He Healed Me
Chapter 5
"He Turns Your Heart"
"The LORD controls rulers,
just as HE determines the course of rivers."
—Proverbs 21:1
This opening promise regarding the Lord turning the heart found in the book of Proverbs is one of the foundational promises for restoration. RMI introduces this life-changing truth to brokenhearted men and women who come seeking help and hope—learning for the first time that it might not be their spouse who no longer cares for them, but their rejection is part of God's plan.
Once this truth is embraced, that a person's heart can be turned by the Lord, is quite comforting, so much so, that I use this truth very often with all my relationships. Yet, what is more than unnerving, while downright scary, terrifying actually for me often to not battle against and try to reason away—what happens when the Lord turns our hearts away from the very relationship we long to restore?
Since you may just be discovering this truth about God turning the heart for the very first time, and also for those of us who know it well, let's go ahead and review how it's explained in the Restore Your Relationship when the question is asked,
"Has everyone told you that your son or daughter or husband (or someone else who has rejected you) has his or her own will and therefore he or she may “choose” not to return home or be reconciled to you? When trying to restore your relationship you will be bombarded (as everyone else is who is seeking restoration) by the onslaught of those well-meaning individuals who love to tell you that it is a person’s “choice” and his or her own “free will” to choose to leave you or to live with someone else—but, praise the Lord, their will is not what’s important."
Does that mean our will is also not important?
Is it true that not only is man’s will not what matters? But it also goes for me, for us? Again, let me share for the readers who are not familiar with this truth, where it came from, and how He led me to discover this back when I needed comfort.
When God led me to search for the truth in this dilemma of “man’s will” versus “God’s will”—I found the truth! I found that the Bible continually referred to “God’s will” without mentioning man’s will even once!
For the rest of the explanation, I encourage you to read the entire chapter in the Restore Your Relationship while I explain how this truth, turned on its end, upended me and my concept of why, just how, my heart no longer seemed to care for those who I knew, absolutely knew in my head were some of the most important people in my life. What I hadn't remembered until just now is the Lord, my Husband, my Creator had done this to my heart back in the very beginning of my restoration journey in 1991. Interestingly, the reason He turned my heart back then was for the very reason He turns my heart now—so I don't experience pain—allowing me to heal.
Back in the very beginning of RMI, long before I ever dreamed it would be such a controversial ministry, like most who've been rejected by a spouse, I hurt to the point I believed I was dying. I was deeply wounded by the fact that my husband had rejected me and chose another woman to love and later live with. Yet, because He was becoming my Husband, my Lover, my Everything, He knew He could turn my heart so I no longer cared.
During the weeks my wayward husband would be gone and living where we'd lived before he dumped and abandoned (thankfully) his children and me in a shoddy empty townhouse by my parents and my children's grandparents, my heart felt nothing for him whatsoever because He turned it.
To be honest, I'm not sure if I wrote this or if it's in the Be Encouraged videos, but it astonishes me even now how incredibly the Lord would turn it away for weeks, then just minutes before he'd arrive to visit the children, he'd turn it back and even inject His love in my heart for a man who'd done the unthinkable.
Over three decades of ministering, my Beloved has seen fit to fracture many of my relationships, not only for the sake of one day restoring them—but to live an Abundant Life because of the One and only One relationship any of us needs to be exceedingly happy, joyful, glad, pleased, satisfied and delighted in life! I'm comfortable and beyond content—entirely optimistic about the future without longing for who or what God chose to remove from my life.
“You [God] have removed lover and friend far from me; My acquaintances are in darkness.” Psalm 88:18
“You [God] have removed my acquaintances far from me; You have made me an object of loathing, repulsive, abomination, and disgusting to them; I am shut up and cannot go out.” Psalm 88:8
That's because He, God, promised to "supply all (not some of) my needs according to His riches...”
Philippians 4:19 and this includes the need for everything each of your relationships provides or provided for you. Not to mention that "we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose" so every awful, unexpected, or evil thing that happens to you—you can begin looking for the good that is right there if you just look!
