Standing for your lost spouse and the restoration of your marriage can be brutal at times. Every emotion available to man can and does happen, sometimes all within a matter of moments: a whirlwind of emotions that can bring destruction like a tornado.

If you tap into the right thing,
you
 can stay in the fight,
keep hope alive,
remain steadfast in faith,
and keep going!

Finding WHAT gives you strength, and WHERE to draw strength from is vital to your stand.

HOPE is one of the most powerful “WHATS” from which you can draw.

There are other strengtheners; truth, faith, belief, trust, confidence, wisdom, knowledge, understanding, but we are going to mainly focus on HOPE and where you need to obtain it.

Hope is an incredibly powerful fuel to keep you going. When you are drawing your hope from the right place, it’s a neverending POSITIVE source that won’t fail you. It won’t drain you. It will keep you protected and safe in the will of God.

Being in God’s will is a powerful place to dwell. It doesn’t mean bad things, tests, trials, tribulations won’t come; it doesn’t mean it won’t hurt. It means that while you are in that place of God’s will, He is leading, guarding, and protecting you. His peace, comfort, and joy are always available to help you WHEN you put your hope, your faith, your trust in Him, and BELIEVE. 

Drawing your hope from the right Source is powerful and provides a feast. Placing your hope in the WRONG source can be equally powerful. When hope is misplaced, it controls your emotions and produces a famine. 

One day that spouse you put your hope in will overwhelm you with optimism and encouragement that things are getting better. The next day (or for weeks), they won’t give you an ounce of hope, and you will become famished and depleted, slipping into hopelessness and despair, maybe even depression. We have seen Standers become suicidal because they had no source of hope except for the actions and words of their spouse. If you live off their contact, their kindness, their gestures, and words, then you won’t know how to live without those things. Your quality of life will start to depend upon every move they make. Your spouse is the worst place to tap into for hope, because they are in the dark, and that dark place will pour hopelessness into you. It can physically make you ill from the stress. 

We all know and understand the saying, “You ARE what you eat.” Right? We can look at hope, and our source for it, in the same way. You ARE, you become, you are controlled by, whatever source is feeding you hope!

 JESUS is our LIVING HOPE, a source that never runs dry. A good hope filled with faith, joy, peace, and strength! It brings life to your weary soul because you gain a new understanding that God is the One leading this, not your spouse, not you, not the support of others, or even the statistics or testimonies of others. WHO Jesus is, is enough to keep your hope alive indefinitely and supply you with enough hope to endure till the end.

When you gain a full understanding of how much He loves His lost sheep and how He is actively pursuing them, this will bring you hope, which strengthens you. Jesus is the One that has initiated the stand here, not you. He is the One that left the 99 to find that one that is lost. (LK 15:4) He launched this stand, so it is His vision and purpose that is being carried out.

That leads us to another important place where we gain strength: in wisdom and understanding. 

Since Jesus is the One leading this, when you obtain HIS heart, HIS vision, and HIS purpose for the stand, you gain a very powerful knowledge that brings about endurance. Endurance is needed to keep you going to finish the call. We can see that most stands are not months but years! Only God’s strength can see you through.

Not many can endure this long without knowing WHY they are doing what they are doing. I will tell you right now, standing for seven years, love ran out. When MY love was the only motive and fuel I had for standing, it was defeated by what was being done to it. It could not endure, and I was left to find another reason to stand. That reason came when God spoke to me and said my husband was perishing in his sins and showed me in 1 Corinthians 6:18, “Don’t be immoral in matters of sex. That is a sin against your own body in a way no other sin is.” (CEV)

Suddenly, my perspective changed. I started to see and understand what God’s purpose was in this. It was more significant than my marriage, my peace, and my happiness. It was about God getting His lost son back for all eternity. When I gained this understanding, the magnitude of hope overwhelmed me. Instead of feeling like I had commissioned God to help me, I realized God had asked me to partner with Him.

As I grew to know Him more, His love, character, and nature, and as my knowledge of Jesus increased, so did my hope. That is why it’s a LIVING hope. (1 Peter 1:3) Because He is alive and that hope that He brings with Him is swarming with LIFE. 

His Word says we are to STAND FIRM through what He has given us, a GOOD HOPE!  

Good used here is defined as: intrinsically good, good in nature, good, whether it be seen to be so or not, the broadest and most colorless of all words with this meaning.

“Therefore, brothers, stand firm and cling to the traditions we taught you, whether by speech or by letter. Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and God our Father, who by grace has loved us and given us eternal comfort and GOOD HOPE, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good word and deed.” 2 Thess 2:15-17 BSB

So remember, He is our hope and from where our hope comes. It’s essential to surround yourself with others who also are drawing hope from Him as their Source. We see many that receive support from others whose hope is not in Him but in what they want. They can end up forming strong bonds with these “supporters” who encourage them to quit standing, move on, and find someone else.

Standing with you,
Sheila Hollinger

 “But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.” Romans 8:25-26 NIV

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(~Marriage Revealed Ministries Inc. is committed to helping bring healing and restoration to couples who are struggling in their marriage. We do this through the revelation of Who God is and His heart and design for marriage which never intends abuse in any form. If you suspect abuse in your relationship, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 or visit them online at thehotline.org~