Louis Fourie's Personal Testimony: Divorce!

This is my personal testimony, I penned down, in the process of getting healed. I hope that this story will also give you some pointers in getting HEALED the same way I did, specially after divorce. Sometimes we think that we are the only ones suffering and that there is no life after a tragedy, but God is always there to help and to carry us through, if we ask Him.

By telling you my story, you will experience my pain and also the process of healing in the same way I experienced it.

After getting saved, my wife and I drew closer to God and as a couple were closer than ever before. At that time, I loved my wife deeply. We went to church and we grew day by day in knowledge and in love for God.

Slowly we began to testify about God in our lives. We experienced the life changing Word of God as we starting to implement it in our lives.

I quit smoking and drinking and we lost almost all our friends.

We were changed and people began to see that we had joy, love, peace and that something drastic had happened in our lives. It was as if God had taken us and formed and moulded us with His own hands. We started to forgive those that had hurt us and God set us free and His Love shone through our lives.

There was such a change in us that people began to ask us what had happened to us. We started to live a new life and the things we use to do did not matter anymore.

We stopped fighting and the lies disappeared. 2 Corinthians 5:17: Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things have disappeared, and-look!-all things have become new! Therefore if any person is [ingrafted] in Christ (the Messiah) he is a new creation (a new creature altogether); the old [previous moral and spiritual condition] has passed away. Behold the fresh and new has come!

I felt this hunger inside me for the things of God and I read the Bible every moment I got. I was so full of the zeal of God, but did not have any wisdom. Once I got into a train and started preaching, telling the people that when smoking, that they were on their way to hell. They wanted to throw me off the train.

I had the fire, the zeal and knowledge for the Lord, but although I was radical for the Lord and the things of God, I still lacked wisdom.

I needed Jesus’s hand in my life to lead me to His wisdom. I went on Christian camps and met new Christians and they all had a part in my formation and development as I slowly started to understand the Kingdom of God. As I grew stronger in the Lord and the trials and tribulations increased, I was tested to the limits of my being.

We were serving the Lord for almost one year when things started to go wrong.

I led a person to the Lord, working and praying day and night to help him to understand the Gospel and to accept Jesus as his Saviour. His wife was not saved and later we all became close friends. Sunday’s I would drive out to his house and pick him up for church and drive him home afterward. He lived 16km from my house, yet it was a sacrifice I made with gladness. We became house friends and I thought everything was fine, till one day the Lord gave me these verses, which I did not understand at that time.

Micah 7:5-11: Don’t trust your neighbour, don’t confide in your friend. Watch your words, even with your spouse. Neighbourhoods and families are falling to pieces. The closer they are–sons, daughters, in-laws– The worse they can be. Your own family is the enemy. But me, I’m not giving up. I’m sticking around to see what GOD will do. I’m waiting for God to make things right. I’m counting on God to listen to me. Don’t, enemy, crow over me. I’m down, but I’m not out. I’m sitting in the dark right now, but GOD is my light. I can take God’s punishing rage. I deserve it–I sinned. But it’s not forever. He’s on my side and is going to get me out of this. He’ll turn on the lights and show me his ways. I’ll see the whole picture and how right he is. Enemy who kept taunting, “So where is this GOD of yours?” I’m going to see it with these, my own eyes– my enemy disgraced, trash in the gutter. Oh, that will be a day! A day for rebuilding your city, a day for stretching your arms, spreading your wings! (The Message Bible)

I started to pray that the Lord would reveal to me the meaning of these scriptures, the meaning of them in my life. The next Sunday a woman at church came to me and she handed me the same verse written on a paper. She said it was a word from God.

I was even more confused but I knew that the Lord was definitely speaking to me. Yet another person came to me and said that I must open my eyes because my friend and wife were holding hands behind my back while I was praising God.

I did not believe that my wife would dare to do something like that as she was serving the Lord.

I started to look into my married life and I saw some things that were questionable. I prayed that God would show me if my wife was unfaithful to me or not. The living God is faithful in all His ways and as I prayed, the Lord opened a way for me to see what He wanted me to see.

One night, when I was working night-shift, I phoned my friend and his phone was engaged. I then tried to phone my wife and the same there. I tried for half an hour or so and both phones were engaged. I tried to phone all our friends and family that I could think of and my wife was not on the phone with any of them. I thought that was strange. I tried again and my friend’s line was open so I immediately phoned my wife and her line was open too.

I put the phone down with a beating heart.

I was confused and pain scorched my heart as I prayed to God to give me conclusive proof. I sat and prayed for a while with a trembling heart and the Lord showed me what I must do.

