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Restoring Eden: God Healed Our Marriage and Our Legacy.
- Anrika Bresler
- Oct 28
- 5 min read
I remember standing on that stage, looking out at the sea of faces.
Families, grandparents, siblings, and loved ones gathered to celebrate the couples standing beside us.
Every family seemed surrounded by their people, their supporters.
Except us.
I stood there, holding my husband’s hand, and I felt a rush of sadness wash over me.
It was as though the weight of our journey pressed in all at once.
We had walked through so much: separation, pain, and the long road of rebuilding what sin and pride had nearly destroyed, and in that moment, where we were offering our children back to God and declaring that we would raise them for His purpose, we felt both the ache of isolation and the weight and power of obedience.
Around us, the stage was filled with couples surrounded by generations of support, yet our family stood represented by one person and the pastor and his wife, who prayed with us.
Strangely, it felt as if having the more “prominent” leaders being the ones who were praying with us somehow made up for the empty seats in the crowd. I remember foolishly thinking that maybe their prayer would carry more weight in the spiritual realm, that God might listen a little closer because of who they were, seeing that we did not have the numbers to push the prayers up to heaven.
Looking back, I giggle a bit at that thought. I know now that the power that day didn’t come from who stood beside us...it came from the One who stood for us. (Rom 8:34)
As they prayed, I could feel the stage lights highlighting the tears in my eyes, making them feel heavy and warm when one eventually escaped, and then, under the weight of my emotions and the gentle comfort of soft worship music, I felt the Lord’s whispers in my spirit.
He made me a promise.
One I will hold on to forever:
“You are standing alone here now, because you are breaking the pattern.
The loneliness you feel today will end with you. Your children will not repeat this cycle.
They will not have to heal what you are healing.
You are laying a new foundation, and your family line will build on it.”
God was not only restoring our marriage. He was rewriting our family’s legacy because we gave our marriage to Him.
In doing my CCEP (City Changers Equipping Program) journal this week, I have stirred a revelation in me based on this story I just told you.
The journal question asked us to reflect on how marriage today connects to the restorative nature of intimacy. God’s original design for wholeness and holiness.
So I pondered on it in the scripture references they referred to.
Before sin, Adam and Eve were described as “naked and unashamed” (Genesis 2:25).
This means they were not only unashamed of their bodies and their physical intimacy, but they lived in total transparency toward each other and God.
They had a relationship without fear and shame.
But sin broke that.
It fractured the perfect trust between man and woman, just like it brought division between humanity and God.
Safety was replaced by fear.
Closeness was replaced by distance.
Then, because of Jesus, that separation was healed. The cross made it possible for us to return to intimacy with God, so why not one another?
When a husband and wife take on the challenge of healing their emotional, spiritual, and physical intimacy with Christ at the centre of it all, you start to see the beautiful picture God originally painted but was destroyed in Eden.
It restores vulnerability, trust, and brings delight in being fully known and fully loved.
True intimacy, the kind that is born in forgiveness and anchored in grace, heals the soul.
It reflects the heart of God Himself.
When a marriage is healed, the effect ripples far beyond the couple. The restoration of one home stirs change into the community around it.
Healed parents raise secure children.
Secure children grow into compassionate adults.
Compassionate adults build stronger communities.
When love is restored to God's original blueprint, it begins to heal society itself.
The foundation of being whole lies in the concept of marriage, because it mirrors God's covenant love between Himself and Humanity.
Proverbs 14:1:
“A wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down.”
When we choose to let God rebuild our homes, we are not only restoring our own lives, but partnering with Him in rebuilding the moral and emotional fabric of a generation.
| My husband and I are living proof of this truth.
We could have chosen divorce.
We could have walked away and allowed brokenness to continue its course on our children. Our children could have grown up repeating our pain, and perhaps one day, standing on a similar stage, alone because Mother and Father couldn’t stand together.
Thank heavens God intervened.
Priscilla Shirer, in a sermon called God Can Restore Your Circumstances (Watch it here), talked about how Naaman in 2 Kings 5 had a choice. He could either let his leprosy consume him and die from it, or he could bring it out into the open and give it to God so he can be healed from it and let it be a demonstration of the power of God in his life.
The leprosy in our marriage was revealed. We each gave it to God in our separate capacities. He healed the disease, and now we have a promise that our obedience will be a demonstration of God's power, grace, and glory for generations to come.
What sin almost destroyed, grace has not only redeemed but turned into a testimony for anyone who will listen.
Ephesians 5:31-32:
"For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound — and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.”
Marriage was never intended for mere companionship; it was always meant to be a prophetic picture of the nature of Christ's love for His Bride.A tes
Today, I know this with all my heart:
| God’s design is not to punish — it is to heal.
Know that restoration is possible.
Generational trauma can be broken.
Trust can be rebuilt.
Strongholds can be shattered.
Curses can end with you.
But it begins with one simple but costly choice — to trust Jesus with it all!
Not your spouse, not your friends, not even your own understanding.
Only Him.
Jesus is not just a way — He is the Way (John 14:6).
And His way always leads back to wholeness.
God's Original blueprint.
I don't know your story, and I won't try to understand your pain. But this I can promise you...There is healing with Christ.
He sees you. He hears you, and He is just waiting for you to give it all to Him.
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