What Happened When She Quit Trying To Fix Her Marriage

Evelyn Jones worked hard and accomplished much, but was essentially an unhappy person. She hoped finding love would change that.

“I went into both my marriages as an unhappy person wanting someone else to make me happy,” she said. “I knew there was something missing. I knew I wasn’t happy, but I didn’t know why.”

In her first marriage of 17 years, the unhappiness turned to depression. She sought divorce.

Three years later, she remarried.

“Even though my complaints about my husband were different, I was the same,” Evelyn said. “I was very strong willed. It was my way or the highway all the time.”

As she struggled through this relationship, her best friend kept inviting Evelyn to Blue Ridge. Worn down, she said yes. When Evelyn and her husband separated, she continued to come to Blue Ridge and one Sunday saw an announcement about DivorceCare.

“I was so desperate to find answers. I was very interested, but scared to death,” she remembered. “I was not a sharer, not an open book. But I was drawn to it. I cried through the first three meetings.”

Evelyn, who had grown up in church, called herself a Christian, but “I had no idea what that meant — no idea about surrender. That was very evident in how I lived and thought.”
As Evelyn continued to go to DivorceCare, her heart began to change.

“I remember going home one night and feeling like God had switched on the lights,” she said. “God was saying, ‘It's not these men, it's you. You're expecting something from them that only I can give you.’ It was humbling and embarrassing, but also freedom and light. It was like waking up.”

Did everything change overnight? No.

Evelyn went into “control mode” to fix her marriage. She was frustrated, “This man will not respond to anything I'm doing.”

But as she continued to grow in her relationship with God through DivorceCare, she began to understand “I’m not the one in control.”

“I went home one night and I was talking to God. I said, ‘I am sorry. I never asked You if I should get married. I never gave my life fully to You. In my arrogance, I was trying to be in control. So You take it; You do what You want with it.

“Everything changed after that.”

Evelyn and her husband Scott began to talk again. They started spending time together.

“I told him what God was teaching me — that it was me who needed to surrender,” she said. “He was skeptical, but very curious.”

As they healed their marriage, they began coming to Blue Ridge and to the Encounter group together. “I don't have to nag, and drag him into my way of thinking. I just have to live surrendered,” Evelyn said.

That was four years ago. This fall, Evelyn begins serving with DivorceCare as a table leader.

“God keeps turning on new switches. It's amazing,” she said. “I felt so moved by God in DivorceCare. I'm excited to be back in that environment. I know that even though I'm there for other people, I know God will still be working on me.”

Learn more about DivorceCare and register here.