I must phone my wife and then my friend and put them on conference call. I phoned my wife first and by changing my voice I said to my daughter, who picked up, to wait for a call. She went and called my wife in the time I phoned my friend.

As he answered, my wife also answered.

I put the phone on mute so that they could not hear me.

My wife was surprised that my friend phoned her, because he could not phone outside numbers from work. She said to him that he should know better, and that he was not to phone her at home. She usually phoned him at work. He said that he did not phone. It was as if the Lord blinded them at that moment and he said, “But, while we are on the phone, I want to see you. Make a plan that our families can get together”.

They discussed a plan.

I felt as if I would die there and then, but I was also calm and I felt the peace of the Lord upon me. I thanked God that He had showed me what was going on behind my back. I loved my wife with all my heart and it was as if my world came to an end.

The most hurt came from the knowledge that he was my friend in Christ and that his motive was not really Christ but lust for my wife. 1 Corinthians 6:13:Someone else will say, “Food is for the stomach, and the stomach is for food.” Yes; but God will put an end to both. The body is not to be used for sexual immorality, but to serve the Lord; and the Lord provides for the body.

I came home in a daze. I do not know how I made it through the night, except by the grace of God. My wife said to me that my friend’s wife had invited us to go and eat there.

I couldn't believe how devious and full of lies she was. We were children of God and I knew she loved the Lord also, or so it had seemed. I confronted her with the facts and I told her about my part in the phone conversation. She turned white as she realised that I knew about her secret affair with my best friend.

I told her that God showed me that she was unfaithful to me. I told her she must cancel the appointment, and that it was all over.

The next day I did not go to work, but I went to his house. It was very early on a Saturday and his wife was home. As she opened the door and saw my face she knew immediately that her husband and my wife were unfaithful.

She ran past me without a word and got into her car and drove to his workplace. I followed and when I arrived, his face was already bleeding as she was scratching and beating him with all her fury. He did not even fight back and as he saw me he also turned another shade of pale.

Proverbs 6:27-29:Can you carry fire against your chest without burning your clothes? Can you walk on hot coals without burning your feet? It is just as dangerous to sleep with another man’s wife. Whoever does it will suffer?

She was out of her mind and I could only watch.

After a while I grabbed her and she calmed down a bit, but then she began to look through his locker for things she did not recognise. She found stuff she did not buy. She threw it at him and she left because her two small daughters were still alone at home.

I looked at him and his face was smeared with blood where she had scratched him. He could not look me in the face. I thought how pathetic and ashamed he looked and I couldn't find it in my heart to do anything more to break him. Proverbs 6:32-33:But a man who commits adultery doesn't have any sense. He is just destroying himself. He will be dishonoured and beaten up; he will be permanently disgraced.

I was a broken man.

If it was an unsaved man “in the world” and not a child of God nor my best Friend, maybe I could have taken it better.

I went home without even touching him even though I had gone there with the idea to teach him a lesson. My wife pleaded with me not to divorce her. She said that he never had sex with her and that they were just friends. I did not believe her.

Life became dull and I dragged myself through every day.

Then one day God gave me a scripture that said that I must serve Him as if I was not married. 1 Corinthians 7:29: What I mean, my friends, is this: there is not much time left, and from now on married people should live as though they were not married.

I went on somehow and later went for counselling. I decided to give her a chance. I read somewhere in the Bible the word of God said that I must forgive seven times seventy and I did that in this case. She promised before God and the congregation, that she would never do something like that again.

I believed her.

I started to serve the Lord without her and went for a course in counselling school and became part of the prayer groups and home cells. It was hard on me because I was used to her being at my side all the time. It felt as if I were naked without her, but God prepared me for the times to come when I would be alone, times of loneliness.

Our marriage was never the same after that, I hoped that somehow it would be, but sometimes God’s plans are not our plans. It was as if she had won, had something over me and she began to treat me badly, shouting and cursing all the time.

I loved her and did not want to lose her.

Whenever she could, she would humiliate me in front of people and my life became a living hell. I started to train for and run marathons and long distance races to get out of the house and away from her (whenever I was off work).

I spent time with the Lord while running along the streets of Johannesburg.

My relationship with my dad was not as good as I would have liked it to be. He struggled with the death of my brother and soon after my brother died, his brother committed suicide.

That broke him even more. His work boarded him because of his heart condition and his leg. He also struggled to understand what was happening to me with this “Christian thing” and why I was so obsessed with God and with Jesus.

One day while I visited, we were talking about salvation and of the things of the Kingdom of God and I said to him that I am not of this world. His reaction was very strange at the time. He stormed into the house, got a Bible and he threw it at me. It hit me in my face and he chased me off his property with the words, “take your Bible and take your God and get out”.

