Married To An Addict - Kate Stokes

I had been married a little over a year when I wanted/ begged God to let my new marital status be “Divorced.” Watching the movie Fireproof in a theater, I heard the Lord ask me if I would give Him one chance to fix my marriage. With arms crossed and doubts in my head, I told the Lord, “Fine—but I’m not helping! I’m not praying for my marriage or my husband, and You will have to fix it all on Your own!”

God was waiting for that all along! You see, for months, I had done everything I knew to try and save the shattered relationship. All that was left were the craters where an atomic bomb had gone off in my soul—due to rampant pornography, alcoholism and the occasional hidden drug use my husband was steeped in.

But God was at work, in spite of my stubbornness and anger. Little did I know when He asked me that question in a dark theater, He would call me to 10 more years of suffering for my husband’s addictive behavior. It’s one thing to suffer for your own sin, but it’s a completely different matter to suffer for someone else’s.

This workshop is about what God did in me through those years of pain, anger and fear:

• The Lord drew me into an intimacy with Himself that I would never have experienced without those circumstances.
• He poured out his goodness, kindness and love upon me despite my reactions to my suffering; resembling nothing of the fruit of the Spirit.
• How I got to the point where I can now say that, although I wouldn’t have chosen this life, I wouldn’t trade it for the world.
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​Among other things, we will look at how to:

• Identify where your foundations are planted
• Open your clenched fists to receive help from God
• Live in the sanctifying process
• Receive power from the Holy Spirit
• See God’s purifying process in suffering

You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy: At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.  Psalm 16:11