He cried and hugged me and asked, “So… the divorce? It’s… off?”
“Yes. It’s off.”
JOSH
As Paige told me the news of wanting to go to Alaska and that the divorce was off, I physically lifted my eyes up and thanked God. I had been praying for a miracle to save our marriage. And it came—in the form of a trip to the wilderness of Alaska. My prayer life was mostly about my family and for a miracle at this point. I had no doubt that God loved me, and He had certainly answered a lot of prayer in my favor, but I only had meaningful conversations with God during a crisis. I checked all the boxes. We went to church and tithed, but more than that was clearly not something I could handle. Overcommitting was part of the reason I was in this mess.
The Army and even my own upbringing built up my assumption that I probably wasn’t going to get the first marriage right. I had wonderful stepparents who loved me as their own, but it made me believe that people have to have bad relationships to get to good relationships. Could we truly be spared that? Ending our marriage seemed so stupid when we considered what all we had been through, but we had both changed so much. It seemed like we had just grown apart. I didn’t even know how to pray for Paige, because I felt like I didn’t even know her. I prayed that disconnecting from it all on this trip to Alaska would answer some of those questions and give me hope.
PAIGE
Reflecting on the decision I just made, I thought about what I truly believe about God, prayer, and how the two work together. Through nearly splitting up my marriage, I realized how much of my faith was still in its infancy. My faith has been big but not broad. I believed my faith could do a miracle in one place but could change nothing in another. Before I called our marriage off, I had certainly thought about everything the Lord had brought us through, but I learned to dismiss those thoughts when I convinced myself that the hard times were behind us at Walter Reed and that now we should face no troubles. When troubles came, I defended what I thought was rightfully mine, never pausing to consider that I might take the whole ship down with me. Going all-in with Josh was terrifying. I was skeptical of Josh but also not sure what I had left to give. I wanted success for Josh in life, but I just didn’t feel responsible for that anymore, so why volunteer to go to Alaska if there was no guarantee how much either of us could really buy into healing our marriage? He was coming from a place of guilt and apology, and I was trying to pour from an empty glass. What could be done in a week to fix us?
As I prayed, the Lord said, “Paige, I already know the outcome of this,” and my eyes opened, physically and figuratively. I thought, Yes, God, You do! None of this is based off of what I understand, because everything I understand is based on my past. You are the only one who sees the future. You know what we will be taught in Alaska and how it will echo in our lives afterward. We are just starting this race, but You are already at the finish line. I thanked God for not letting us go to Alaska when we first applied. I also thanked Him for reassuring me that we weren’t rededicating ourselves to each other based on blind faith. I was energized by the twofold opportunity in front of me: I had hope for the future, but we were actually going to obtain a strategy. The setback was the setup for a new level of our marriage. Yes, we had to agree to lay down some heavy burdens and preconceived notions of each other, but there would never be another opportunity like this to completely shut the world out and work on each other. Suddenly, I didn’t care about what I could do or what Josh could do, because it was all God’s doing to begin with. God had been at work the whole time with his hand on the valve to release all the pressure that had built up in our lives—the preconceived notions of what we needed our life to look like, how we demanded so much of each other, and how we were raising a daughter and about to bring another child into the world. The relief was unreal even though the future was unknown.
Our marriage felt figured out even though the hard work was only just beginning. God had only asked us to try because He provided the rest. We never meant for our marriage to get this bad. Josh and I knew what was right, but I don’t think we understood why it was right until we made mistakes. Even Paul says in Romans 7:18–23:
For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at