I was shocked, devastated and very sad. Now the world and all that was still dear to me was ripped away. I was stripped to the bone, with no one left but God. My marriage was rocky, my relationship with my dad was wrecked and my trust in friends wobbly. The only thing I had left was God, and I trusted heavily in Him for survival.

Later on I went back to my dad, expecting the worst, but we made peace. In this time my dad started to spend some quality time with me, helping me build a carport and to do things around my house. For the first time in my life, my dad was a real dad to me and I enjoyed our new found relationship tremendously.

This was only for a few months then he became sick and he started to complain about chest pains.

I took him to hospital, where they put him in I.C.U. and later moved him into a high-care ward. His complexion looked the same as normal and the doctors couldn't find the problem. They scheduled some tests and when that was negative, sent him home for the weekend.

Saturday afternoon he phoned and said that the pain was unbearable and that I must take him to hospital. I took him back and they put him back into the high-care ward. The staff had lost his file, so he sent me home to fetch the name of his prescription drugs. I walked into his room and got on my knees next to the bedside drawer to get his tablets.

I looked up into a photo of the family, myself as a child on my mother’s lap, my brother, on my dad’s lap. As I looked, the Lord told me to talk to my dad about salvation and to tell him to make peace with his Maker. It was as if God showed me that he would pass away.

When I got back to the hospital, they had stabilised my dad and he was calm. We visited for a while but I couldn’t find the boldness to talk to him about salvation. I remembered what happened earlier when he had freaked out about the subject. We left and I dropped my mother at home. We went home and as we arrived people came to visit us. While we were visiting, the phone rang. It was the hospital calling to say my dad had just died of a heart attack and that we must come to hospital.

I was devastated; not knowing whether my dad had had a chance to give his heart to Jesus before he died. I was disobedient to God and did not even try to talk to my dad. I was afraid that it was too late, that my dad would go to hell. I couldn't forgive myself for a long, long time and I still want to weep when I think of it.

I know today that God used this also to form me and He later tested me again in that He said I must talk to somebody close to me, and I did.

My marriage had now become routine and after the death of my dad I withdrew even more.

This went on for several years as my wife and I slowly drifted further and further apart. During this time her dad was also killed in a car accident and that made her more aggressive and even more distant than before.

One day as I was reading the Bible and praying, the Lord gave me the same verses as before. I immediately confronted my wife with it, but she denied it. She said that I was overreacting and that she had made a promise to God. I didn't totally believe her because I had God’s word warning and guiding me.

In that time my wife convinced me that my children would do better in boarding school. Her reason was that my son had problems learning and my daughter needed the routine and discipline. During this time I was either working or running away from my problems.

During the school holidays, my son and I went fishing alone. My wife said that we must go because I needed to build a better relationship with my son. I was working shifts and I did not spend as much time with him as I should have and thought it was a good idea as I would get some peace and rest, without her. We went to a dam, and enjoyed the peace and quietness of nature; my son had also been treated harshly by his mother.

Early in the morning of the second day, the Lord awoke me and spoke to me in an audible voice. At first I thought there was a person outside the tent who wanted to ask me something. I looked around and saw no movement; we were the only campers around. So I became still and was wondering about the voice, when I heard it again, and the Lord asked me “Where is your wife?” I replied “Lord she is at home”. The Lord asked me a second time, “Where is your wife”

I then knew that the Lord was speaking to me, revealing to me that all was not well concerning with my wife.

I felt that she was not in any physical danger but that she was being unfaithful to me. God showed me that they had sex in that time and that she was fornicating against God and me. Remember that when you are married, you are one with your partner, in flesh, soul and body. When she sinned against her body, she sinned against my body too.

God used that to show me what was happening. I could sense it in the Spirit. I jumped up and wanted to rush home immediately but the Lord’s Spirit calmed me. I know today that if I had gone then, that I would have driven home at a very high speed and might have had an accident. I felt God’s peace come over me. I asked the Lord to let me catch them when I returned home later that morning.

I could not fall asleep because of the pain I was going through. I left after first light. The cell phone began to ring. I stopped my son from answering it and it left it to ring. I drove home for almost two and a half hours in unhappy anticipation, hell and pain, not wanting to face what I had to. When I got home I realised that the gates were open. That was unusual, because our front gates were always closed. We had small dogs and they would run into the road and could be killed, so we kept the gate closed at all times.

I drove to the back, next to the house and parked the car there. As I got out I heard the back door being unlocked so I went towards it. The next moment a man ran out of the door past my son and I, jumped over the fence and disappeared around the corner. I was shocked but I knew that God was a God that rewards those who trust Him. I prayed, thanked God for revealing the truth to me and gave God glory.

