Valerie's Story

Valerie and Rick

Valerie’s rebellion was silent.  She wasn’t trying to be bad, but at 13 she just wanted someone to notice that the hurt reached deep down to her core when her parents told her they were divorcing. The pain she was feeling produced some poor choices throughout her teenage years.

With the oppression that seemed to accompany her everywhere and the sorrow over the death of her grandmother during that time, the aching Valerie was experiencing became physical as well as emotional.  She wasn’t feeling well and went to see a doctor.  Thinking it was stress, she instead found out she was 4 ½ months pregnant. 

She was 19 years old, unwed, not even in a serious relationship, and she was scared.  Either the baby was going to die because the placenta had detached, or she was going to die.  Both of them lived.  Her tiny baby boy was born premature at only 2 ½ pounds.  Valerie gave him up for adoption.  God had a plan for him.  Valerie learned of a family who had been trying to have a baby for several years.   Many couples yearn to take the love they have and give it to another woman’s child.  This was one of those couples.  They named their new son Brandon.

Although Valerie sensed some warning signs when she later met her first husband, she pushed them aside.  They were married for four years and had a son, Nathaniel, together. She found out that her husband was doing drugs behind her back.  He was verbally abusive to her.  She found pot in his pockets while doing his laundry.  Valerie’s brother and her first husband had been friends. They had been go-karting together when a terrible accident happened – her brother’s aorta tore on impact, and he died shortly after.

Valerie became very angry.  She was angry that her brother was gone.  She was angry for the way her husband treated her.  About a year after her brother’s accident, Valerie filed for divorce.   Full of hurt and dealing with much pain, she started drinking.  After several years, she reached a moment of desperation and cried out to God.  She was attending church but wasn’t living the life she was meant to live.  It wasn’t the kind of life she wanted for Nathaniel, and it wasn’t the life she wanted for herself either.  “God,” she finally proclaimed, “I don’t want to be this way anymore.”  That was the moment Valerie rededicated her life.  It was also during that time that she forgave her first husband.  She felt such a relief come over her.  The floodgates opened up, and she could hear the voice of God. 

Valerie was a single mom and made the choice not to drink or smoke cigarettes any longer.  She completely died to self.  She was hungry for so much more.  She wanted to know more of Jesus. Valerie realized that she needed to get wise counseling to work through what she was feeling over the loss of her brother and the loss of her marriage.  She needed to realize herself that she needed help, and that’s where her journey began.  Her counselor told her that she didn’t have to settle anymore, but Valerie also knew she needed time to heal.  Valerie wanted to get her life straight.  She wanted to get married again and didn’t want to bring any baggage into a new marriage.  She wanted a kingdom, Godly marriage. 

From sound, biblical teaching, Valerie learned that her words mattered.  Her words were life and death.  In her prayer time, she called forth a husband who is a man of God, who loves Jesus, and who must also love Nathaniel as a son.  She and Nathaniel would take communion together.  She would pull Nathaniel close and ask him what he was believing for.  “Mom, I’m believing for a daddy, and I’m believing to meet my brother.”  Valerie wanted to show Nathaniel what faith was – believing for her husband before she even met him and believing to meet Brandon.

Brandon’s adoptive mother kept in touch with Valerie by writing letters and sending pictures to update her on Brandon’s life.  This went on for 15 years.  Valerie prayed about meeting Brandon sometime.  She trusted the Lord completely.  She was standing on Romans 4:21 – she was fully persuaded that God would answer her prayer. 

That was one of many prayers that was answered. Valerie and Nathaniel met Brandon when he was 16 years old. God is always working behind the scenes on our behalf.  It’s all in His timing.  Valerie is fully convinced that our words have power when we put our full trust in the Lord.  Brandon is now 34 years old.  They’ve been getting together regularly for holidays all these years.   The cycle had gone full circle with Valerie, releasing Brandon unto the Lord, and then the Lord returning him back to her.  Her healing began when she chose to forgive her first husband, setting loose into God’s hands the pain he had caused her.  In that moment of surrender, the peace of Christ filled Valerie’s heart, and the journey of restoration began. Even when she later learned that her first husband had taken his own life, she held onto the grace that had already begun to heal her, trusting in God’s mercy for both of them.

God was leading Valerie further from her past and closer to His purpose.  She was single, yet her deepest desire was to be married.  She said, “Lord, you’re my first love, and if I never get married again, I will trust You, I will serve You, and I will love You.”  Then she just let it go. 