When you look, you'll find it and this turns your sadness into complete joy! Remember depending on what you're seeking is what you'll ultimately find. God says, "Seek and you shall find” Matthew 7:7. This means if you're looking for trouble or something horrible, you'll find it. But if you're looking for Him, for His blessings, for good that He promises comes out of difficulties—that's what you'll find.
Used For Good
If there's one thing where we are all the same is believing we are the center of the universe. If someone isn't speaking to us, for instance, we think they are mad at us or purposely trying to hurt us, when most often, it has nothing at all to do with us. They may not feel well, they may have argued with someone else. With that established, the good and how God may want to use the rejection or broken relationship you want dearly is for the good of someone else—the very one you may care the most for in the entire world.
It took years of spending time with my Beloved and hours upon hours just being alone with Him before I could understand that some of the ones we love are safest when they are not with or close to us. No, not because we will harm them but because we are under enemy attack so what's being hurled at us can easily hit or injure the ones we love and want to protect.
Consider in your mind's eye how a mother might run off away from her children so the enemy will chase and may even capture her, but she did this so her children would be safe. When the battle is over, when the torturing is complete, she knows she laid her life down for her child just as He laid His life down for us.
Nothing is impossible for God!
The Lord turns the heart wherever He wishes!
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Having our hearts turned, is part of the healing experience. I have never really sat and thought about it, but reading this chapter and looking back over the past few months, I can see how that is very true. I am experiencing it in my own life at the moment and that is why I am sure my Husband had me read this chapter at exactly this moment.
The lesson ended with “The Lord turns the heart wherever He wishes!” and that sentence gave me so much comfort, knowing that my heart is in His hands and not my own. It gives me pleasure to know that my heart is safe with Him and that I can just trust that wherever He turns it, is for my good as well as the people I love so dearly.
I also experienced how my heart was turned away over the course of my journey and the more my heart healed, the more it turned away. Previously my heart would become hardened and turned away, but this was never a good thing because it involved unforgiveness, bitterness and building walls around a hardened heart. But now when my heart turns away, it remains a heart a flesh because He also helps me to forgive and heal in the process.
Nice reflections, i especially enjoyed these: “Yet, what is more than unnerving, while downright scary, terrifying actually for me often to not battle against and try to reason away—what happens when the Lord turns our hearts away from the very relationship we long to restore?” and “Does that mean our will is also not important?”
In my case, it´s the opposite: i have been asking my Husband to turn my heart away from my eh, because i still live with him and it´s not nice to see what is going on (despite the fact that He is blessing me and my daughters so much!) But i long to really let go and simply not be moved at all , not a bit, by what my eh does in front of us.
But for some reason He is not doing this… i know you will say that i have not enough of Him, that i need more of Him… yes, probably… but it´s been a long time asking for Him to remove my heart from my eh, and He has done other things in my heart and not yet this.
So reading this lesson, i wonder: could it be His will that i still care for my eh as a wife and He doesn’t want me to become even less than a flatmate?
On the other hand, when my marital crisis was building up, i did feel so apart from my eh. I simply did not love him anymore. I couldn’t care less for him, so i know how it feels. And, funny enough, knowing that this was not right, i once prayed to Him and asked Him to put back love for him in my heart. This prayer was answered 3 months later, when He not only put back this love, but it was a much more genuine and mature love that started to understand how poorly i had loved him before, and it also came with a vision of what He wanted marital love to be like.
Ever since, this love hasn´t been removed from my heart. It is still there and I tell you, i pray for this almost every day so that i can simply be a nice flatmate and not feel like the spouse who, despite being held in His arms, still suffers when she sees certain things day after day.
So could it be his will? I had already thought about this a few weeks ago, that maybe it’s not just me not letting go, its Him choosing to keep this love in my heart and, why not?
This chapter just opened my eyes. Maybe He needs me to go through all this as a spouse and not a mere flatmate; with the love of a spouse and not the love we have for any other person, such as a brother, a cousin, etc.
I experienced how he had change my heart a few time troughs my journey and through this few months.At time’s I didn’t understand it. It has help me troughs the healing process and to bring me closer to Him. I also feel it this week and I don’t yet understand everything but I now He know way and He is using it to bring everything together for His plans and testimony .