Hebrews 11:6:No one can please God without faith, for whoever comes to God must have faith that God exists and rewards those who seek him.

I went into the house as if nothing had happened and my wife started to make excuses. I knew that she had not changed her ways, and with the knowledge God gave me, I was calm and full of the Holy Spirit. She said that the man (he was also a friend in whom I had invested some time, preaching the gospel) had come just for a glass of water because his car broke down and he had to walk to work. He got thirsty and my house was the nearest.

I knew then that our marriage was over, the little love that held it together was shattered and all faith in her ability to be faithful had been destroyed.

I went on as if nothing was wrong but my heart was broken. I started to pray that the Lord would show me what to do. I did not want to divorce her because I know it was against God’s word, but I could not live with someone that was unfaithful. She proved to me through her actions that she no longer loved me. She did not respect me or herself, purposefully forgetting the death of my brother, having died of AIDS. She was placing our lives in danger, by being unfaithful and having sex outside of our marriage. I did not want to die as my brother did, so I decided not to have intercourse with her again.

Luke 16:18: “Any man who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery; and the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

Matthew19:9: I tell you, then, that any man, who divorces his wife for any cause other than her unfaithfulness, commits adultery if he marries some other woman.

It was as if I was without direction. Sometimes you do not want to know the truth, even when you face the facts, but deep inside you know it.

I subconsciously rejected the knowledge and wanted solid proof. I was afraid of loss and change, so I hung on to what was no longer real, what had been. I convinced myself against the facts and had intercourse with her again only days before we were separated, only to find out that she had totally changed, even in the way we use to make love.

She demanded that we should do different things and experiment. I realised then that her mind and body were no longer mine, but someone else’s. We did not have intercourse again.

I became miserable and depressed and people started to see that something was wrong. I opened my heart to a friend and he said that he knew of a person that would be able to help me. I went to see him and I bought a device from him, to tape the conversations on the home phone. He showed me how it worked and I waited patiently until I got a chance to install it.

He cautioned me not to make a fuss over the things that I see, but to give her rope, as she will hang herself if she was guilty, and if not I would lose nothing, so I put his words into action.

She was given a gold chain and flowers as gifts. When I asked her about it, she said it was people who gave it to her knew her from the tuck shop where she worked. I knew that people buying from tuck shops were poor people and could not afford these kinds of gifts. I asked about these things but did not make a big fuss about it like I did before.

I sometimes wonder if she thought that I was so stupid that I did not know what was going on, or maybe she was so caught up in her affairs that it did not matter.

When I installed the bugging device I felt like a criminal, sweating and shaking, my legs lame, as if I was committing a crime. I was shaking so violently that it took me much longer to install the device than it would have in normal circumstances. I was looking around feeling guilty and did not want anyone to see me. It was a terrible feeling.

The next day I took out the full tape with trembling hands and I put in a clean tape. Uneasiness hung over me even after arriving at work and buying earphones to listen to the tape privately.

The first words bowled me over. It was just as I had suspected but I was not prepared for what followed. Blood rushed to my brain like a speeding train, pumping helplessness, shame, defeat and loss, all transforming into rage.

Reality was ripped away and it left me with a strange numbness in my body. If felt as if I had heard news of a loved one’s death. Everything happened in slow-motion and all my emotions were racing like a train through my brain. My ears started ringing and my mind felt numb, as if I were underwater.

I couldn’t think and it felt as if I was drunk, everything was strange in a black and white world. I had received too much bad information for my mind to handle and my body wanted to faint to get away from the overwhelming emotions. I was mad at myself for ignoring God’s warning and for convincing myself that she was innocent. I was broken inside and angry that I had made a fool of myself. She was involved with the same person that ran past us that day.

Now I stared the evidence in the face and found the truth undeniable. Rage was growing and boiling inside of me. At that very moment the phone rang and in one movement I ripped it off the hook and with all my strength slammed it back.

I did not realise how much strength was present in hatred and anger, and in an instance it showed. The phone shattered with a loud crash into several pieces and the office was suddenly as quiet as a mouse.

Proverbs 6:34-35:A husband is never angrier than when he is jealous; his revenge knows no limits. He will not accept any payment; no amount of gifts will satisfy his anger.

The boss ran to my table and took one look at the hate and murder in my eyes and knew that something terrible had happened. He immediately sent me home. He did not even ask me what had happened or what was wrong. I took the tape and left.

I went to my wife’s workplace and made as if nothing was wrong but she could sense the danger. She tried to start an argument but I left and went to my mom’s house. As soon as my mom saw me she knew that something was terribly wrong. I gave her all the sordid details and I asked if she would work in the tuck shop because my wife would no longer be working there.

