Today I want you to meet my brave and beautiful friend Lelia Chealey who shares her story of emptiness and how God redeemed her brokenness.
Italicized sentences are from Chapter 3 of A Confident Heart
Until our hearts find complete security and significance in God’s unconditional love, we will constantly turn to other lovers and never be satisfied.
Although I stood before family and friends professing my love and faithfulness to my husband, three years later I found myself trying to fill my emptiness in the arms of another man.
When the closed door of a previous relationship opened I ran through it. On Wednesday I was serving on our church’s youth team and by Saturday I was in between the sheets of a bed in a cheap hotel. The result of my affair led to a pregnancy I knew was from the other man since my husband had undergone a vasectomy.
Driving out of an abortion clinic and heading home to my unsuspecting husband, I wondered how I’d gotten to this place. Here I was a Christian wife and mom who had compromised my beliefs in more ways than one. Looking to fill my void with anything but Jesus, I walked further and further away from the One I needed most.
By being honest about her life and the lies she believed, she could start turning toward the Truth. She could bring the thirst of her heart to Him. Only then would she find confidence in the power of His love and start living in the security of His promises.
I ended my affair soon after the reality of my abortion set in. It shook my Jesus-loving heart to the core. One morning, after everyone was out of the house, I turned on some worship music, got down on my knees and began to sob. Raising my hands toward heaven, I told God, “If I lose everything – my marriage, my kids, my friends, my reputation, but I still have YOU, I’ll be okay.”
Admitting all the lies I had told and believed, I got gut-honest with God that day. And in that place of truth, I was set free and could then turn toward Jesus and away from my life of sin. Like Renee wrote, I could bring the thirst of my heart to Him. That’s what I did — I brought my parched soul to the only One capable of filling me and changing my mess of a life.
Three years later, I felt God leading me to tell my husband about my affair and abortion. We’d attended two marriage conferences during the in-between years and I couldn’t keep my secret any longer. Deep pain was evident on his face and in his tears. My heart broke once again over my affair as I listened to my husband process my choices.
Still in shock, he told me that while I was having my affair he too had been involved in one. I sat there stunned, silent and ticked off at God. How had He not prepared me for this moment of my husband’s truth? I felt instant emptiness, but this time I made the choice to bow my heart before Jesus and ask Him to help me.
Jesus came to give us more than salvation. He wants us to experience complete satisfaction in Him.
These words from chapter 3 resonate deeply with my soul. Although, I had attended Christian school from kindergarten though graduation in 1988; went to church on Sundays and returned on Wednesdays and knew countless Bible stories by heart, what I lacked was a relationship with my King.
Sitting there with my husband trying to process his unfaithfulness, God let me know He is the only One that could take my empty, broken heart and fill it with His unconditional love and confidence that I had sought in all the wrong places.
I love what Renee asked us this week, and how she encouraged us to write our own “when-then” statements:
So what do we do when our hearts start tossing and turning with emptiness and uncertainty? We need to stop and ask Jesus to help us see the worth we are placing in other things and the worth we are seeking in other people and shift our reliance to Him instead.
{Here are mine}
When I start to feel like my marriage is not giving me what I deserve then I will turn to God and ask Him to be my portion.
When I feel tempted to return to a life of emptiness and rely on my old patterns of comfort and fulfillment then I will praise God for what He has brought me from and remind myself that I am worthy of the sacrifice of the cross.
Lasting security comes when we bring the empty well of our hearts to Jesus and ask Him to fill and fulfill us with the security of His unfailing love.
It’s been ten years since the day of my and my husband’s confessions. Our marriage is far from perfect, but with God’s help we have walked through the process of forgiveness and restoration. My husband and I serve at a marriage conference every spring and God has used our mistakes to help other couples realize He is much bigger than any circumstance we face. He has also taken the shame and regret of my abortion and used it for His glory by calling me to be part of an abortion ministry, “Surrendering the Secret,” where I now serve as a leader.
I have no idea what your story it, but please believe this woman who almost lost everything for nothing. Jesus is worth seeking and giving Him a chance to fill up all the empty places of your life. If He can look at an unfaithful wife and compromising mom in Nebraska and see beauty instead of ugly then anyone is within reach of being embraced by His amazing grace.
You need to know that God wants you. There is no sin too heavy to stay nailed to the beams of the cross. You are the reason He trekked His way to Calvary and you are worth every step He took!
***
Thank you Lelia, for the courage and risk it takes tell your story – so raw, so real yet so full of His redemption. I see and love Jesus in you!
