new beginnings in an old relationship

By Cindee Johnson
Encompass Partner and Relationship Champion

​It was a setup from the beginning. A group outing for dinner with 15 other people where two of us showed up. We waited a little while, finally sat down to eat and soon barely noticed the others never arrived. We actually closed down the place at 2am, never running out of things to talk about, making plans to see each other the next day. Within months we were engaged, planning our wedding for exactly one year to the day of that setup date.

My Pastor congratulated me on the engagement by gently pointing out we had all the warning signs of a marriage that wouldn’t work: we would have met, got engaged and married, all within one year; I was remarrying too soon after a divorce; I had two young children. My soon to be husband had never been married. He had no experience with children.I was born one Sunday in 1960 and in church literally the next, having a personal relationship with Jesus from the time I was five. He had never been in church until I invited him a week after that setup date. And, only a month before our engagement he was baptized, accepting Jesus as his Savior and his Lord. I politely thanked my Pastor for his guidance, proceeding with our wedding plans. And, it was perfect in exactly all the ways we hoped as we embarked on living a good life. We both had wonderful careers, we loved serving the Lord by helping others, we were raising our children in the church. We became church leaders, and by the time our kids were young teens, they were leaders in the church and in their school. God led us to the call of adoption, adding a 9 year old daughter to our family. I answered my call to pastoral ministry. And, a few years later God led us to adopt an 11 year old son who had experienced a failed adoption. Sure, life wasn’t always perfect, there were challenges, but life was good.

Until it wasn’t.
​
About a year after our son’s adoption it was evident he was not bonding with our family; it was as if he couldn’t accept our love. Through his counseling we learned more deeply about the horrific trauma he had suffered. At the same time, I required what was supposed to be a minor surgery that instead led to a systemic MRSA infection which sent me into septic shock. I nearly died. Through it all, our adopted son escalated. After months and months with multiple surgeries, I miraculously recovered. I poured my heart and soul into God’s call to save two dying churches as well as an emotionally and spiritually dead child. As things grew more and more out of control, so did our marriage. My husband of 20 years retreated into himself, spiritually, emotionally and relationally separating from me. Instead, he returned to a destructive and evil habit a family member had introduced to him when he was just 12 years old—pornography. I had no idea. What I did know was this…chaos ran rampant in our lives and in our home. Spiritual warfare swirled around us. I dug deeper into prayer and every physical resource I could get my hands on trying anything and everything to help our adopted son and the churches. Our son responded to nothing. So I dug in harder. There must be something I was missing. The Holy Spirit was alive and well in the churches by then. What was keeping the same Holy Spirit from this child was the question I asked God over and over. The grip of evil was clear. Yet, I was so busy trying to overcome it for this child that I never realized the hold the enemy had on my husband. The situation was far, far bigger than us, but never bigger than our God. Through a divine moment of very painful, yet very necessary truth revealed, we both realized the disastrous path we were headed down as a couple, as individuals and as a family. We began again to share in what God had already given us and what we truly believed in—the divine power of prayer and scripture. We began again to utilize the communication and conflict resolution skills we had learned years before at a RINGS relationship retreat.  We chose together to allow Jesus to heal the hurts in our marriage through repentance, forgiveness and His grace.


And, we still do. Every single day. Not perfectly. But, always intentionally.


In fact, that’s how just a few months ago we could celebrate with joy our 35th anniversary thanking God not only for new beginnings, but for that perfect setup date.