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December, 2003

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In 1999 we formed an Alumni group to encourage and promote ongoing healing in reconciled couples. Since that time we have designed a quarterly newsletter especially for our ever-growing list of healed couples. We know that continued support and prayer is needed, and are pleased to add this new page especially for our Covenant Couples. Click on the logo above to go to the Covenant Couples page.

LET GO OF LONELINESS
by Marilyn Conrad

My husband left our home the week after Christmas. A year later I dreaded the approaching season—the first Christmas since the divorce. Our holidays held such good memories, including the wonderful congregations in the churches where we served as pastors. But now, after 27 years, there was no congregation, no Christmas program, no church to decorate. More importantly, we had wonderful memories of our family time during the holidays. Our sons, Craig and Murry, were now grown and we had a wonderful daughter-in-law, Craig’s wife Susan.

My cry to God was for Him to help me make it through the next few weeks.

A dear friend had been widowed the same time, and we spent much time praying together. We recognized that we could dread the holidays, isolate ourselves and hurt, or we could believe God and walk through the holidays with Him and come out more healed! We chose to walk with God.

Checking the newspapers, we looked for all the holiday events we felt would bring glory to God and therefore edify us. In a matter of days we had a full agenda! First was the kickoff for the season with the Tulsa Philharmonic Orchestra, choirs and ice skaters. After that, we attended a Christmas concert at Oral Roberts University, then The Hanging of the Greens at First United Methodist Church where I was a member, followed by a Christmas program at my friend's church.

I will never forget how we held hands as we sang Christmas carols, tears streaming down our faces. Shedding tears was a necessary part of our healing, but we discovered that as we looked up into the face of Jesus it was difficult to cry!

"Minister to Marilyn"

Next, my friend purchased tickets to a Women’s Aglow banquet. We had great seats near the front. Buddy and Pat Harrison spoke that evening, and after Pat finished she said, “Before my husband comes to share, I have to be obedient to the Holy Spirit. When I entered the banquet hall tonight, the Lord spoke and said, ‘I want you to minister to Marilyn.’ Well, I looked around and didn’t see anyone I knew by that name. By faith I was going to ask for anyone by the name of Marilyn to come forward, but she was seated before me all this time.” We had turned our chairs to face the front after eating, and Pat recognized me from the dress shop where I worked.

She called me forward and began to pray for me and break the loneliness that had engulfed me the past year. She knew nothing of my situation and could not have been aware that each night I would stay downstairs as long as possible because, when I reached the landing on the staircase, loneliness would flood me. She prayed for me and that spirit left and has never returned!

Pat began to pray in tongues and, as is his custom, Buddy gave the interpretation in poetic form:

And now, my faithful one, I want to encourage you in the thing that I want to do.
And that is, I want to work more readily down deep on the inside of you.
I want you to seek me a little more diligently in the days ahead,So that I will be able to work in your behalf and take away all fear and dread.

And it will be at that time of fellowshipping with me,
That we will be drawn close together in a bondage that will not be bondage but great liberty.
And it will be a freedom to worship and to praise even among the throng,And you see, when you begin to do that you will find there will be no wrong.

For I will begin to take it  from your midst and begin to straighten out your life.
Yes, I will help you even to be that which would be that good and perfect wife.
Even though the enemy hath come in and divided and seemingly brought snares to trap people along the way,
I am going to turn the thing around and cause it to go just the right way.

So, you allow me to work as you draw near and close in your heart,
But you will have to do that for the other to come in part.
And it is line upon line and precept upon precept that it shall surely come to pass,
So that you will be able to throw up your hands and just laugh and say, “The Lord hath delivered my heart’s desire,
“And thanks be unto God, we will not wallow in the mire.”

I praise God that my friend and I opened ourselves up to God and His healing power that Christmas season, otherwise I would have missed wonderful blessings, including the prophecy.

I pray that during the next few weeks you will make the quality decision to let go of loneliness in your life and be obedient to whatever God instructs you to do. Do not hang onto the past, good or bad. “Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:13-14

Here are synonyms for lonely from Roget’s Thesaurus: forlorn, forsaken, friendless, lonesome, rejected, secluded, solitary, unattended, withdrawn, bleak, desolate, isolated, remote, and unfrequented.

All these adjectives describe how Satan would love for us to feel. When our hearts are broken and our spirits are wounded, we just seem to wrap ourselves in a blanket of rejection and desolation. Our emotions are so damaged that isolation and seclusion seem the only way out of the pain. We do not realize we are playing into the hands of the enemy.

Loneliness and being alone are not synonymous. We cannot truly say, “I’m alone,” if we know Jesus. He is always there and will never leave us or forsake us. He understands what we are going through. Hebrews 4:15 says, “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched by our infirmities; but was in ALL points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.”

Jesus Understands

Our savior knew the pain of both loneliness and being alone. He became sin for us on the cross. Your sin, my sin, and the sins of the whole world were poured out on Him. And because God is a holy God and cannot look upon sin, He turned His back on Jesus. For the first time ever, Jesus was alone, separated from His Father, and He cried out, “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Matthew 27:46

Jesus has been there. He understands what is means to be totally alone. He also understands our loneliness, and He says to us, “I will never leave you or forsake you.”

1 Peter 5:8-9 exhorts us to “be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour; whom resist steadfastly in the faith.” So, it is up to us! Satan wants to devour us with loneliness, but we can resist him. We must resist him. We must do what God’s Word says and rise above loneliness. The decision is ours!

Reach Out

During a time of separation from our mates, other people can become family to us. Get involved in a Covenant Keepers group or contact our office about starting one if there is none in your area.

Reach out to others who are going through separation and divorce. Guard against always expecting to be the one being ministered to: “Give, and it will be given to to you.” (Luke 6:38) Open your home to others who have no family with whom to share Christmas dinner. Get involved with projects at your church. We reap what we sow!

“Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken; neither shall thy land any more be termed Desolate: but thou shalt be called Hepzibah, and thy land Beulah: for the Lord delighteth in thee, and thy land shall be married.” (Isaiah 62:4)

My prayer for each of you this holiday season is that you will allow Jesus to take any loneliness and replace it with His presence, power and love.
God bless you and merry Christmas!