Wow wow wow it is unbelievable how my Darling Lord is talking to me through these Chapters this last past weeks!
After having a restored marriage, my husband still kept on leaving and coming back (going back and forth between me and the world’s choices). And every time he would come back he would say the Lord told him if he ever did it again, it would be over and the last time he came back he said the Lord said it is the very last time, but still he did it again and left. And that’s when I now know the Lord turned my heart and reading this part the previous day out of Living the Abundant Life, Chapter 3: “Frantic and Desperate – https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%205%3A43-44&version=NIV
“There are countless women today, and the numbers are growing, who are more than willing to suffer like this, giving more, turning the other cheek again and again and again. But sadly their motivation is entirely different than what I’m talking about here in this chapter. The horribly damaged woman of today puts herself in a whirlwind of pain, giving over and over and over, more than is asked, hoping that by doing so she will gain the love she is frantic and desperate for! Some dear women are so used to living this way that she seems to be drawn to this same sort of man, again and again and again.
You may not care enough to stop this cycle for your own sake, but will you stop to ponder long enough to stop this vicious cycle for the sake of your daughter, or your sister, or your niece or coworker, aunt or cousin? Until we are willing and brave enough to break free and find the Love that can move the highest mountains of pain and hurt and humiliation and emotional scars, we have no hope to offer anyone. Please don’t keep reading this chapter until you first stop to really grasp how important it is for you to learn to live this way. And then being willing to offer this hope, by sharing your own failures and hurts, so when the next woman in pain and fear who is frantic for love comes along, she then learns the truth. Help her to finally learn the depths of His love for her and what that would mean to her life.”
this Chapter confirmed that my Darling turned my heart to break the cycle, yes to heal me and have my whole heart 💓.
J’avoue que j’ai été rebelle, j’ai échoué à tant de tests parce que j’ai laissé parler mes émotions me diriger. Et puis le mois dernier face à une attaque soudaine, un silence dans mon âme s’est imposé et j’ai su qu’IL avait tourner mon cœur.
En l’espace de quelque jours tout ce qui étaient des montagnes dans ma vie se sont déplacées et une douce paix est entrée en moi. Il m’a emmené sur cette page et les cours et Sa Parole me guérisse lentement mais sûrement, je ne suis plus pressée d’avoir la restauration.
Il a tout pris en main et je le laisse faire, je me laisse portée comme un bébé. Après avoir prié et suppliée pour que mes pensées se tournent vers Lui, Il m’a répondu et Il l’a fait. Cette semaine je pense plus à Lui, je pense aux surprises qu’IL me réserve pour la journée que je ne pense à mon conjoint, en fait je ne sais pas si je suis encore mariée. Laisser Dieu s’occuper de moi est ce qui pouvait m’arriver de mieux. Je suis tellement contente de savoir que j’ai plein de notions et de promesse à découvrir avec Mon Seigneur et de belles expériences à vivre avec Lui que je me mets à rire toute seule et les enfants me demandent si je vais bien 🙂
Je suis en paix maintenant que j’ai compris qu’Il tourne mon cœur pour me guérir et que je ne dois pas être triste quand Il éloigne quelqu’un de mon chemin.💖
I admit that I was rebellious, I failed so many tests because I let my emotions rule me. And then last month, faced with a sudden attack, a silence in my soul took over and I knew that HE had turned my heart.
In the space of a few days all the mountains in my life moved and a sweet peace came into me. He has taken me to this page and the classes and His Word is slowly but surely healing me, I am no longer in a hurry to have restoration.
He took everything in hand and I let him do it, I let myself be carried like a baby. After praying and begging for my thoughts to turn to Him, He answered me and He did. This week I think more about Him, I think about the surprises HE has in store for me for the day than I think about my partner, in fact I don’t know if I’m still married. Letting God take care of me is the best thing that could have happened to me. I am so happy to know that I have lots of ideas and promises to discover with My Lord and beautiful experiences to live with Him that I start laughing to myself and the children ask me if I am okay 🙂
I am at peace now that I understand that He turns my heart to heal me and that I don’t have to be sad when He moves someone out of my way.💖