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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Question 3: There is one empty place and God knows what it is. Please pray that I will learn to trust God to fill it in his time and in his way.
Oh, Renee, I also wanted to tell YOU something specifically, in response to page 53 in your book. You wrote, “During the first semester of my senior year in college, I hit a breaking point. I remember sitting on the floor in my apartment, sobbing on the phone to my mom. I blurted out questions like, “Will you still love me even if I never accomplish another thing? Even if I don’t get a job…? What if I don’t finish school?”
I too, lived for my parents’ approval and affirmation. A perfectionist in my junior year of college, I still had no idea what I wanted to do for a career and the pressure was crushing out my joy and hope and purpose. That was me, Renee. I literally did the exact same thing. I sobbed on the floor. Cried out to God to no avail. Went at least 3 weeks of very sleepless nights. I called my mom nightly. My questions were, “Can I come home after I graduate? Do I have to have a job right away? Why do I miss my ex so much when I didn’t like being with him? Why isn’t God answering my cries for help? What is wrong with me? Will Dad still be proud of me if I graduate with this degree? What if I don’t graduate as a Scholar? Will you still love me?” I was so burned out, but more than that I was just empty and felt guilty for my own emptiness…
God brought me healing gradually…then I went to Colombia for my mission trip and within 3 days the anxiety during the middle of the night was gone. Now back at school the same thoughts threaten my heart BUT I am so glad I went through that last year because now I know that He IS there and that He is protecting me. I don’t live for the affirmation from my dad anymore. I live to please God. Or I do my best to try to live to please Him. Because I’ve learned that it is the one whom God commends who is blessed. And I am just trusting and believing that somehow, somewhere, God has a place for me to work for Him and that He has led me to study this degree for a reason. I will keep turning towards Him and not doubt Him now. He is enough.
Thank you for sharing your story, too, Renee. I connected so much with it the first time I read it (last August) and just see myself in the pages each day. Jesus speaks to my heart through your words and reminds me that I’m not alone in all of this. Never alone and never forgotten. <3
Last year around this time, I was coming out of a struggle with anxiety-induced depression and letting go of a binding emotionally abusive relationship….your story gives me strength right now as I look back and sometimes feel the same anxiety and emptiness…I love the when statement…”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.”
For me…”When I feel the glimpses of anxiety in my heart and am tempted to dwell on the darkness and live fearfully, then I will praise God for how much healing He has brought to my heart and remind myself that nothing is more strong and wonderful than His marvelous light.” He is still my healer and will always be.
Thank you for sharing your story…it sounds like it was very difficult and probably felt quite impossible at the time. But God does a lot with impossible. : )
Thanks so much Lelia for the incredibly moving story. I have never been married, but I have always looked in all the wrong places to have my emptiness filled inside me, but it never was. Thanks to this Bible Study & Renee, I’m truly finding that only God can fill all the empty places in my heart & every part of me. I’ve really have never had a successful relationship due to the feeling I have towards myself & always giving everything of myself right away & never giving the relationship a chance to be more. I have had an abortion as well, and when I first started going to my church a little over three years ago, I was so ashamed of myself & my past that I thought these people would condem me & there was no place for me in the church. I participated in a ministry that fall, and the minstry was for those who have experienced past abuse (verbal, physical, emotional) & I was always afraid to tell my story to the other women for fear they would judge me. It was only when I gave the director of the ministry a letter I had written about my numerous mistakes from my past (always looking for love in all the wrong places, abortion, etc.) that I was able to release that guilt & knew that God had forgiven me for it as well, although I had struggled with that guilt for many years. I still spend a lot of days blaming myself for recent mistakes, and always saying “if I just would have been different”, “if I just would have been like this woman or this woman”, “if I would have been normal”, “if I would have loved myself” that person may have stayed longer. When my last relationship ended I thought of turning to someone else to fill the emptiness, but said to myself “what good is that going to do, because you’ll just feel empty & lonely inside the next day”, so I’m glad I didn’t go that route again, because it seems to be what I always do, and it just makes things worse.