I was deadly calm, but not of God. I think it was a kind of demonic force that took hold of me. I went and I took the shotgun and a bag of rounds and placed it in my car. The idea was to come home the next day and to shoot open the door and then to catch her naked in bed with her lover. I was like a hungry lion, wanting something to devour. I sat at home, listening to the conversations on the tape and stewed in the anger. I was ready to kill when she arrived home.

She gave me the food that she and her lover had prepared together earlier that morning. I knew this from the telephone conversation that I had heard. She was working afternoons only at that stage. I did not eat that night and was cold towards her and I kept to myself. I also learned from the conversations on the tapes that when I went to work he got into my “warm” bed. The thought that I had slept in the same bed moments before, that when I left the bed I was replaced by her lover, making love and having fun, them laughing at what a fool I was, made me even more murderous.

As the night dragged on I went looking for some money I had saved up in a box and as I opened it, I saw that money had been used. I confronted her about the money and an argument started in which she involved her mother. Her mother spoke to me on the phone and I said things that I shouldn't have. We went to bed and she wanted to make up, seeing the dangerous change that had taken place in me, from a soft hearted man to a rude, cruel and cold one.

She realised that something was drastically wrong but couldn't set her finger on it.

She started to nag me because she wanted to know what was happening. Every time she touched me it felt like something exploded inside of me. It was as if an electrical current shocked me. I felt revulsion towards her and it felt if I wanted to throw up each time she touched me.

I could no longer sleep in the same bed with her. When I got out of bed, she lashed out at me. This was about two o’clock in the morning.

She sat up in bed and switched the lamp on, wanting to light a cigarette in the room, knowing well she was not allowed to smoke in the bedroom. I grabbed the cigarette out of her mouth. She taunted me and was rude as she always was. I lost my temper and I confronted her with the truth that was burning inside of me. She laughed at me and mocked me, trying to fuel the argument. She was bold and arrogant, not knowing that I had proof. She did not believe me when I told her what I knew.

She tried to get out of the bed and before I could think I smacked her in the face. Up to that point she had thought that I was bluffing.

She looked into my dead calm and cold eyes and realised that I knew and she began to tremble. I barked at her, with a hoarse voice, that if she gets up from the bed I would kill her. Sad to say, but true: I was out of my mind and she knew it.

I went to the car and got the tape. As I came back I kicked some things out of my way, and she could hear that I was dangerously angry and that I might do what I had threatened her with. I grabbed a radio with a cassette player and plugged it in. She sat there trembling. She was unsure of herself, not knowing if I had something on the tape or not, but still not willing to repent.

James 3:8:But no one has ever been able to tame the tongue. It is evil and uncontrollable, full of deadly poison.

I said to her, “I am giving you the last chance”; “do you have a lover?” She looked me straight in the eye, without blinking and she swore before God that she did not.

I played the tape.

The colour slowly drained from her face and she became pale, trembling without control. She put her hands over her ears and shouted that I must stop the tape. I just stood there, towering over her and made her listen to the tape till the end. She could not get away from her lies and she knew then that it was all was over between us. She sat there weeping.

I took the cell phone and I phoned her friend. He answered the phone and I spoke to him, in the same tone of voice as she did on the tape, “hi precious, the key is in the window and do not forget to park your car under the tree, and watch out for the guy living next door, make sure he does not see you, he is working with my hubby”. “I am waiting in the bathtub”.

The silence on the other side of the phone confirmed the truth. After the shock, he recovered and then he started to deny it all and he said I must not bother him so early in the morning. I said that he must come and pick up his lover, I will do nothing to him, he must just come and take get her out of my sight.

Proverbs 6:26:A man can hire a prostitute for the price of a loaf of bread, but adultery will cost him all he has.

I was stunned; he would not even stand up for her. He kept on denying everything, so I decided to phone her mother. I barked into the phone that her mother must come and take this “whore” out of my house before I kill her. I was so out of my mind at that moment and her mother heard something dangerous in my voice. Her mother did not know me to be a harsh person.

I went to the kitchen to take some painkillers because I suddenly had an unbearable headache.

I was so angry that I started to tremble. I tried to put the tablets into my mouth but my hands shook so much that the tablets could not reach my mouth. After numerous attempts I finally placed the tablets in my mouth and drank, the same happened with the water in the glass.

The phone rang and it was her mother but I was not in the mood to talk. I called my wife and told her to talk to her mother and that she must take her things and leave. I gave her an hour and if she was still there, I would start destroying her stuff.

I walked up and down in the house ready to destroy anything in my path.