About a year later, she met Rick at a church singles’ event.  They had been going to the same church for seven years and never met.  When we surrender our desire to Him, He gives to us that very thing we surrendered.  Valerie believes, “You have to be willing to say, ‘Lord, I trust You.  I give this desire to You.  I surrender to You.  I’m going to serve You and love You even if I never see this come to pass.’”

Valerie told the Lord, “You have to bring my future husband to me.”  She saw Rick at a couple of the singles’ events but thought nothing of it.  She was with a group of people returning from Great America, an amusement park just north of Chicago, and he opened the car door for her. She thought, “Wow, this is kind of nice.”  What really attracted Valerie to Rick was the way he was a wealth of knowledge about the Word of God and how he talked about how much he loved the Lord.  It was as if a veil had been lifted off her eyes.  Then the two of them became friends.  It was always in a group setting where they all got to know each other.  Valerie believes that it’s safe at any age to meet people that way because you can be your authentic self; you’re not trying to impress anyone. 

Rick eventually asked Valerie out to dinner.  She was upfront about everything – her previous marriage, her two sons.  She didn’t want anything hidden from him from the start.  Valerie knew on that first date that Rick was who the Lord had chosen for her.  She recalls telling her mother afterward, “He’s the one.” 

There were more dates, and their relationship was getting more serious.  After dating for a month and a half, he proposed.  Valerie’s pastor at the time said that if you’ve been dating for six months and you don’t know this is the one for you, you just need to move on.  That was true for Valerie and Rick.  They each knew early on that they were meant to marry one another.  They got married 6 months later.

Rick told Valerie on their first date that he was not going to kiss her until they were married.  She didn’t catch at first that he spoke of their marriage so early into their relationship.  He knew on that first date, just like she also knew on that first date.  After some time had passed, he told her that he respected her and he did not want to have any temptations.  They had both made mistakes in the past and were determined not to repeat them.  Their focus was to honor God first and foremost, then to honor each other.

After Valerie and Rick were married, they had a daughter who is now 20.  Nathaniel is now 29 and just graduated from Bible college.  Brandon is a very present part of their lives. 

Through the trauma Valerie faced, she has come to know that she is loved by the most high God, who created her in His image and wants nothing but the best for her.  When she realized that kind of love, it became easy for her to respect herself and forgive herself.  The past is the past.  Today is a new day.  Valerie would say to any woman, “Let go, and see what God can do.”

Barbie's Story

Barbie and Richard

Barbie didn’t grow up going to church, except maybe on Christmas and Easter.  She would, however, go with her friends at times, if invited.  No one she knew ever told her about the Lord. 

In fifth grade Barbie asked one of her friends that she sometimes went to church with if she was ever going to Heaven.  The next time she went to church with her, Barbie went to the front during the altar call.  She said, “I prayed with men in suits who told me I was going to Heaven, and I believed them.  I knew I had God’s hand in my life, but I didn’t really know Him until I was 32.  It wasn’t until then that I knew what it meant to have a relationship with God.”

Barbie admits that she always had to have a boyfriend, and she knew it was an insecurity.  She had always looked for her value in a man and didn’t understand about looking for her value in God.

She got married at 20.  At 21 she got pregnant with her first son.  By the time he was two years old, her husband was seeing someone else.  Barbie said, “I moved out, and the other woman moved in.”

Within a year, she jumped right into another relationship, and she saw red flags from the start.  The day before they were married, she was cleaning up a glass of tea that he had thrown across the room and thought, “What am I doing?  What have I gotten myself into?”  But at that point she was too far in.  He had already moved to the same town she was living in and had already transferred his job.  Perhaps she was just feeling this way because of all of the stress, and so she went on with the wedding plans.  They were married for 12 years.  Barbie had two more sons.  She acknowledges that it was 12 years of a pretty abusive relationship, but in the midst of it all is where she met Jesus.

When her youngest son was just a baby, a woman she knew who was a Mary Kay consultant invited her to her house.  Barbie thought, “Well, I have three boys at home.  A night out with adults sounds great!”  It turned out not to be a Mary Kay party.  It was a prayer night.  One of the women there was talking about the book, If You Want to Walk on Water, You’ve Got to Get Out of the Boat.  That was the first time Barbie ever heard the Bible story about Peter walking on the water.  She heard the woman say that as long as she stays focused on Jesus and not the storm around her, then nothing is impossible.  And Barbie had a lot of storms around her.

As a new believer, Barbie recalled difficult times in her first marriage.  She thought, “If this is what being a Christian is, then I really don’t want to be a part of it.”  But it was as if the pastor of her church was always speaking directly to her. 