Let’s Connect: Will you take a minute to thank Lelia, and let us both know what has risen to the surface of your heart as you read her story or as you read Chapter 3 this week? {REMEMBER: you are reading this via email, click here to visit my website and connect in community.}
Under this post, click “share your thoughts” and do just that. Also, feel free to share some answers to your end of chapter 3 questions. I treasure this space that connects our hearts! {Love you guys so much!}
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Thank you so much for sharing your story. God does love us & even when we think we’ve gone too far, His love will never stop. I have a friend with a scarred past who repeatedly faces rejection from the world because of it. This story reminds me that it’s never too late to find unconditional love – God is there, we just need to turn to Him.
Lelia, thank you for sharing your story. It is such a reminder that we all make mistakes, we all feel guilt, but God is there to forgive and to fill our empty spaces if we will turn to Him and ask.
Like you, I grew up in church, got married, had children, made sure my children grew up in church. I served on many committees, participated in all the church activities, but felt empty inside. I knew something was wrong and I looked and looked for something to fill me. Long story short – I looked everywhere except to my relationship with God. I believed in God, but I didn’t have a real relationship with God. Now my children are grown, I am separated from my husband and I have found myself asking “Why did this happen? Luckily, I felt God tugging at my heart and I knew that He had been there all along, just waiting for me to ask Him to fill my empty spaces. My life is challenging right now as I try to forgive myself and work through my family/marital issues but my relationship with God is getting stronger every day and, for that, I give thanks!
Just know that this study and your story are just what I need – praise God! And bless you and Renee for sharing your stories and God’s love for us!
Thank you so much for sharing your story Lelia. It will touch and help so many lives!!!
Thank you!
Thank you Leila for sharing your story. That takes guts. See how Jesus can take the worst of a situation and turn it into something beautiful. I am a believer. He has healed my marriage as well. Adultery & lies nearly ruined us. But I believed that God could & WOULD take this broken place & make it whole again. 🙂 Thanks Renee for sharing your time with us as well. I am praying that God richly blesses all of us.
Thank you Leila for sharing…It made me realize how much God loves us uncondionally. I think about how God doesn’t look at sin as big or little…..We could say “by the Grace of God there go I”…that it could be us…going through those same situations….we could say oh I would never do that…well, life can get so out of control that we could do that……Thank you God for forgivness…..
Thank you Lelia for obediently allowing God to use you to minister and offer hope and healing to other women by sharing your testimony!
I am encouraged by Renee’s Ch. 3 pg. 62 quote “We become secure as we know and rely on His love more and more. It is a moment by moment, day by day experience where we process our thoughts, emotions, and decisions with God, positioning our hearts to let His perspective redefine ours.” I pray to remember to consult WITH Him instead of going it ALONE which leads to the path of destruction.
I ditto all the comments to you Leila and to Renee for reminding me that if I feel that i’m turned away by love ones i can turn to God immediately for his LOVE that is greater than anyone else’s including my love ones. All the prayers for Holly apply to me as well, Holly do not give up we are here for you as sisters in Christ. Keep on believing!
I loved this, maybe because I know it to be true. I am so very thankful God has never allowed anything to satisfy that huge place in my heart except Him. Like Beth Moore says… there aint no high like The Most High!
Thank you Leila for the reminder that we can and should be “gut honest” with God. Yes, he knows it already, but having that conversation enters the process of giving it to him and then hopefully accepting His priceless forgiveness.
Thank you for sharing your story! I have walked some of the same path and it is true that NOTHING can fill us like Jesus can and NOTHING is too much for Him to forgive!
Lelia, I never get tired of reading your story. Sister, you know I’ve walked the same dusty road, with the same thirst of shame and guilt that I cared because of my abortion. Your testimony gives others the hope of redemption, not shame because of the unfailing love of Christ.
In His Grace~Tammy
Thank you Lelia for sharing your story. What a great testimony of Gods redeeming love. I’ve been married to the same man for 33 years. I don’t feel he has ever loved me. I feel alone and unloved. Needed only to keep house, sex and cook. I have tried filling my emptiness with work, friends and church, but none of it is satisfying. I need to find my worth in Christ. Thanks for sharing with us and Holly, your story resinates so much with mine. I feel your pain and so does God. Let us both find our worth in Christ. Thanks for being so real. I lost a son at the age of four to cancer. I have such guilt that I didn’t pray for God to save him. I prayed for his will not mine. My husband called the 700 club and brought in some holy water to anoint our son with it. He prayed over our son but I didn’t believe. I feel like I failed my son and my husband, and that God took my son because I’m such a bad person. I thought I’d gotten over this but since I just typed it I found that I still believe it. My marriage is in terrible shape right now. Porn addiction and unforgiveness is destroying it. I know God can bring it back from the broken ashes it’s in. I need to again fill my self with Christs love and all of this will be washed new. I need to learn to trust again.