I was afraid of myself at that moment and I was thinking of fetching the shotgun, but by the grace of God, I never got there. I know today that it was only by grace I did not shoot her and even myself that night.

She came to me in the lounge and started to beg me to hit or to kick her, or to do anything I liked to her, but not to chase her away. She stood on her knees before me and was ready for whatever I would dish out.

I stood there towering over her, fists ready and white knuckled, shaking with anger and rage uncontrollable and unknown to myself. I started to think to myself, if I kill her, I would be going to jail and her lover would be free to go on with his life. I just stood there without moving, although my being wanted to kick and break, the source of pain. I could feel her soft flesh breaking, ripping and tearing and blood squirting all over me, in my minds eye but I thought to myself, I could kill her with my bare hands so angry and hurt was I, but it was as if something made me unmovable, I couldn’t move even if I tried.

Strangely, at that moment peace came over me. It was as if I could see deeper into things, than before.

Later I would realise that she knew it was over between us and she needed me to assault her, so she could use that for self-justification.

Fifteen years; gone in a moment; life, as I knew it, was over. I could not say for how long we stood there, but there I died. I was dead to her and to myself.

She stood up later and she started to pack in her things, with trembling hands. She realised that I would not back off from my decision and that she had overplayed her hand and lost all. She thought that because I loved her so much she could do whatever she wanted and I would forgive her. She packed her stuff in her car and left as soon as her brother came. He did not come into the house but was standing in the street, too afraid of me.

Silence, in pain, mixed with shame and anger, I sat in the dark. My world had collapsed. All my dreams, desires and visions were scattered. I thought to myself that if I was alone the pain would go away and I would have peace and rest, but the opposite was true. I was like a wounded, trapped animal in a cage.

I can not remember what happened in the days that followed. The next few days were bad, but I survived. My wife did not want to have any contact with the children. I went and fetched my children from boarding schools, and put my daughter in a school close to our home.

Shortly after this I was arrested by the Police. By this time the SAP had a case docket for rape, manslaughter, and a possession of a gun with intention of using it on her and my daughter, against me.

I was treated badly by the police investigating the case and was still pushed around even after they found that there was no evidence against me. I was released after signing a form that stated that the SAP did not treat me badly.

I later learned that my wife had made these allegations against me for her own self-justification, for she had made me into some kind of monster in the eyes of friends and her family. But I praise God that His word is the truth, that all plans (tongues) raised against me shall not prevail and that the truth will overcome.

Isaiah 54:17:No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue [that] shall rise against thee in judgment thou shall condemn. This [is] the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and their righteousness [is] of me, saith the LORD.

James 3:5-6:So it is with the tongue: small as it is, it can boast about great things. Just think how large a forest can be set on fire by a tiny flame! And the tongue is like a fire. It is a world of wrong, occupying its place in our bodies and spreading evil through our whole being. It sets on fire the entire course of our existence with the fire that comes to it from hell itself.

On a day I saw that two men were sitting in a white car in front of my house for hours.

Later I went out to see if they needed something or if I could help. They were embarrassed and told me that they were sent to keep an eye on me in case I tried to murder my wife.

I was speechless.

I said that if I wanted to kill her I would have done it the night I asked her to leave. I couldn’t believe that she went so far as to humiliate me.

A few days later, on a Saturday evening, my children and I was sitting watching TV. The next thing there was a knocking on the door. I went out and saw my wife standing there with the SAP and they demanded that they come in. I did not want to open the security door but when I saw that the police were going to break it open, I unlocked the door.

They stormed past me and stood between my wife and I. They said that they had come to fetch the children. I was shocked to my core.

For about 4 months she did not even want to speak to them on the phone, now there she stood, proud and fearless, backed up by the police, to fetch “her” children. I stood there, and all power drained from my body, my children were all I had left.

I started to protest but I saw that she had the police on her side. I could see that they were looking for a chance to beat me up. I would not give her that satisfaction and backed off. I looked at my children and they were crying and confused.

I then decided that they would choose where they wanted to live. I gave each one a chance to choose between mommy and daddy and both chose mommy. I was now even more broken than before. I just stood there for a while without words and then I told them that they must take all their stuff because what was left, I was going to sell.

They left with all their stuff; even their beds were on the roof of the car.

My last hope was gone; I knew deep inside something like this would happen, but wasn’t emotionally strong enough when it happened.

I stopped living, did not sleep nor eat. I do not know for how long this went on.

One day I decided this pain and the loss were too much a burden to bear and that I must stop the pain at all costs.

I just wanted this pain to go away.

I wanted to drive into the desert and keep on driving till my petrol was up and die there in peace. I packed my 4×4 and as I drove out of my yard, a man came up to me. He asked me to go and buy him some batteries. I looked at this man and I thought if he could only know what my plans were. I said to him that I couldn’t because I was going away.