The director of that ministry feels that I should be an advocate for the unborn, and help other women in the same situation. I’m just not sure that is what I would be good at. I don’t feel that is God’s calling for me, as it may be others. But as time goes & I listen to God, he may direct my steps in that direction.
Thanks again for sharing your story with us, God bless you always 🙂
thank you for your honesty and for being proof that our past does not eliminate us from the work God has for us to do. What hit me was my own story that I have kept well hidden. My part in my divorce that included looking for love in other men. there I said it. Not something I could say most places without having it thrown in my face again and again, so I don’t share it. thanks Renee for this safe place to be honest, and for reminding me that God can still use me as I bring my broken pieces to the Potter who can remold and make me into a beautiful new vessel for His glory.
Thank you for sharing your story. We are all sinners and we all make mistakes but Jesus forgives. He died for our sins. What a powerful story.
This week has been so touching and inspiring to me, I don’t know how to put it into words. God has really been speaking to me about having the courage to share my story with others, and how thankful I am that he rescued me from the huge life of sin I found myself in earlier in my life. Now I have fully committed my life to Jesus, and I wake up in the mornings saying “Yes” to him.
It just shows that were all human and make some bad choices…but thank God, He is the one who held you and His glory is shining through your relationship now… Thank you for being so transparent. God bless you.
Lelia thank you so much for sharing your story. I know you drew strength from God to do so, it makes me stop and think of what so many of us have gone thru, and things that we have done, but God is so good, and forgiving, its us that sometimes can’t forgive ourselves…but God slowly works in our hearts and draws us near, just as we are. What an awesome God we serve….. Lamentations #:22-23 tells us “The Lord’s mercies are new every morning” what a beautiful promise. Thank you Jesus.
Wow. Thank you for your honesty. Allowing God to use your story/pain to comfort and help others is wonderful. The things we do when we think God isn’t looking! And how we can be overwhelmed by His grace is amazing. I love your statement about losing everything BUT God and you would be okay. =)
Thanks for sharing your life with all of us. You are very brave! Thanks for the skit. It was very moving! I hope everyone has a BLESSED weekend!!
Wow! Where to begin? Thank you for sharing your story. Thank You God for allowing me to know I am not the only one.
Short version: I am a divorced woman because of my affair when I believed the lies that I deserved happiness and that my husband was too busy with work to make me happy. I found this lying poison called happiness in the arms of a co worker who I had to lie to so that he would sleep with me. He was attracted but knew I was married and did not want to do that to my husband, or so he said. This went unnoticed for about 1 month partly because I was purposely careless and was numb. I didn’t care if anyone knew and wanted to do what I wanted. The other part? I had been so deeply wounded by my husband before marriage and after being married that I wanted him to hurt too. There was no baby but after admitting by screaming at my husband and nearly killing him because he would not give me my phone and had been physical with me, I jumped into an almost 8 year relationship with this man. I didn’t lose my children but they lost their mom emotionally for most of that time as I was severely depressed and felt trapped.
Before all of that, between my first two children and way before marriage, I had four abortions. Not consecutively but 3 were with the same man… my husband before marriage.
The enemy lied to me continuously saying that once I told my story I would be judged. I believed it wholeheartedly and stayed in that prison for most of my twenties and half my thirties. After all of that, being in a church for 7 years as not knowing what all the celebration was about or feeling like I belonged, I surrendered my life to Christ in 2009 and came to terms that this same man, the one I committed adultery with was not who I was to be with. I still struggle with believing that Jesus could loves sinner, a super sinner like me but I know He does.
Again, thank you for sharing. I gives me hope to know I am not the only one who has been in this struggle. While my ex husband and I did not reconcile ad he has made it his life’s purpose to see me suffer, I know I am forgiven and I pray that he gives his life to God.
Lelia
Thank you so much for your transparency, your courage is truly amazing! Your testimony is the vessel that Chirst is using to help other couples, and woman open up in this area that is so sensitive.
I pray that all of us who have had the priviledge of reading your story, will use take this opportunity to re-evaluate their hearts before Christ.
