The verdict was about to be read and a quiet hush fell over the courtroom, the atmosphere was so still you could hear a pin drop. The jury foreman stood up and began to deliver the verdict after two long weeks of an intense, sham of a trial. I have heard verdicts read before, served on several juries and have been called as a witness in trials, but the defendant who had just risen from his chair on instruction from the presiding judge, was no ordinary defendant, he was my husband of 16 years. I could only sit there in the courtroom, pray to God and observe injustice spilling forth from the mouth of the foreman…….”We the jury find the defendant, guilty.” “Sentencing would be in two weeks henceforth,” the judge said as he struck his gavel.
I sat there still and quiet trying to absorb what we all just heard. I watched the bailiff handcuff my husband, we barely got to say good bye to one another before they took him into custody. My mind and body went numb, mechanically I walked out of the courtroom, took the elevator down to the parking structure, got into my car and wept uncontrollably.
The months leading up to the trial were a living nightmare. We were interrogated endlessly, our phone conversations were tapped and mounting a defense was rapidly depleting our resources. Long story short, my husband and his co-worker were unjustly accused of a crime they didn’t commit. As a result, the co-worker was so distraught over the false accusations that he tragically took his own life by stepping in front of a fast-moving train, we decided to pray and fight.
After sentencing, I drove home, went straight to my computer, look up many Bible verses on the Lord bringing justice into our lives, printed out several copies and put them up all over the house and told God we were going to stand on His Word until He restored our family.
The first Bible verse on the list was:
Isaiah 61:8-9, “For I, the Lord, love justice; I hate robbery and wrongdoing. In My faithfulness I will reward My people and make an everlasting covenant with them. Their descendants will be known among the nations and their offspring among the peoples. All who see them will acknowledge that they are a people the Lord has blessed.”
Shortly thereafter, everything went from bad to worse, the nightmare turned into a living hell. Word got out and relatives and friends were distancing themselves from us, attorneys threatening to sue for lack of payment, my business suffered, liens were put against our home and so on and so on. I kept asking God how could this have happened and why was He allowing it to go on?!
Well, five and half years later and over a million dollars in debt, our loving and faithful God restored our family. We were stripped of our worldly possessions and friends, but we had Jesus and each other and we moved forward in faith, trusting in the grace of God the Restorer.
— Mother Elisabeth
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