He would not take no for an answer and kept on nagging me. I wanted to drive away but he was bugging me and begging me. I looked at this man going on and on and decided that this would be my last goodwill to mankind.

I took the money and drove to the shop and I bought him his batteries. On the way back I decided, I believe, driven by the Holy Spirit that I am not going to end my life for a woman’s sake. As I came back I parked the car and went into the house.

I gave up on life, because life gave up on me, but God did not give up on me.

I was so tired I could die, but I could not sleep and I was weakened because I did not eat nor drank anything. I did not look after myself nor did I bath or shave. I did not pray or look for the face of the Lord. I can’t remember what I did those days but I was half asleep, half awake, when I had a vision.

In this vision, I saw myself lying on a bed, hanging in the air, without legs. I had peace for the first time after all of this happened. I looked at the vision and I saw that all around the bed there were flowers. Hundreds of daisies like flowers. I was watching them in amazement when I saw that they all came alive. All the flowers became like little faces and out of the faces little arms with human-like hands came out and they all started to cuddle and to pat me.

A peace unspeakable came over me and I fell asleep for the first time in weeks.

Isaiah 40:29-31:He strengthens those who are weak and tired. Even those who are young grow weak; young people can fall exhausted. But those who trust in the LORD for help will find their strength renewed. They will rise on wings like eagles; they will run and not get weary; they will walk and not grow weak.

I do not know for how long I slept but after I woke up I felt new strength. I had hope and new life from the living God. I was still cross with God; because I thought that God was allowing all this pain to come into my life, not knowing the He was forming and shaping me. He could have spared me from it all, was my thought.

But I was thankful towards God for giving me peace and rest and I stood up and I started to eat. I had lost so much weight that my clothes hung like rags, I looked sick.

In this time I needed to do something with my hands, so I decided to dig a KOI dam. I started digging a hole and parked my pickup on the other side of the fence so I could transport the dirt away. Without tiring I worked out the anger and hurt, digging deeper and deeper. Every spade-full represented hurt, hate and the pain. I was trying to throw it all away from myself, spade by spade.

A friend came by and he almost fainted when he saw me. The sweat running from my body mingled with the red soil, looked like blood running from my body. He stormed into the hole where I was feverishly digging away, unaware of the world and time and pain. When he got in the hole he saw that it was soil and sweat and not blood, he was relieved.

He stopped me and we sat in silence, then he started telling me of his life. I was shocked and amazed and realised that my problems were not as bad as his. We later discovered that I had buried the pickup and that we had to dig it out under the heap of soil. My hands and body was badly bruised and for weeks I was in pain but that did not bother me because my heart was bruised inside.

For some reason I wanted to have pain in my body as well.

One day I decided to go to church, having this deep longing for God and His peace in my life, but not to my old church. It seemed as if I had become an enemy to them since I was in the process of a divorce. I felt as if everyone had deserted me. All the men thought that I was after their wives and the woman were cold because I was a man divorcing his wife. I was looking for a church where people did not know me.

Deep inside me I was looking and longing for God. I needed the Lord so much. I visited a home cell and they invited me to their church. I went to that church and I sat alone. It was a large church. I was alone in this big wild world, so it seemed. The church was empty and I saw a black man stood up and he came to sit next to me. I was angry because there were hundreds of seats open but he wanted to sit next to me. He looked at me and he said the following words to me, “you have all these millions of questions, but there are no answers. The answer is Jesus Christ”. He stood up and he went his way.

I was stunned and yet I knew it was God speaking to me.

I enjoyed the service and I went back often. Later I prayed to God and asked Him if I must come to this church or stay where I was. The Lord spoke to me and He said that I must go to the new church. It was difficult because I loved the people in my old church so much, but it was as if God had cut me loose from them by allowing these things to happen in my life.

I started going to the new church more often and I grew every week from glory to glory and from strength to strength, spiritually and also physically.

I started to look like a man again.

One day, after doing night-shift, as I got into bed, the Lord said to me that I must go to my spiritual mother.

I got up again and I went. When I got there she was expecting me, because the Lord revealed it to her. I sat for half an hour or so and I eventually asked her, “are you not going to pray for me or prophecy over my life?”, “I know the Lord has sent me to you”. She said, “I have nothing to say to you”. I was confused because I know God’s voice. We were sitting and drinking tea when a guy drove into the yard with his motorbike. He came up the steps and she opened the door for him, he came in without a word and he sat down. She looked at me and I looked at her, she asked me if I knew the guy and I said no. She asked him if she could help him, but he just sat there with his leathers and his helmet in his hand.