Thank you Leila for sharing your story. When in doubt just remember NOTHING is greater than Gods love for us. NOTHING is greater He died on the cross for our sins your story is powerful. Thank you for being part of my life. We serve an amazing God how great is He. Godbless 🙂
Today’s message has really encouraged me….I’d love to share my story but although I am a Christian and on fire for God…I still feel shame and regrets from decisions that I’ve made. I know that God forgives and never brings it up again…I feel such pain in my heart and find it so hard to believe that He loves me the same. When I find it hard to love me sometimes. Not sure if this makes sense. I’m encouraged by this blog today and yet find myself searching for contentment in my heart for my old actions. 🙁
It brings such glory to God when women can take off their mask and be real with other women. I appreciate when strong Christian’s can come foreward and share when they fall. Your love for God brought you back to where he was waiting to love you even more. Temptation and trials make us “human” and shows others who may be skeptical that Christian’s aren’t perfect and God’s love abounds. Your story encompasses so many tender subjects, I know you are speaking to the heart of a lot of women. Thank you for sharing.
Beautiful! What is that verse, “…that is what you were but now you have been bought, sealed,” I should look it up; I think it’s Paul talking about sinners and saying we were all that but now we are made clean through Jesus.
I was filled with gratitude that my story, while similar, had much less pain. Yet I am just as needy of depending on Jesus day by day. I am thankful for all that God saves me from even though he didn’t save me out of it. That’s a line I heard Alistair Begg say once in a sermon.
Also I am reading Good and Beaufiful God and in one of the last chapters he deals with the false narrative that we are sinners saved by grace. No, we are no longer sinners, we are saints living still in a sinful world. Sinners saved by grace wouldn’t be like apple trees worried that they grew apples; the fact that our sin worries us proves that we have become something else.
When I am fearful I will trust in God and pray hard!
When I am mad I will ask God what is my portion in this?
When I see others’ pride I will pray for God to forgive my pride and theirs.
When I am lazy or discouraged I will ask God what one thing he wants me to do next.
Thank you for this time to write!
Beth
Thanks for being so transparent! God is using your truth to set the captives free! I truly believe He is doing a miraculous work of healing and restoration in all of or lives! God bless you mightily!
Leila,
I too had an affair and a pregnancy from my affair. The affair left me with a beautiful gift my youngest
daughter. I feared my husband finding out this was not his child. this was the beginning journey for
me with Jesus. I repented, accepted Jesus as my Lord and savior, made a commitment to God to
never have another affair and to warn all women what an affair does to you. I am so grateful to say
26 years later God has helped me keep my promise to never return to adultery. I have shared my story with
many women. I tell women my sin stares at me everyday of my life, as a reminder of what I have been
redeemed from. My beautiful daughter was my blessing from God that got me turned around towards God. I never thought my sin would turn out to be my blessing also. God is a loving kind God who never
left my side once. Even when I had to tell my precious daughter at 17 her dad was not her father. I had
promised God if she ever asked I would tell the truth. This pain became too much for her to bare, she turned to drugs, alcohol and sex. She went through rehab and was free for a while. Now her life is still centered around alcohol, drugs and sex to dull her pain. I have never given up that God has changed her.
I stand on the word promises that my daughter is delivered from the enemies camp of drugs, sex and alcohol. I see her serving the Lord as an obedient servant of the Lord. I stand on the word of God each day as I read her bible never giving up. I know this will sound crazy to some who don’t understand, but I am forever grateful for my sin, it pushed me to God. I know that I don’t fear or doubt but only believe that my beautiful daughter is saved, a servant of the Lord, who is obedient and free from all pain, as great is her peace in the Lord. I don’t look at the years, or days of my prayer being unanswered as I see it answered as I praise the Lord each day and thank Him for all He has done in my daughters life and mine.
Debra,
Unfortunately, our selfish desires hurt others, but I believe that God will bring your daughter home to HIM!
Thank you. You are a beautiful and brave woman of God. You are very much an inspiration to so many women. You have proved with God taking control of your situation that NOTHING is impossible with God by our side. God bless you and your family!