"I remember one day Don said, ‘Why are you eating and gaining all this weight?’ I shot back, ‘I’m doing this because I don’t want you to touch me. Besides, I can loose the weight if I want to, but you’ll always be a loser.’ Little by little, word by word, angry look by angry look, rejection by rejection; I began the process of destroying my husband. Comments like ’You’re so stupid,’ ‘duh,’ and ‘can’t you do anything right?’ were constantly spewing from my mouth. I was in pain and I wanted Don to be in pain too. One day, I made a list of all of Don’s faults. He found the list, but I didn’t even care."

Jona always thought that since Don was a Christian, he would never leave her. However, there came a point where he could not take the emotional turmoil any longer. On May 6, 2001, Don left the home that had become his prison cell and whipping block. Jona had destroyed her marriage and her man. On January 31, 2003, the divorce was final.

"A couple of months after our divorce, I woke up to God’s still small voice," Jona explained. "He seemed to say, ‘Is this what you wanted? Did you want a divorce? Do you want Don to marry another woman and have your children torn between spending time in two different households? Do you want to be alone? Were you the wife I called you to be?’" "

"Oh God," Jona cried, "What have I done?"

Now friends, the next part of the story is what Dr. Phil did not tell you… God began working on Jona’s heart. She didn’t change because of a self-help book or a ten-step program, but because of the miraculous work of the Holy Spirit. Do you want to know what really happened? Do you want to know what Dr. Phil did not tell his viewers? Grab a cup of coffee and keep reading.

God took Jona to a place of repentance and began to soften, remold and remake her very heart. That’s what God does. He doesn’t try to cover up our flaws; He starts from scratch and makes us new. While the divorce was final, God was only just beginning to work on Jona’s heart.

"God took me to a place of repentance," Jona explained. "For the first time, through a support group, I saw clearly what I had done to destroy my marriage. I had always blamed our problems on Don changing jobs so often, but the real problem was my lack of respect for the God-appointed leader of my home. I was the real problem and Don simply couldn’t take it anymore. I had rejected Don with my words, my appearance, and my withdrawal of physical touch."

Whether or not God could salvage the marriage, Jona made a commitment that she would allow God to salvage her.

Jona’s heart longed to be reunited to Don, but her ultimate goal was to become the woman God wanted her to be. She immersed herself in Bible study and prayer, and began to take an interest in her appearance. Interestingly, as the pounds began to drop, so did the scales that had covered her eyes.