I thank God for the courage and honesty of Lelia. God wants us to be real, he desires truth in the inward parts. I am single and found myself attracted to someone half my age. I was in emotional turmoil as I know this was wrong and the person is not a Christian. I am not professing that I am an angel but our encounter came out of a business transaction that I had to do at his place of work. I had no intention of seeking a friend or getting involved with anyone. But my dear friend was interested and continued to pursue me. At first I thought it was a joke, but I got used to the calls and Iooked forward them and his kind words, even though I knew this was wrong and would not work. I eventually cut ties, still long to hear those kind words and desperately want to be friends even though I know it is not worth it. But that is how I want to fill my emptiness. I continually cry out God for is help and I am not quite over but I am not hurting as much.
Thanks for sharing your heart and enable me to share mine.
Lelia, your words bring hope to my life. One that was very similar to yours . Thankfully god has redeemed marriage and we are together and closer to god then ever before . Even though we have a long road ahead , I know gods plans for our future are perfect and great . I am learning to let Him be the one to fill my empty spaces . Thank you
Thank you Lelia for sharing your story and allowing all of us to enter into the promises God continues to place in our hearts concerning our insecurities and the “skeletons in our closets”. It is so helpful to know others powerful stories of how the Lord has impacted their decisions and brought peace into the brokeness of their lives. All of the stories shared in the group have brought my attention from my imperfect self to the perfection of our Father. Thanks girls:)
I too had an abortion it has been 30 years. I was saved when I was 8, but I gott from under the wiill of God I medt my husband two years later and we married three years after that and when we were married 15 years we had our daughter she is a joy. I stiil think back at the child I had aborted and wonder howthey would have gotten along since at the time of my daughter’s birth my other child would’ve been 20. She doesn’t know.
Back then there was little talk and I felt pressured into having it done. I know God has forgiven me. It has taken along time for me to forgive myself and accept God’s forgiveness, but know that I have I feel the peace He meant for me to have.
Well. My hiding place is not a marital issue. It is a business issue. Being beat down by the economy and circumstances we can’t control. But you can’t tell anyone how hard it is, because if you do, it shakes their confidence in you, too. We have a great reputation for service and integrity, but the area we are in is disintegrating around us… Relocation isn’t an option, so here we are… I understand the idea of turning it over to God…I struggle with what that truly looks like. We still have to figure out how to untangle it all. I know the road ahead will be hard and has the potential to be ugly, too. We believed we have been where God wanted us. Now we have to sort it all out and I don’t even know where to begin. In and above all I desire to honor God in all our choices… The choices just aren’t that great. Thanks for a safe place to vent.
Lelia thank-you so much for sharing your story! It breaks and uplifts my heart because I am fixing to get on my knees and do the same thing! My Daddy liked to call me “wild” in my twenties and I was. Your testimony has moved Me to my knees for forgiveness. Thank-you!!!
I just want to say you are also The Truth. A lot of people are being fake and hiding who they realy are. And in order for us to move forward in life we cannot lean on our own understanding but in all our ways we need to acknowledge the One who died on the cross just for us and He will direct our path and make our path straight. I know someone who is living a fowl life, dating several men right in front of her children and using men for money. All I can do is pray for this person because she doesnt have a true relationship with God. Its pretty sad. But I just related to your story because I too was looking to a guy to fill my emptiness. One day I also cried out to God because I was so sick and tired of feeling alone when i wasnt with this guy. I said Lord I am so sorry for putting this one person way before you. I knew God was mad at me, but He just said Draw near to me and I will draw near to you. And ever since I cannot put the Bible down , I cant go one day without the Almighty One. he has been so good to me. I love the quote when you said If I lose everything I will still have You and be okay. That quote right there shot threw me like electricity. I believe that was the Holy Spirit. if more women confessed and turn toward Jesus, then they would find the security that they need. I have found security in Jesus and I lean on Him for MY LIFE. Continue to pray for me because I have never been married but I long to be. But I will definitely wait on the Lord because every good and perfect gift is from Him.