She got more involved in church, signed up for a 9-month walk through the Bible, continued getting together with the Mary Kay ladies, and went to prayer breakfasts.  She was confused when she read that God hates divorce and that wives must submit to their husbands.  Barbie’s parents had been married for 53 years, and she thought that would also be her story.  The idea of two divorces was unthinkable to her.

There was a lot of emotional and spiritual abuse in her marriage.  For a long time, Barbie had been considering the notion of leaving her husband, but then she rationalized, “Well he hasn’t hit me.  I was looking to prove it wasn’t as bad as it was.  I didn’t want that to be my story.”

Barbie’s research showed her that the cycle of violence is first the episode, then the apology, then you start walking on eggshells, then there’s another episode, and it just starts over again.  She knew her life was in a cycle.  For some reason it didn’t get better.  She finally got the courage to leave that relationship.

After the divorce, she seemed to be making a lot of bad decisions and had a lot of anxiety.   “At first,” Barbie said, “I decided that God could never use me, I had already blown it, I was not going to have a happily ever after, and so I went back to my same old pattern of looking for a man to give me value, to tell me I was worthy, to tell me I’m beautiful.  I started online dating within a few months. 

“Things got dark.  Once the house sold, I moved into a smaller home.  I can remember moments of just sitting on the floor in my bedroom in tears.  I didn’t know what was going to happen. I wondered, ‘Is God mad at me?  Am I doing the right thing?’

“I was meeting with a good Christian counselor who helped me understand what God wants for me.  I also leaned into God more and stopped making bad decisions.  I was going through my darkest time, but I was online dating.  When a good-looking guy texted me to say, ‘Good morning, beautiful!’ it gave me a high that’s fleeting, like a drug.  But I realized it’s not fulfilling.”  She heard the Bible scripture John 10:10 (The thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy.  But I have come that they might have life, and have it more abundantly.) for the first time and discovered there is no stipulation on it.  It just says that I’ve come to give you life abundantly.  It doesn’t say unless you were divorced or have made bad choices.  Barbie continued, “I gave up online dating.  I was looking for things in the world to satisfy me, especially with dating and men, but that also came with shame and guilt.” 

When she realized all that she needed comes from God, her life turned around.  She was holding onto God with everything.  She was counting on Him to take care of her and her kids.  And He did.  After a few years, Barbie was at her house in the kitchen doing dishes and had such a sense of peace.  She was content.  She thought, “If I don’t ever get a guy, it’s okay.  For the first time in my life, I am completely fulfilled outside of a man in my life.”  She knew that God was working on her, building her up, giving her a renewed confidence.

Richard was always, as he would describe, a player.  He liked partying.  He and his ex-wife had only known each other for a couple of weeks when she got pregnant.  They wanted to do the right thing, so they ended up getting married.  A couple of years later, she left him.  He got mad at God.  “I’m trying to do all the right things, and this is what I get?”  He was partying a lot and found himself in a faith-based treatment center because he had also been using drugs.  He had been sleeping with a lot of women.  When he went to the treatment center, he got his life right with Christ and never did drugs again.  He had a total transformation and said to himself, “That’s it.  I don’t party anymore, I don’t do drugs anymore, and I don’t have sex outside of marriage.”  Barbie said, “When Richard makes a decision, he remains loyal to that decision.”

Barbie’s boys were on spring break one year, vacationing with their father for a week.  She got an email for a 7-day free trial with another online dating service, so she thought, “Why not?” and perused the dating profiles.  One of them caught her attention.  It was Richard’s: Padlock looking for the right combination.  Barbie and Richard started dating.  They didn’t even realize at first that they went to the same church.

Because of the pasts that they both had, Barbie liked his stance on no sex before marriage.  That was only until she had to live it out.  She said that he wasn’t doing the things that would make her feel validated.  He didn’t tell her she was beautiful.  He didn’t need to be with her all the time.  He really had a wall up because he had also never dated that way.  For a few years he wasn’t dating at all, not since before going to the treatment center. 

Barbie wanted Richard to be “the one” from Day 1, but he kept pulling away.  He was always honest.  He said, “We’re not a couple.  We’re just a couple of friends getting to know each other.”  As difficult as it was, she always knew where she stood.  “He was everything that I wanted – cute, fun, loves the Lord – but he was not letting me in.”

Dating like this brought to the surface every insecurity that Barbie had.  Even her well-meaning Christian friends told her that she was wasting her time with him, that he wasn’t truly interested in her.  They didn’t know anyone else at the time that was dating this way.  It was difficult, but it made her look to God all the more.  For two years of dating, Richard kept this wall up.

