Faith Filled Family Magazine February 2017 | Page 22

Freedom From

Shackles of Past Hurt

BY CHRIS BENTON

Many times marriage can become very messy . When you go down a road long enough , it starts to feel like your marriage will never recover . But with God all things are possible . Remember , God is the healer of hearts but you have to be willing to be healed .

Psalm 147:3 He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds .
You can ’ t just keep doing what you have been doing and expect to be healed . You have to fully surrender your heart to God . When both husband and wife do that , their marriage can turn into something amazing . God can turn your mess into an inspiring message . I know this to be true because He did it with us .
When Sandy and I married , I still abused alcohol . It was a little calm at that point because life was going well , but when you had many years of abusing of drugs and alcohol , then its bound to come back when bad things happen if you have not allowed God to deal with them .
Six months after we married , my mom passed away . I was always a “ momma ’ s boy ” and didn ’ t know how to handle it . So instead of turning to God and my wife , I turned to what I knew and that was addiction .
I also started doing a lot of chatting with other women at this time because that is what I knew as well in handling problems . I used the internet to flirt and talk in lewd ways to many women . It was a release for me , and , yes , a bad one . The problem is that goes against God and everything you are taught from God ’ s Word but I didn ’ t care . I just wanted to numb my feelings . I just didn ’ t want to feel anything anymore .
Well , I treated my wife very badly and she saw that I was going down the exact same path as I did with my first marriage . It scared her . She made me quit the chatting after a little while , then that is where the drugs and alcohol came into play in a bad way . I had to cover my pain of losing my mom , and Sandy was paying the heavy price .
Through the first 5 years of my