One year ago at 7:30 am my hubby came home!!! Some encouragement for you girls and guys! I was married to the man of my dreams for 11 yrs I just didn’t know it then and allowed the enemy SO much room in my marriage due to my hurts of the past starting with my bio father and many men after.
Anyway long story short, after 11 years of this man loving, standing in the gap and daily praying Proverbs 31 over me, he fell to the enemy’s lies and left March 7th 2013 and filed for divorce March 12th 2013, walking away from me, his children and the Lord. After that I heard the Lord say “I will restore your marriage & your family, TRUST me” and He gave me a promise, He gave me Luke 1:45 “Blessed is she who believes that the Lord would fulfill the promises he has spoken to her”.
I stood in my own strength for 6 months and then fell to the enemy’s lies myself and started dating. I dated this guy for about 6 months and EVERY DAY I heard the Lord asking me “do you not TRUST ME AM I NOT BIG ENOUGH TO HEAL AND RESTORE YOUR MARRIAGE”. Our divorce was final August 22nd 2013. With every day I lost more peace, more joy & more hope to the point I stopped going to church altogether until January 17th 2014. It was that day that I was done all I wanted was PEACE and well I happen to know the prince of it, so on that day I fully surrendered my ways & my plans for HIS. It was the first time I had ever encountered the Lord for myself to the point of HIS LOVE TRULY CHANGING THAT ANGRY JESSICA INTO, a not just free but free indeed Jessica.
With surrender, I had to go back to standing in the gap for my marriage. Did I want to? Honest NO WAY the thought of it overwhelmed me. I had never been without a man by my side since I was 12. With this calling came more pain, more hurt, & more persecution than what I felt a person could have in a lifetime. However with it came PEACE, LOVE, COMFORT, & HEALING and I just needed it, I was so lost. Sooo it’s HARD but GOOD. Anyway, see JESUS wants ALL OF YOU so I had to get off the fence (that middle place we like to play) I couldn’t just do it my way and his way at the same time it was his way it was obedience that is so much better than sacrifice. My heart and mind was placed on HIM AND HIS GLORY, it was placed in “is what I am doing today and every day of ETERNAL SIGNIFICANCE?” “Does my life song sing of you and your glory”, “what is the legacy I am leaving for my children and grandchildren & future generations, does it reflect him and his amazing love”. So many things flooded my heart I just wanted to hear “well done my good and faithful no matter if that was a lifetime of standing in the gap for my marriage and family knowing it was for a greater glory yet to be seen, whether my husband (ex-husband according to the state of Texas) ever had chosen his will or the Lord’s will over his life. I KNEW that this whole thing was for HIS glory so I stood.
The years that followed were the hardest yet the sweetest most intimate times I have had in life. I learned community is key I was blessed by so many ladies that came alongside me, and at times when needed picked me up off the floor and carried me. They held my arms up like Moses when I couldn’t, reminding me of the truths in my life. It’s true community is KEY! Also in the years that followed I truly encountered the Lord in a way I had never known Him in as my 1st husband, my Provider, my Comforter, my Defender, my everything, my MORE THAN ENOUGH!
After 2 years of WAITING, TRUSTING in the impossible being made possible in my marriage and family, for a heart of stone to be turned into a heart of flesh (I mean this man HATED me putting it lightly lol) my suddenly happened.
My husband walked in my door at around 7:30 am on a Monday morning, the Lord changed his heart OVERNIGHT telling me the Lord showed him my heart. ((SEE Dustin’s testimony about this below))))
It was time to come home and allow the lord to restore our marriage and family. On March 2nd, 2016 we said I DO again in front of our Lifegroup and a few others. We plan to have a big celebration service April 8th, 2017.
Over this year I have learned and continued learning so much even after your spouse returns you never stop standing and battling for our marriages and families in prayer cause the enemy never stops trying not to mention he is so upset about your restoration. This past year was a hard but good one restoration isn’t pretty it’s a process a messy process yet beautiful all at once. It is more beautiful today than it was a year ago today January 25th, 2016, when my prodigal came home suddenly and that was so beautiful! I am so excited to see all the awesome things the Lord has in store for this bunch starting with placing ALL my children under one roof as a family, walking out healing and restoration together. In almost 15 years together this is the first time we have all lived under one roof (we started out with his and mine mix). So this is a first to have us ALL living together. It’s true he always keeps his promises, just hold fast and know obedience is better than sacrifice! In the “waiting” know it is producing a peculiar glory yet to be seen by the “waiting” and in the process, he is just making you more into his image. So if you’re “waiting” it is the best place to be and glory is coming! My marriage & family being restored “looked impossible” “felt impossible” at every side completely impossible but impossible is HIS probable with him. So cheers to the “impossible long waiting places” he has called you into, and to finding JOY in the sufferings knowing it is doing something you have yet to even see!!
Galatians 6:9 Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.
Jessica Perrin 2017
Dustin’s Revelation!!
God said “It is safe to go home” and He suddenly showed me a vision of a heart. It was pure, true and clean. It was known between Him and I in that moment undoubtedly as only He can make one understand exactly who’s it was and what He had done in it! And showed me the one thing He knew I needed to see, the one thing why Dustin vowed he would never trust again! He simply showed me her heart. And in that moment suddenly I wanted nothing else. All the pain and anger miraculously turned into love and desire. I also described the event this way in a portion of a recent post.
No that does not mean that every prodigal comes home unscathed from their journey into the far country. Not at all, don’t be deceived there is SOOOO much work post restoration that has to be done no matter the return. Point is….What I Saw in my Jess was the Undeniable Grace filled Arms of Jesus she had when I fell into them early that Monday morning 18 months ago with tears streaming at my accepted request to come home. See I didn’t see the person I thought I hated during three long years of divorce in the far Country.
Nope I saw My Father and Jesus and the Holy Spirit as one when I looked at her in that bedroom that morning. And she had a Robe and the fattened calf right beside her and said welcome Home Son. And she has looked like Jesus to me ever since in the highs and lows of this restoration journey.
My Jess was remade and Restored unto Him while I was away. If you ask her I believe she would say she knew I wouldn’t stay if she looked like the Jess I knew before in any way when I came back. And in all her trial and what she would have called then error during Standing but now we know there is no such thing. She would tell you, I believe, that she was on the same journey in hindsight that I was. Her own kind of restoration unto the Father during that time, granted she was running to Him, and I was running from Him. Crazy thing though that did not matter because that early morning 18 mo ago is WE BOTH FOUND OURSELVES IN HIS LOVING EMBRACE in that group Hug by her bed side that day, and we haven’t let go since. We all said yes! “IT IS GOOD”… This is restoration, this is GRACE REVEALED!!
Dustin Perrin 2017
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Omg!!!! I could listen to you 2 allllllll daaay!!!! It’s sooo craaazy how similar our standing testimonies are.. aagghhhh i lovvve it!!! God bless yall for your AMAZING testimony!!
So beautiful. Thank you for sharing, I was meant to hear that today. Ox