God Allows U-Turns Sharon Jaynes

God Allows U-Turns

Sharon Jaynes

Today’s Truth

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation: the old has gone, the new has come! (2 Corinthians 5:17)

Friend to Friend

Laura lived in a small town with parents who were morally sound and family oriented. She went to church from her earliest remembrance and was baptized when she was 12 years old. In high school, she began dating Barry. After Laura went off to college, both of Barry’s parents died. He was lonely and missed the close-knit family he had once enjoyed.

After Laura’s first year of college, Barry began talking marriage. He had not gone to college and wanted her to come home and be his wife. Laura was torn, but made the decision to marry Barry and continue working toward her degree.

Laura and I held hands and prayed together before she walked down the aisle. It was a beautiful day as I stood with her and the two were united as man and wife. But after the wedding comes the marriage–something that neither the 19-year-old Laura nor Barry was prepared to face.

After five years, Laura was bored with the marriage, restless in her job, and disappointed in her husband. While working in a medical office, Bob, a salesman for an international medical supply company, took on their account. Bob was older and lived what seemed like an exciting lifestyle. The relationship started as friendly bantering, and progressed to enticing flirtation. Laura found herself looking forward to Thursdays—the day the rep made his weekly visits.

A touch here, a lunch there, and soon an affair ensued. Laura packed her bags, left her marriage, her job, and her hometown to move to greener pastures. But the greener pastures weren’t so green. Thorns infested the relationship. Bob wasn’t interested in anything long term. Laura was just a young plaything he toyed with on weekends. What promised to be an exciting life away from small town America, away from a mundane, monotonous marriage, turned into a deep, dark pit of regret and remorse. Laura discovered Bob wasn’t anything special. He was just someone different—a diversion. And she was his flavor of the month.

After her divorce was final, Laura was left all alone in a strange town. “What have I done?” she cried.

Laura’s husband remarried and put the broken pieces of his life back together. Laura, on the other hand, was just broken.

Laura turned away from our friendship when she headed down the road to self-destruction. But after she came to her senses, she called me full of remorse and sadness. I welcomed her in my arms, held her close to my heart, and brought her to my hometown. My husband and I found her a job, helped her get her finances in order, and directed her to a great Bible-based church. That’s what it looked like on the outside, but here’s what really happened.

Laura, in her own words, stood before Jesus like the woman caught in adultery. She felt the stares of her accusers and recoiled at the rocks that would surely fly. In her own mind, she stood naked and ashamed before her community, her childhood church body, and her lifelong friends. But more importantly, she stood in shame before Jesus.

“I didn’t think God would forgive me,” she began. “I had hurt my family, my husband, and my witness. What would God want with someone like me?”