Three
“But now these three remain— faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these is love.”
1 Corinthians 13:13 TLV
3 is a powerful biblical number for miraculous renewal and resurrection, which is just what God did with our marriage.
Many of you know the story of how Adam Rice and I met in 2011, dated for 3 years, and had the perfect wedding. Best friends and pursuing God together, but there were still dark wounds from our childhoods that needed healing that would come out in ways to “kill, steal, and destroy” our marriage (John 10:10). We tried everything from applying my counseling degree during our dating, to in person programs during marriage from AA, celebrate recovery, to the Love INC program. All of those were used for good as God chipped away at the progress of the enemy, but still there was unburied toxic baggage. For Adam it was the sexual abuse he endured for years as a child that he never told anyone until he entered the live-in program Adult and Teen Challenge and encountered Jesus in a completely safe way like he never had before; that separation was SO hard for us, but God did a truly miraculous work and healed Adam from that and freed me as well from my toxic victimhood and Pharisee mindsets I had grown up with blindly most of my life.
“Therefore if anyone is in Messiah, he is a new creation. The old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”
2 Corinthians 5:17 TLV
“But hearing this, Yeshua replied to him, “Do not fear—just keep trusting, and she shall be restored.””
Luke 8:50 TLV
“He makes wars cease to the end of the earth. He breaks the bow and shatters the spear. He burns chariots with fire.”
Psalms 46:10 TLV
“He restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for His Name’s sake.”
Psalms 23:3 TLV
What Do You Do?
I remember after being completely divorced for 10 months when God gave me the revelation of Adam healed and called me back to reconcile with him, although I had no communication with him or anyone who knew him, I trusted God and stepped out in faith and hope, truly rejoicing and trusting. When some people found out and came against it I remember truly seeking God to humbly ask Him, “Did I hear you wrong? God I need you to affirm that I heard you clearly.”
In my Max Lucado devotional day by day book that morning as I asked, it was the story from the gospel of Mark (ch 5), Matthew (ch 9), and Luke (ch 8- of Jairus asking Jesus to please come and heal his sick 12 yr old daughter. I remember the people mocked Jesus when he said, “Your daughter isn’t dead.” In my flesh I knew I would’ve said “peace out; if you’re going to mock me, you don’t get your miracle.” But Jesus is more compassionate and loving than me, He saw that they were responding out of pain and confusion and mourning, and he still gave them a miracle.
Just hours later I listened to a sermon with my teen girls at my work, one I had no idea what it would be about, and guess what story it focused on? The story of Jairus. Steven Furtick in his sermon, “Thought Bubble” took it a step further and emphasized that Jairus asked Jesus for a miracle that he didn’t get; he wanted to see his daughter healed from sickness; but instead his 12yr old daughter died, and of all things a woman who interrupted Jesus on the road got the healing HE had asked Jesus for his own daughter! So before he even made it home his daughter was dead, and Jesus arrived upon the scene of a whole grieving family and crowd; bitter and angry. Steven Furtick goes further to say that Jesus gave the mourning mocking family a miracle, but it was not the miracle anyone had expected. Instead of healing her from her sickness, she died and a greater miracle was birthed, one even more powerful; the one of resurrection!!
“Teen Challenge puts hope within reach”
Immediately I knew God was speaking to me. How long had I prayed for all of those years of marriage to see Adam healed of his addiction and to see our marriage healthy? How hard had I hoped and believed that he would finally receive that healing while at Adult and Teen Challenge, and our very sick marriage, but with my best friend whom I loved with all of my heart, would he be healed despite the naysayers?
So when it didn’t happen, and we divorced, I was so heartbroken and lost; grieving. Hadn’t I had enough faith? Hadn’t I wanted and believed in God’s ability to heal? But when sickness of sin and the enemy’s strongholds completely killed my marriage, I didn’t have the faith to believe God would raise it. I gave up completely, and mourned the death, even doubting that my marriage had ever been what I thought it was. My ten months waiting for Jesus to arrive and speak was much longer than Jairus had to wait (most likely because I had my own sin and sickness in my heart that needed to die before He could arrive) but when He did, and He told me to stop being fearful, that Adam was healed, and I need only to believe…I believed, and witnessed a miracle beyond my imagining. Not only was Adam completely healed and delivered from his addiction and his childhood abuse, but God healed me as well and brought our marriage back from the dead; He resurrected our marriage in a supernatural way, and we renewed our vows June 2020 a year to the month that our marriage had died the year before when I had said goodbye “for good.”
Healed and Restored
And so it just shows the goodness of God that He would bless us even more than we could’ve asked or imagined with this miracle baby due the month that marks 3 years into our marriage when I started working at Adult and Teen Challenge in Nampa exactly on October 8th, and 3 years since Adam entered Adult and Teen Challenge on exactly October 8th (we only discovered this correlation later), and set him and I both on a truly intense journey toward healing; renewal individually and resurrection in our marriage. But that isn’t all; stay tuned for Part 2, of a sickness most (even my closest family) didn’t understand the fullness of, and a healing work that makes this baby even more of a miracle!
Again, thank you Tawny Kaye – Reyna and Dustin Reyna for going out of your way to celebrate with us and capture this beautiful miracle!