A Prodigal’s Return | Forgiveness from the Heavenly Father Brought Brad and Lisa Valencia Back from the Brink of Divorce.

May 8

God is faithful. He promises a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair… and to repay for the years the locusts have eaten.

The rebirth of Brad and Lisa Valencia’s now 22-year marriage could be described no less vividly.

Twelve years ago, it seemed their relationship was dead. Brad had walked away from life with Lisa, leaving her alone with three small children, one just nine months old. Divorce papers had been prepared. Lisa was about to sign, until a phone call from Brad caused her to pause.

Previously uninterested in reconciliation, Brad was having a change of heart. He told her he felt God calling him back in forgiveness to the faith and family he’d left. He had experienced a tangible perception of God’s presence while he was driving one night.

“I knew God was talking to me and giving me a choice to continue down the path of loss and death or to turn back to him,” Brad said. “I almost don’t have words to explain the physical heaviness of feeling the shepherd leaving the 99 to go after the one sheep. I stepped back to God that night.” Despite the fact the Valencias had been living apart for almost a year, “The only person I knew to reach back out to was Lisa. I’d been forgiven, and I thought maybe our marriage could be worked out.”

Now the Valencias inspire others dealing with broken trust through their Unrelenting Pursuit ministry. Brad and Lisa have been certified as coaches by Married With a Purpose and SYMBIS, and they host in-person Reboot weekends where they work one-on-one with couples in crisis. They share their personal stories in episodes 80 and 81 of the Unrelenting Pursuit Podcast they began hosting in 2020.

“We have walked through betrayal in our own marriage and are passionate about helping others walk out reconciliation in their lives. We also love instilling hope in marriages towards what can be, versus getting stuck in what has been,” they post.

The Valencias have learned from experience how one step in the wrong direction can take a person down a path they didn’t expect. Although both had grown up in church and, in fact, count several pastors as family members, Brad realized he didn’t have a rooted and grounded relationship with Christ on his own. Work pressures and a heavy travel schedule in his special operations position with the U.S. Border Patrol in El Paso led him to “compromise little things here and there” that turned into big things. Finally, he felt he had “crossed a line of what could be forgiven,” so when Lisa found out about his infidelity, he didn’t confess, he just “felt bad for getting caught.” Brad moved out of the house and cut ties with anyone who would speak life to him.

During this time, Brad was unrepentant, a factor that influenced Lisa eventually to initiate divorce proceedings. “Usually, a betrayer would be willing to work on things,” she said, but “he wanted nothing to do with it. Ten months is a significant length of time.”

She counts the need to continue to function for her kids as God’s grace toward her. “I wanted to just go cry, but I had diapers to change and laundry to do. God comes in our grief to walk with us.”

Lisa was blessed with a team of prayer warriors who surrounded her and Brad in prayer during that time. At first, they prayed for restoration of the marriage. Then, as it appeared all hope for their marriage was gone, she and the team prayed for Brad’s salvation and that he would return to God. As Lisa continued to lift him before the Lord, God gave her a glimpse of how much he loved Brad and walked her through a process of surrender she described as “gut wrenching.”

“You have to wrestle with letting go when what you want, a good thing that seems like it should be God’s will, is not happening. I recognized how much I wanted control when I had none,” she continued. “I wasn’t promised the restoration of my marriage. God asked me to walk out forgiveness before there was a ‘sorry.’ God was in a process with me.”

At that point, the Valencias had “ripped apart the seams of our life, and everything was almost done.” In fact, when Brad did call after all those months, Lisa’s lawyer phoned her an hour later to say the papers had been finalized and just needed to be signed by the judge. “God had walked me through enough to help me realize he was going to do something bigger,” she said. “I had enough faith to say, ‘Hold on,’ but not enough faith to say, ‘Rip up the papers.’

As Lisa and Brad began moving toward each other, they describe a detox process. “I didn’t come home a knight in shining armor,” Brad said. “There are earthly consequences to my behavior. I had been going the wrong way for so long, feeding my flesh instead of doing what God wanted me to do. You would think that after I encountered him, all of that would have been in the past, but even when I got back home, porn was still an issue. It is addictive.

“God says in the Bible to flee from sexual immorality – he doesn’t say that about any other sin!”

As Brad and Lisa were in the process of rebuilding their marriage and seeking Christ, Brad recognized Lisa needed to forgive him. “She has had her own healing journey. I was the bad guy. Shame has lingered with me for years,” he admitted. “I missed so much of all three of my kids’ growing processes – especially the baby. It would hit me. I’d tell God, ‘I see them, and I see what I did. They all have deep emotional scars, and I gave those scars to them.’”