There was a ministry event that came up where she was going to help volunteer with Richard, but she didn’t have the address.  She kept waiting for him to text her with the information, but he never did.  She tried calling him, and there was no answer.  She told her best friend, “This is too difficult.  I’m tired of being forgotten.”  Barbie thought that he wasn’t really committed to the relationship after they had already invested two years of their lives, and so she decided to tell him she wanted to end it.   He convinced her that they should meet together so they could talk about it.  That was the first time they prayed together.  He confessed that he wasn’t giving her the best part of him.  Barbie remembers it was like watching an invisible wall go down.  He was completely different.  Barbie said, “I was suddenly seeing for the first time the fun, funny person that I always saw him with other people that he wasn’t with me.  He used to be so afraid to let me in, but from this point on there was an obvious change.”  When he had that moment, not only did he let her in emotionally, but spiritually as well.

After another year, Richard started talking about marriage.  She knew he had been looking at rings, but other than that there had been no signs.  She thought that maybe a marriage proposal would be a random Tuesday over dinner.  They went out for Valentine’s Day dinner, and she thought, this is it!  He gave her an Adele DVD as her Valentine’s Day gift.  There was no ring.  She was disappointed.

At this time Barbie was on staff at their church.  The women’s ministry leader asked her if she could interview Barbie about her relationship with Richard during a series she was doing on the subject of purity.  Barbie couldn’t say “Yes” fast enough.  She has a personal ministry to other women that is founded on the scripture John 10:10 because she wants other women to know that it’s not too late. 

During the interview, the women’s ministry leader said to the audience, “You’ve heard about Barbie’s boyfriend.  Maybe you should meet him.” 

Barbie thought, he’s not here.  His boss is in town, and they’re at a meeting.  But then Richard walked in, completely taking Barbie by surprise.  There were about 300 women in the audience, and Richard told them, “If there is anything I can say that hasn’t been said already, it’s this – you’re more beautiful than you think you are, you’re more valuable than you think you are, and anything worth having is worth waiting for.” 

Barbie thought to herself, “Oh, how sweet.  That is so nice for him to encourage these women like that.  What a nice touch to include in this interview.”

It then dawned on her right at that moment, “Is this it?”  All of a sudden it hit her.  About the same time, Richard turned to her and said, “If there is anything I can say that hasn’t been said already, it’s this – you’re more beautiful than you think you are, you’re more valuable than you think you are, and you’ve DEFINITELY been worth waiting for.”   He then got down on one knee and proposed. 

They had been together for 3 ½ years when they got engaged in late February.  They were married the following September 1st.

Barbie has been on an incredible journey of watching God’s redemption and what He can do.  On their wedding night, before physically coming together, Richard said to her that he had never felt this way before.  They both cried when they realized, “Oh, this is what God had for us.”  They both had sex with many other people before, but neither of them ever had a spiritual connection like what they experienced that night.  That was the gift that God had for them.

Barbie said, “So many couples get married, and they wonder what happened to their emotional connection, but they never actually had one.  We approach purity the wrong way.  It’s so much more than just “Don’t do it.”  It’s not about a set of rules.  It’s about the foundation that’s being built in your life.  It’s easier to have sex than it is to build an emotional and spiritual connection with someone because that’s more vulnerable.  The idea that you can grow that kind of a foundation for your marriage is how we should be talking.

“It’s not too late.”

Barbie and Richard wrote a book together about their journey.  It is entitled The Right Combination: Finding Love and Life After Divorce.  You can find it here.  The name comes from Richard’s online dating profile that attracted Barbie’s attention all those years ago.

Cynthia's Story

Cynthia and Gilbert

The love that Cynthia’s grandparents had for each other was something holy.  It wasn’t perfect, but it was patient and forgiving.  Over the years their love became quiet – not because it had faded, but because it no longer needed to be loud.  Sure, they had storms in their lives and sometimes said words a little too sharply; they had long silences and some difficult years, but they weathered them side by side, not always holding hands, but never letting go.  It was 74 years of choosing each other every day, even when it wasn’t easy.  Cynthia adored her grandfather.  She wanted nothing more than to grow old together with a husband by her side, just like her grandmother had done. 

It's no wonder she wanted the exact opposite of her own home life.  Divorced when Cynthia was 13, her parents were very abusive.  In the church she attended at the time, she couldn’t understand how men would beat women and then go in on Sunday to confess what they’d done, only to repeat the behavior again Monday through Saturday.  When Cynthia was 17, she was drugged and raped by her father.  Looking for solace from her mother, Cynthia was instead accused of lying in order to get attention.  She remembers constantly being in fear as a child.  All of this has since changed though.

