Broken by Secrets, Healed by Grace

“I honestly was mad at God.” Says Yvette, “I’m thinking, God, I know your voice. I know what you said. And I, kept saying, God, you have to have something better for me. Like, why would you ask me to marry him with all the things that we were going through?”

Yvette and Gerald were best friends in high school. Gerald says she was a bright light in his world of mental chaos and darkness. “God had used her to literally be a life saver to me. I grew up with loneliness, rejection, abandonment, depression suicidal thoughts, all mental stuff. When I became friends with her and we became real good friends those thoughts went away.”

The two lost touch when Yvette went off to college. Then, more than ten years later, they reconnected over a phone call that quickly blossomed into a relationship. Gerald says, “My whole life had been, in, in disarray since she left. And now to hear her voice again, oh, that was beautiful. That was just beautiful. I wasn't letting that go.”

“We had known each other forever, went our separate ways, did a lot of things, and decided this was God. We really felt like it was God bringing us back together.” Says Yvette.

They were married within six months. Yvette believed God had a calling on Gerald’s life to be a worldwide Christian leader. But after a few years of marriage and ministry together, it came out that Gerald was leading a secret life. Yvette says, “I'm a counselor, I'm a pastor, his best friend, and he did a really good job of really hiding a lot. So I did not know, the pornography addiction. I did not know about the drinking. I did not know about the drugs.”

“The alcohol, the drugs, all of those, the deceptions, the lies, the cheating, all of this stuff started to, to unravel.” Gerald recalls.

“I almost felt like I was duped into this situation, so I was frustrated with God, I was frustrated with him. We had some traumatic and difficult conversations; they were not Godly. I did not forgive; I did not let things go.” Yvette recalls. 

“I didn’t know how to cope with responsibility; I didn’t want to be accountable.” Says Gerald, “I didn’t want to deal with the everyday life of trying to lead a family. I couldn't be a good husband. I couldn't be a good father. I couldn't even be a good person. And so I would just leave.”

They separated several times. Each time they reconciled their relationship became more toxic. Then Yvette felt God lead her to a new understanding of herself, Gerald and marriage. She says, “I needed to learn how God created me. And at that point, he told me, ‘I literally created Eve for Adam to, to fix what he was missing, to give him the help that he needs’ And he just kept saying, ‘whatever he is missing, I put it in you. knew what he was gonna need when I created you.’ That changed everything. 'cause I realized I had resources. I had the Word, I had a relationship with God, I knew that I had what it really would take to fight the enemy.”

For two years Gerald lived on the streets. When he finally hit rock bottom and asked to come home, Yvette, still believing in Gerald’s calling, was ready for his return. He says, “When I walked back into the house, all I smelt was an aroma of peace, she was like, ‘Hi, how are you? You want something to eat?’  I'm like, ‘Yeah, something ain't right, This woman about to kill me, something, I don't know about all of this.’ So how, how is this gonna work?”

“I was looking at a person who was homeless on drugs, dealing with perversion.” Recalls Yvette, “Just not what you would think you would be looking at when God says a worldwide leader. You know, those kinds of things. So it was challenging. It was tough, but I, I had to believe God more than what I was seeing.”

“God saw something in me that I didn't see in myself, but he allowed my wife to start to cultivate the very thing that he saw.” Says Gerald. 

“It caused us to fast to pray, to seek God in ways I didn't even realize were available.” Yvette sys, “And what he did was he said, ‘I can strengthen you to sanctify him if you let me.’”

Gerald was soon delivered and spiritually restored; thankful for a wife who believed in a calling even he didn’t see. “I now sit before you and being able to give this testimony of what God actually can do when someone is standing in the gap, when someone is actually interceding, when someone is going to literally say, I'm gonna give my life over as a living sacrifice because I see what God sees. Hmm.” Says Gerald. 

Together they experience the blessings of trusting what god told Yvette so many years ago. They now have an international ministry, helping couples experience the power of God in marriage. Encouraging all to believe God - for what seems impossible. Yvette says, “Pain along the journey does not even compare to the joy, we are literally best friends again. And that has been amazing. Our children have all been reconciled back to their dad. we have a great time. We enjoy what we do. we fight together. And so we see a lot of answered prayers.”

Gerald says, “God is able to do exceedingly, abundantly above all that you can ask or think. He specializes in the impossible.”

“I've seen God transform someone in front of my eyes. Yvette says, “What that has done for my faith is incredible. Yeah, it's incredible.”
 

For more information on GYM: Gerald and Yvette Ministries click the LINK!