But Brad felt God telling him instead to look and see what God has done. “He healed them. The scars are there, but God stepped in and healed our marriage and is still working. We have a marriage I never thought we could have. It is way better than I thought it could be. I want people to get that without having to go through what we did.”

Lisa and Brad agree that no matter what the breach of trust has been in someone’s marriage, healing is necessary. “You can choose to walk out healing individually or together, but either way, you either heal or stay wounded for the rest of your life, which you will take into other relationships. You need a lot of Jesus to walk out redemption and help you heal so you don’t become bitter, discouraged and live in the shadow of the past,” Lisa added. “Now, I don’t look at Brad and see him as a person who betrayed. We really love each other.”

“You have to wrestle with letting go when what you want, a good thing that seems like it should be God’s will, is not happening... God asked me to walk out forgiveness before there was a ‘sorry.’ ”

— Lisa Valencia

“I don’t know what the change was in me,” Brad admitted. “I wasn’t reading the Bible or doing devotions or praising in church because I needed her to see it, there was a point when that changed. I’m now grounded in my relationship with Christ,” which has given him new ways to relate to Lisa without defensiveness.

Part of Lisa and Brad’s process of reconciliation included joining a new church together. The first thing they did was sit down with the pastor to share their experience. “We wanted him to know who we were. It was the first time we had told someone our story like that,” Brad said. “I don’t know what reaction I was looking for – I kept waiting for a ‘that’s horrible!’ face, expecting shame and judgement. But instead, he was actively listening. He was involved in what we were talking about. I felt like he could see what God could do in my life versus what I did to my life.”

The pastor’s response of, “You are in the right place, it’s ok,” instead of, “Now you have to go sit in the back row,” was a picture of the love of Christ, Lisa said. Little did the Valencias know that confession would be the first step on their ministry journey.

Lisa started helping with a Moms group and shared her experience with the women. The Valencias agree it was easier for her to speak from her place of pain than for Brad from his place of shame. But their pastor kept gently pushing Brad to open up. They agreed to lead a marriage small group together, and in 2017, the Valencias told their story in the same room at the same time.

“I felt like he could see what God could do in my life versus what I did to my life.”

— Brad Valencia

Not long after their first public testimony, Brad told Lisa he felt God calling them to share more freely. The prospect was scary. “Putting the worst of your stuff out there is really intense, so when Brad mentioned it, I felt like God was saying, ‘There you have it.’ We both started crying,” Lisa said.

Brad suggested starting a podcast despite neither of them being adept with social media. “We are ill-equipped,” Lisa said, but “God constantly propels us to the next step in our lives and our marriage and in the opportunity to speak into couples and marriages.”

Stories of marriages that fail become public, but success stories are often less celebrated, as they involve two people who might keep their pain and shame very private. As coaches, the Valencias get to hear the stories no one will ever tell anyone else.

“It’s beautiful to see,” Lisa said. “We never guarantee anyone the outcome of what their marriage will be. We’ve seen people have restoration and navigate infidelity, and we’ve also seen people do all ‘the right things’ not get the outcome they want.

“People get so focused on the steps to rebuild,” she added. The reality is it takes two people who are willing to do the work.

“Prioritize Jesus above all else,” Lisa said. “It may sound super simple, but it is not simple to do. It is a life-long process.

“You have to recognize Jesus is the one who restores, redeems and heals no matter the outcome of your marriage. Jesus is enough and he will take you through that.”

Now Brad and Lisa release a new Unrelenting Pursuit Podcast weekly. When asked how they find inspiration for their topics, Brad said God leads them.

“I learned a long time ago that priority should not be plural. I get up early, do devotions, pray, listen to Christian music, and saturate my life with Jesus through the day.” Parenting comes up (as their children are now 19, 17 and 13), and they’ll consult with other married friends.

Brad and Lisa Valencia

Brad and Lisa offer words of wisdom as those who have been in the same place and know how audience members might feel. While they believe Jesus walked with them on their healing journey, and they could count on great people in their lives speaking truth, they admit they could have done a better job of availing themselves of resources – whether counselors, coaches or even podcasts or books by couples like themselves.

“Please get help!” they encouraged.

“We try to put as much as we can in our podcast as a free resource for people, and especially those in crisis, but it’s best to impact couples one-on-one,” Lisa said, which they do through the in-person Reboot weekends they lead as often as their family schedule allows.

“We want to be in it with you. We have great empathy for people going through the greatest pain of their lives. Jesus is enough for me, and Jesus is enough for you, it’s not about Brad and Lisa fixing your marriage.” You can find them at their website, www.unrelentingpursuit.org, or on Instagram.