So we sat in silence drinking our tea.

Shortly afterwards, a man drove up and stopped on the pavement. His car was full of patches, green bonnet, red door and yellow fenders. He came up the steps and she opened the door for him. He said to her, “the strangest thing happened to me, I was on my way somewhere and the Lord told me to turn back and to come here”. As he walked into the room, he looked at the silent biker and then at me.

He stopped in his tracks and he said, “Oh”. He asked for tea and sat down, looking at me. He told me that he was a prophet of the living God. I looked out of the window towards his car. It was an old patched up Peugeot. I looked at this guy, looking at his clothes and noticed that he was wearing a suit, but it was old and faded, probably washed in a wash machine. He must have seen the doubt in my eyes. He looked me straight in the eyes and he said, “You doubt me”.

I looked at him and I said, “To be honest, yes! I doubt you”.

He looked at the strange silent guy and he said “I will deal with you later”. He looked at me again and he said, “Because you doubt me, the Lord is going to tell you your prayers and what His answer is”.

I thought to myself that he could guess some of my prayers because we all pray for the same things. So I said to him, with a smile on my face, “go ahead”, still doubting him. He started to tell me what I had prayed for. I know that millions of Christians are praying for the same thing. He told me God’s answer.

The second thing he mentioned was a specific prayer that nobody except God knew of. I had told God that I did not want to go to an ordinary Bible school that taught theology and head knowledge, but I wanted the Spirit to teach me and I wanted to learn from the word of God, I wanted to pray for the sick to be healed and when I walked and where my shadow fell on the sick, they would be healed, like in the apostle’s time.

He gave me the Lords answer and I was in tears, how could I have doubted God or His methods. (These prophecies came to pass when I went to Bible school in 2005. A part of this Bible school’s practical ministry was hospital ministry. I found myself praying for the sick.)

He prophesied over my future wife, he said that the Lord showed him how she looked and that he was not to tell me, but because I have prayed for a woman rich in knowledge and wisdom and not earthly riches, He will give me more. She will be obedient and submissive to me and she will be beautiful and he also mentioned some personal requests I had asked for concerning my new love. (These prophesies came to pass when I was married in 2003)

He prophesied judgement over my first wife, if she did not repent. He said the Lord showed him that she would be left as a tree on a hilltop after a terrible storm, stripped clean of all its leaves and branches. She would stand naked and lost.

He prophesied over all the material goods that I had lost, saying that the Lord would give it back to me in 8 months, and that I would have more than I had lost, and that it would be new. (This prophecy came to pass when everything was replaced within 8 months).

He also prophesied over my broken heart and that the Lord will mend it and that I would have peace and a wonderful life, in Christ. I was amazed that the Lord had sent me here and sent a prophet to come and prophesy over my life.

Who am I, to be treated so special?

I looked at the strange silent guy and I realised that the Spirit had also led him to this place, I realised that he did not even know that he was sitting in the presence of Almighty God. I do not know what happened to him, because after the prophet was finished with me, he asked me to leave.

All of this had to happen to me so that God could build my character, like a Potter washes and shapes the clay, God shapes and forms me and He wants to form you. Sometimes it can be difficult, sore and frightening experiences, but God is in control.

Never lose hope; God is in your life now. God has brought me through this; he will also take you through whatever you are going through.

I am now a man with Character and God can use me, I know where I came from, and where I am going.

I am stronger now than before these things happened to me.

1 Corinthians 10:13:Every test that you have experienced is the kind that normally comes to people. But God keeps his promise, and he will not allow you to be tested beyond your power to remain firm; at the time you are put to the test, he will give you the strength to endure it, and so provide you with a way out.

If I did not have all these trails and tribulations in my life I could never have loved the wife God has given me, as I do, nor go into ministry or have compassion for the lost and the broken-hearted. God handpicked Cavell for me.

I also learned that humans are stronger than what we think, and yet so fragile. I have learned that everyone can murder if you are pushed beyond a certain point. It is only God’s grace that kept me from committing murder.

Personality means little in God’s Kingdom, but Character is what God is looking for. God will shape you into the character form He wants for you. God loves you and when we go through all these things in life, it is because God loves you and he wants to form you so he can use you for His purpose, like the Potter.

If I had to go through it again, I would do it with gladness because I now know that God is in control in the desert, the valley, on the mountain and in the midst of the storm.

I am so much closer to the character that I need in order to make a success of my life in Him.

I can now also teach and help others going through the same hell and encourage them to overcome in Christ. When you are going through the tough times, there your character is formed.

To read more of my personal Testimony go: http://hubpages.com/hub/Forgiving-Her