I give witness. I pray that God will do for you what He has so graciously done for me.

For I will restore health to you, and your wounds I will heal, says the Lord. Jeremiah 30:17

Go in peace, the Lord has heard the cry of your heart. Do not lose hope; God is with you.

Dennis