As a teenager, she started attending a Bible-based church, and she gave her life to the Lord.  One of the smartest decisions she made at the time was to go to counseling for several years for battered and raped women.  The scars ran deep.  They did eventually heal – but not overnight.

Cynthia met her first husband in high school.  He took advantage of her, she got pregnant, and they ended up getting married.  For five years, he physically abused her and was unfaithful with other women.  When she turned to her mother for help again, she was told that if she were a better wife, her husband wouldn’t treat her that way. 

She went through several bad marriages, each time hoping to find someone to love her instead of hurt her.  Cynthia became a workaholic to try to escape the heartache.  She worked 17-hour days, 7 days a week, until she literally collapsed.  She longed to find someone she could trust to confide in about the abuse, but fear kept her from doing so for many years.  Cynthia felt hopeless.  Each time she left a relationship, she felt like she was on her own.  She even sometimes slept in her car or in her office.  She was never truly alone, though.  Someone was watching over her.

“Where am I missing it?” Cynthia would ask God.  She knew God doesn’t mess up, so it must be her.  After many years of trying to get well on her own, she immersed herself in the Word of God and went to Bible college.  She learned how to draw near to the Holy Spirit.  She gained an understanding of self-worth, as well as the true meaning of love and respect, from God’s perspective.

Cynthia was just finishing up Bible college and one day told God that she was ready to date again but wanted Him to pick the man.  He was going to be a man who loves God.

It had been 14 years between her last relationship and meeting Gilbert, and during that period, Cythina had time to grow and heal.  She wanted to be well.  She didn’t want to marry someone to fix her.  She knew now that she needed to be a whole person in order to marry a whole person.

Gilbert’s father was a preacher.  At 12 years old, Gilbert memorized the Bible.   As a young man, he married his first wife, but they divorced after 19 years due to her infidelity.  He was married to his second wife for 25 years until she suddenly passed away.  He was a widower for ten months when he and Cynthia met.  He was retired and drove for Lyft part-time.

Cynthia had been going every year to a weekly faith convention, the Southwest Believer’s Convention, in Ft. Worth.  In 2022, rather than staying in a hotel near the Convention Center, she decided to drive back and forth from home each day.  She sensed the Lord telling her she would meet her future husband at the SWBC.  She went to every session each day from Sunday through Friday.  A husband didn’t materialize, so she must have missed it.  Maybe it’s not time yet.  “Maybe I’ll meet him at next year’s convention,” she thought.  She didn’t lose her joy.  Her focus was entirely on the Lord.  She was living for Him and doing things His way.  He had brought her through so much.  Some women live with the torment of their past, but others, like Cynthia, have moved on and don’t dwell on the past any longer. 

Cynthia normally did not attend the last day of the convention, which was always on a Saturday, but she awoke early that morning and decided to go.  She scheduled her ride, and shortly afterwards her Lyft driver, Gilbert, showed up at her house to drive her into the city.  She noticed he was attractive.  He was listening to Christian music on the radio.  They made small talk during the short ride. She honestly didn’t think anything of it.  He was just a nice man to talk to.

Gilbert’s version of that first meeting: He couldn’t stop looking at her eyes in his rearview mirror.

They made arrangements for him to drive her back home that afternoon after the convention was over.  Cynthia sat in the front seat on the drive home.  There was more small talk.  She learned that he played the drums and volunteered at the homeless shelter in downtown Ft. Worth.  He learned that it was her birthday the following week.  He asked if he could take her out on her birthday, and although she had plans, they scheduled a date after that.

When he came over for that first date, he opened the car door for her; he opened the restaurant door for her; he pulled out her chair at the restaurant.  She wanted a gentleman like her grandfather.  It was becoming a reality for her. 

Cynthia and Gilbert started dating each other more often.   One of her dear friends told her that a good way to judge a man’s character was to see how he is when he's really mad.  Before one of their dates, Gilbert called her to say he would be late because he had been in an accident and his car had been totaled.  He had been calm through the entire ordeal.  She had also been advised to date a man long enough to find out whether he was wearing a mask and hiding his true self.  Gilbert passed that test too.  He was genuine.   

It was August when they met.  He proposed to her the following February.  They agreed to remain pure physically until their wedding night because they wanted to honor the One who brought the two of them together.  Cynthia had met a man who loved the Lord as much as she did.

As Cynthia recalls her past and sees where she’s at now, it amazes her that she has a husband like Gilbert.  He is that man that she dreamed about all those years ago.  He was just like her grandfather.  God answered her prayer.  God restored all the time that was lost.