Here is the testimony of a woman who has devoted so much love, time, prayer, and part of herself into the Standing Community! She runs a personal facebook page and helps many who are called to STAND!

Do you wonder why your spouse has changed so much? Well, it’s the power of sin, satan, and self!! They all have such power over them!!! This morning as I was spending time with the Lord, it was impressed on me to share the fact that I WAS the OTHER WOMAN at one time many years ago… and I went in a wrong way and got involved with a married man. Many of you may know, but I also know that many of you don’t. Perhaps my testimony can bring hope to some of you today. Well when I was 18 years of age, no doubt the enemy attacked my life trying to destroy me completely. It’s a long story but I’ll try to make it real short.

Basically, I fell in love with my boss. I was 18 years of age. He was 32. This shows how satan was truly working. I had just come home from a Christian conference and was sharing with my boss about it. I believed I was a Christian but only God knew for sure if I was or not… but up until that point God really never had been real to me. I had no relationship with him on a daily basis other than just going to church, playing religion. That is how I was raised. I just knew the words of salvation, said a prayer when I was young, but nothing truly real that reflected that of a changed life. I did have somewhat of a desire towards God though, I never was involved in any serious relationship before this man. It happened gradually. I was so naive, sheltered. I would never have imagined I would end up in such a horrible situation where I made some seriously wrong choices, one after another!!!

This man was a family man, had three children and his wife was in love with him! She thought he was the greatest and he told me his wife was a wonderful mother and wife. But Satan is powerful, and the flesh is also, and so it happened I broke up a family — or him and I did — for 9 months. All I know is as time went by I became so obsessed with this man, hiding my situation from my parents for 9 months. I thought I was happy because of how I FELT with this man and how I simply fell in love with him. But I lived in fear! I always felt like I was going to lose him. I became more and more selfish as time went on because all I cared about WAS HAVING THIS MAN! It drove me to become very manipulative and plot ways to seduce and keep him. I spent countless hours planning ways to guilt him and convince him I was better for him, that we belonged together. I was obsessed with keeping him convinced, and there was nothing I would not do or say. I lied, deceived. I stooped to low levels I never dreamed I could stoop to. Anything he told me about his wife, I would use over and over against her. I would make myself out to be the best thing that happened to him, while doing my best to convince him that his wife had her chance, and she was going to keep hurting and destroying him. That she only after his money and didn’t love him. What if she did really love him, she would never have treated him this way.  I became a great liar. Everything I did was a lie to make myself look better and be a better person for him. I didn’t care about cooking, or keeping things clean, or making myself look perfect. But for him I did. I was convinced I had to be perfect to keep him. So I played this fake role and for a time, it worked.

I want you to know I lived with this man for 1 month and every day his wife would call crying and screaming. She was in so much pain (OH when I think of it now, that poor woman… you all know the pain). But I was so not in my right mind. I had no feelings of caring about her pain or her loss because all I cared about was that she was going to persuade him back to her and he would leave me. He would tell his wife, “I’m so sorry…but I’m in love with Karen”. When I heard him tell his wife that, it relieved me of the fear for the moment, but I was always so scared to lose him. IT WAS HORRIBLE!!! Terrible, terrible bondage. I was really and truly in such a dark place! I was so messed up! He was too! We tried to separate and it just left me in such a state of depression, trying to not be with him. I was in a horrible state. I felt I could not live without this man and he felt the same towards me.

Well, my parents heard me crying in the bathroom one night (I had good parents who loved me), and I locked myself in there. I can not remember why I was crying but my Mom thought I was pregnant. NOPE. Then somehow it all came pouring out. I told them what was going on and how I was in love with this man, my boss! (I know they were in shock). My Dad put his hands on my shoulders, told me that this man was using me. I was so hurt. I knew he wasn’t. Then my dad said, ‘you can not be with this man. He is married’. I became so hard/cold, indifferent. I knew in my heart it was wrong, but I felt I couldn’t live without this man. I WANTED HIM! So that night after Dad told me that I decided while they were asleep I was going to jump out of our two-story house — and I DID! In the wee hours of the morning, I ran non-stop 7 miles to go call him. HE LEFT HIS WIFE as she found out about us, and he left to come to get me. TRULY A NIGHTMARE!

I told you lots of details, but what was on my heart mainly to share was when I felt the Lord prompt me one Saturday to share this with you all. IT WAS ONLY GOD that moved to separate us once and for all. IT WAS GOD who intervened! He basically told me that he had to go back because of the kids, and how sorry he was… so much in between I can share more, but this was the NIGHTMARE OF MY LIFE which caused me to need God like never before. I couldn’t live. I wanted to die! I didn’t think I could live, it was horrible!!! BUT one day when I knew that this was reality and I was never going to have this man, I SCREAMED OUT from the top of my lungs in my living room — HELP ME GOD. HELP ME!

 

God took me out of the darkest, deepest pit and healed me. He truly set me up on a rock, and the Lord knew way back then that one day he was going to give me a marriage ministry! He has even used this horrible experience to help Standers in many ways.

I have not shared this with a lot of people, it is only as the Lord has led me to, to help whoever at the moment needs to receive this understanding. This sin — adultery or fornication, either one — Satan is right in the midst of it. I was a different person. My Mom was so broken, she couldn’t eat and just would lay on the couch in distress over me. I would come to grab something from the house, see her on the couch, AND I DIDN’T CARE! I DIDN’T CARE! It was just so awful where my heart was at. I had such a hard cold heart! So many don’t care. JUST KNOW THAT NO MATTER HOW TIED up your spouse is with the other — GOD IS ABLE to break them up just like he did me with the man I was with!

What is impossible with man, is possible with God!!! Never stop believing, keep your faith, keep praying, never ever give up. God will shatter that relationship! The Lord’s grace is amazing. His mercy, his compassion…. there are no words to express what he has done for me! He lifted me out of a horrible pit and I will forever be grateful. Let the redeemed of the Lord say this — those he redeemed from the hand of the foe Ps. 107:2.…..thank you Jesus!!!! Thank you Lord…….you are so good!!!! I would be dead if it were not for your mercy!!!!

~Karen