Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come
2 Corinthians 5:17
New Creations
March 10, 2006 marks a day that a pivotal shift occurred in our family. This day, a refining process of new beginnings was set in motion as my husband and I drove from St. Joseph, Missouri to Colfax, Iowa. This day, my husband became a Student at Teen Challenge of the Midlands.
Truthfully though, it wasn’t until this day, March 12, 2006 that generational curses stopped and generational blessings began. You see, this day was the day my husband died. He didn’t die, per se, from his physical life; he just turned over complete control to the One who created his life. He removed himself from the throne in his heart and asked Jesus to come and live in that place. In John 10:10, Jesus says, “I have come that they may have life, and have it more abundantly.” To me, the most precious part of that sentence is the “ , ” (the comma). On March 10, 2006, my husband had life, but on March 12, 2006, he received life more abundantly!
Our history together dates back 15 years. We married in 1992 and had our firstborn son soon after. As a young, naïve, 18-year old wife and mother, I had lived a pretty sheltered life to this point. During our dating season, I experimented with alcohol; still to this day, I have never used any drugs. One night after work, my husband didn’t come home. This really wasn’t surprising to me as many nights this happened. However, days went by and there was no sign of him. Eventually, I received a collect call from a correctional facility and found out that my husband had been arrested and was awaiting trial. He was eventually convicted of a Felony Charge for 1st Degree Armed Robbery which carried a 10-year sentence. I was devastated. By the grace of God, he received a 120-day sentence to a treatment facility. After he completed this program, he was placed on probation and returned to our home. I hoped that was enough of a wake up call and everything would be ok.
But the cycle continued – the honeymoon period, the excessive controlling, the abuse, the drinking, the drugs, and the co-dependency issues. Time passed and my husband was arrested for a DWI. Of course this broke his probation, and he was sentenced to another 120-day treatment center. Once more, I thought things would be different when he returned. I believed in the “hope of change” rather than actually what was real. I saw my life as a fairy tale through rose colored glasses and believed that if I just pretended hard enough, everything would turn out. But, each time my husband would return home, we honeymooned for a bit and then both returned to our old patterns of behavior.
Soon, I became pregnant with our second son. Again, I hoped things would change. Still, the cycle continued. Once more my husbands’ actions broke the conditions of his probation and this incident caused him to serve out the remainder of his original 10-year sentence.
By this time, we both decided we had been through enough and divorced. He went to a prison behind bars of steel and I went to a prison of my own. I began to attend church regularly; however, inside my heart, I was broken, hurt and lonely. I desperately searched for love and acceptance. I knew of Jesus; I sang about Him, I even presented Him well to others, I just didn’t KNOW Him, truly KNOW Him. This began a season of sin in my life; I desperately wanted to find something to fill the aching hole in my heart. I tried to keep this area of my life truly hidden in the dark, until, one day, I was tired of living in the self-induced prison I was in and was determined to find freedom. I brought this into the light with the help of a close friend. She prayed with me and I sincerely committed my life to the Lord. God, being the perfect fit to the hole in my heart, had been waiting, patiently for an invitation all along. I began to heal. This took time, patience, forgiveness, and grace, but the Lord was faithful then, and has continued to be to this day.
Soon after this, our Pastor began a sermon series on “Faith”. I truly wanted to live my life for Him and I realized that “without faith it was impossible to please God” (Hebrews 11:6). The boys and I talked about what they had faith for in their lives and they replied, “We have faith for a dad.” I thought to myself, “Great, you get a dad, I get a husband” so we prayed diligently about that.
Little did I know God was orchestrating a miracle. The boys’ dad, my ex-husband, was soon released from prison. Seven years had passed. He was a Christian. He was the answer to our prayers. I have to admit, honestly, I laughed at first. I reminded God that I had previously tried this husband, and it didn’t work, but God gently reminded me that His ways are not our ways. God usually doesn’t answer prayers in the way we think He should, His answers to our prayers are perfect!
After receiving counsel with our Pastor, we remarried in 2003. However, just because we had become Christians didn’t mean the struggles would magically go away. We still had hooks of sin in our souls; hooks that the enemy would tug on and the cycle of sin would repeat. We were Christians, but we truly hadn’t died to our own selfish desires. We had accepted Jesus, but we were trying to share the throne with Him. We were living life before the “ , ” of John 10:10. Yes, we had life, but we were not living in His abundance.
In March 2006, much to our dismay, the cycle again repeated. My husband was a patient at our local hospital’s mental health ward and had been placed on a suicide watch as he had wrecked his truck under the influence of alcohol and drugs. Again, we faced unknown circumstances about the outcome of our marriage. The lifestyle choices my husband made to this point, grimly reminded me of paths we had walked years prior. The remembrances of white-knuckled promises to change, of lies about where he had been for days on end, of missing items from our home taken to pawn shops, of numerous nights I peered out the window as my heart skipped a beat with the sound of any vehicle passing by, the wondering if this or that treatment center, counseling session, program or class would be “the one” that worked. It was during this time of brokenness that we heard about Teen Challenge of the Midlands.
On March 10, 2006 as we voluntarily entered Teen Challenge, an array of emotions attempted to overtake me. I felt relief that I knew where my husband was sleeping at night. I felt grief as I began the process of “letting go of the old.” I felt fear as the burden of raising our boys fell onto my shoulders. I felt hope as I believed this was a new chapter of our lives. I felt freedom as I surrendered my family to the Lord. I felt peace as I anticipated the “new creation” the Lord was preparing. I felt panic as I faced a mountain of debt well over $13,000.
Nonetheless, regardless of my feelings, the Lord provided for us in incredible ways during the first few weeks of Teen Challenge. One example of God’s provision was that at our 2-week visit I was able to share the miracle that our $13,000 debt had been demolished! We praised God together and agreed that the Lord was confirming the decision we made to commit to the length of the Teen Challenge program.
Looking back, the 16-months spent at Teen Challenge were not without difficulty, but God never promised things would be easy. HOWEVER, He did promise that if we let Him, He would walk the journey with us and carry our burdens. During each visit, each phone conversation, each Wives Weekend, and each 7-day pass, I could see the Lord purging, transforming, and infilling our entire family. Trials continued to arise, but the difference was the way our family handled those trials.
2 Corinthians 5:17 confirms this transformation, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come.”
I believe my husband’s journey was as much for me as it was for him. During the time he spent at Teen Challenge, the Lord began a transforming work in my life as well. With my husband away, I had only myself to look at, as issues I previously attributed to my husband’s actions didn’t cease. I had to accept responsibility and then take action. Even this day, I choose to humble myself and allow the Lord to refine me.
Now that my husband has completed the program and returned home, the process of change continues. We both are walking through a rebuilding process as we begin to mesh the “new creations” the Lord has made in each of us. Sure, there are times that old feelings attempt to creep back in, but we are determined to “trust the God that lives in the other” as we walk this out, together. “A cord of 3 strands is not easily broken” (Ecclesiastes 4:12).
Today, we choose to live abundant life as new creations to the left of the comma. Because of who He is and what He has done, our family has forever been changed…for generations and generations yet to come. As the Lord has walked us through these trials, we believe He will use them as we proclaim the Lord’s Favor as in Isaiah 61. We believe that He has anointed us to preach good news to the poor, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners. We are a blessed people; blessed to be a blessing!
Thank you for celebrating the Lord’s victory with us!!
Sincerely,
Jody Rhoden
