JOEY | More than Restoration
"Jessica and I got married at a very young age and at a quick rate. Early on in our marriage, I was going through the thick of changing as a person as a result of my success.
I was earning money that I’d never had before. I didn't necessarily know how to deal with that really well. I wanted more of it.
It was acceptable that as long as I was around and providing for them it was okay to pursue my own ambitions and not doing the things that I should have been doing as a husband and as a father. So that resulted in us fighting a lot and deciding on divorcing.
I worked at a company where I had a good reputation. I was going out and partying and I was drinking and I was just doing things that made me feel - temporarily - better for myself but after doing them, they made me feel worse.
Well, just like with anything when you ignore your responsibilities, my employer couldn't overlook the things that I was doing.
My oldest daughter Elaine was living with me and I stumbled upon The Salvation Army. I already knew that my daughter was going to come with me because if I was going to start on a journey back to restoration it was going to have to be with her.
We got into our room [at The Salvation Army’s Hospitality House]. Having to sit there across from her - and in a really teeny tiny room - and look her in the face and see disappointment and fear was something that I'll never forget for the rest of my entire life.
I saw the toll that my poor decisions had taken on my family; the toll that they had taken on me. I needed to take a strong look in the mirror I told her, ‘you know, I'm going to make a commitment to you. I promise you that no matter what happens, every church service and Bible study that we can go to, we’ll go because I know that the only thing that could bring me back to where I need to be is God.’
You think Salvation Army, you think homeless shelter. You think food program, but the staff told us, ‘yeah there's a church service that you can go to.’ So I said, 'have whoever it is pick me up,’ and it turned out to be Lt. Fabio [Simoes, commanding officer of The Salvation Army center].
With them we found that they were very good-hearted people. They sincerely cared about the people that were in their programs and in their ministry. And that authenticity came across and allowed us to trust them with our story.
Every chance they got to come get us and to welcome us into their family, they did.
I had a lot of fear. I was coming here from a place of failure. And that was a big problem for me for a long time - my pride.
So losing everything for me was a catalyst to be broken enough. And it was at that moment in my room where God was calling me out. If I continued down the path I was on, I was just going to have more of the same.
And so the Holy Spirit told me that I had a decision to make. I went from being in this mode of trying to find a great job and trying to make myself great again, to ‘I don't care what's going to happen next,' whether it was mopping floors at a grocery store or hanging clothes at Macy's, because the outside wasn't as important to me anymore as the inside.
I went from being afraid to being confident. Depressed to being happy. Broken to being whole. And it was at that point where my daughter saw the change in me, that the restoration of our relationship began.
When I got my head clear and my daughter and I were back in church, back to trusting each other again, the issue of my family was still there in front of me.
Out of anyone who saw all the hurt I caused my family, it was my ex-wife. My greatest plan for myself at the time was to get along as best we could. We agreed that I was going to take the two older kids.
The kids quickly adapted to church. They loved it. That started chipping away at my ex-wife’s heart because she'd seen a transformation in her children. They went from being, ‘yeah we were just with dad and he was dad,’ to ‘mom, you should've seen how cool it was today. You should have seen what we did. You should have seen what we learned.’
The kids started inviting her to church. She started to struggle with wanting to forgive and wanting to accept that things were different but still being very afraid.
We ended up talking one day and we had a really calm conversation about the kids and about each other. Our hearts were softened from how hard they were.
Out of all of that hurt and mistrust, those conversations changed into, ‘what do you think about the future?’ You know, ‘what are your plans and what's going on?’ And we decided to go out to eat together without the kids to talk about stuff.
We found ourselves dating again. I said, ‘do you think that what is happening is what I think is happening?' She said, 'I think it might be happening.’
And when I got that answer we were in a church service. It was a Wednesday and I looked over at my wife and I said, ‘I want to get remarried,’ and before she could respond I said, ‘this Friday.’
And in two days we threw together a ceremony and went from being a scared, broken, separated family to actually coming back together.
When you put God before yourself, when you want to do God's will and not your own, He’s very quick to give you the resources that you need to get the job done."
Watch Joey's story below...