Prologue, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

I have my husband’s full support and permission in sharing the details of our story. He and I are completely different people now and are eager to share our story of redemption, because our desire is that God would use it to give others hope.

The day before I left my husband, my friend and her husband came over to help me pack. She had a gift for me. Before I opened it, she started crying and said something like, “I’m not crying because of the cost or value of this gift, I’m crying because of what it means.” I opened it, looked at it, and started crying too. Up until then, I thought I was the only one who believed that God could heal my marriage. God used my friend and this gift to give me so much hope!

The gift was a beautiful vase that has 5 sides. Each side has a quote from 1 Corinthians 13, the Love Chapter, on it. It says, “Love always perseveres. Love always hopes. Love always trusts. Love always protects. Love never fails.”

Since the day I received the vase, I’ve always had the “Love never fails,” side facing out. When circumstances, emotions, and actions said something very different, I held on to this promise, and believed in a miracle with all my heart.

Years after we our reconciliation, we got home from vacation to find that our cat had knocked over and broken the vase. I told Will it was my most prized possession, and I was so upset. He comforted me and said it looked fixable. It broke into 3 different pieces with the biggest missing chunk going right through the words, “Love never fails.”

I love the vase even more now with cracks showing and all, because it is a clearer, truer picture of our story. It’s like a parable telling its viewers of an almost hopeless, broken time where God bound up our wounds and turned our ashes into beauty. He truly made all things new. Without our messed up, ugly past, we wouldn’t have developed the character needed to become who we are today. What situations, people, and experiences have molded you into the beautifully broken and put-back-together-again person you are now?

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 2 Corinthians 4:7-9