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    Looking Back 25 Years
    Looking Back 25 Years
    Looking Back 25 Years
    Ebook220 pages3 hours

    Looking Back 25 Years

    By Bob Steinkamp

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    About this ebook

    If you met Bob and Charlyne Steinkamp and their children a quarter century ago, you would have thought them to be the perfect Christian family. They were active in the church and both had successful careers. Their children, ages five to fifteen, were happy.

    The old adage that you can't judge a book by its cover applied to this family. After church, the happy masks came off and the boxing gloves went on. Finally, Charlyne could take no more of the adultery and abuse and filed for divorce. Bob found someone else and started to rebuild his life.

    The Steinkamps' 20 other books relate how God touched Charlyne and she began to pray for Bob and for the restoration of their marriage. In 1987 Bob and Charlyne were remarried, to the glory of God.

    Looking Back 25 Years is more than a history book. It is an account of how God brought life back to this dead marriage and anointed the Steinkamps over the next 20 years to help hurting and dead marriages around the world, always encouraging them to turn to Jesus Christ for His healing of their family.

    You will be blessed by this book. Bob weaves the Steinkamp's story of marriage restoration around a step by step account of God birthing a marriage ministry through their once-failed marriage. Throughout are helps and encouragement for the person trusting God for marriage restoration.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRejoice Marriage Ministries, Inc.
    Release dateSep 6, 2012
    ISBN9781452487960
    Looking Back 25 Years

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      Book preview

      Looking Back 25 Years - Bob Steinkamp

      LOOKING BACK 25 YEARS

      A Quarter Century Chronology Of What God Has Done With A Marriage Restored By Him

      Jesus looked at them and said, With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God. Mark 10:27

      By Bob Steinkamp

      (Returned Prodigal)

      Rejoice Marriage Ministries, Inc.

      Bob and Charlyne Steinkamp, Co-Founders

      Post Office Box 10548

      Pompano Beach, Florida 33060 USA

      (954) 941-6508

      www.RejoiceMinistries.org

      www.StopDivorceRadio.org

      www.StopDivorce.org

      All rights reserved under International Copyright Law. Contents may not be reproduced in whole or in part in any form without the express written consent of the publisher.

      Scripture Quotations are from the King James Version or the Holy Bible, New International Version. Copyright 1984, International Bible Society. Used by permission.

      Published by Rejoice Marriage Ministries, Inc.

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright © 2010 by Rejoice Marriage Ministries, Inc.

      This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      ~~~~

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      Dedication

      Forward

      Introduction

      Chapter 1 - Our Story

      Chapter 2 - Marriage Is For Life

      Chapter 3 - The One Predictable Factor In Marriage Restoration

      Chapter 4 - There's No Place Like Home

      Chapter 5 - It's Never Been This Way Before

      Chapter 6 - Where Did They All Go?

      Chapter 7 - Charlyne Cares

      Chapter 8 - It's In The Book

      Chapter 9 - See Rock City

      Chapter 10 - Road Trips

      Chapter 11 - Stop Divorce Radio

      Chapter 12 - God And God Alone

      Chapter 13 - Self-Helps For Standing

      Chapter 14 - The Real Deal

      Chapter 15 - Satan's Subtle Tool

      Chapter 16 - When God Speaks

      Chapter 17 - 29 Times When God Speaks To Prodigals

      A Final Word

      Meet The Steinkamps

      The Greatest News

      Ten Sources Of Help

      Connect With Rejoice Ministries

      DEDICATION

      This book is dedicated to every man and woman whose prayers, financial support and volunteer work have made it possible for Rejoice Marriage Ministries, Inc. to be all that it is today to the glory of God.

      Our prayer partners reach all the way back to Charlyne's prayer partners when we were divorced. Their prayers for the restoration of our marriage were foundational in this Ministry being possible. Most of our first Ministry prayer partners are now watching from Heaven. Those saints have not been replaced but added to by the people who continue to pray for the Ministry, our family and for the families God allows us to minister to today.

      Charlyne and I also dedicate this book to everyone who has helped to provide financial support over the past 20 years. The means of Ministry funding has changed little over the years. We receive no large denominational or church support, but depend on God touching scores of people who believe in and stand behind what Rejoice Marriage Ministries, Inc. does.

      A third group of people who allow us to do all that God has called us to do are our volunteers. There is no way to calculate how many hours are given by friends of this Ministry. They prepare devotionals for us. Others reply to some email, while still others have helped with everything from assisting at Rejoice On The Road events to painting the office and making repairs.

      No better example can be seen of our volunteers than when we publish a new book such as this one. My work in allowing God to use my hands to type the words as He leads is only a small part of the entire book process. We have standers who correct the first manuscript draft. Others will fact check the book's details for accuracy. Someone else will look up each scripture to ensure accuracy.

      When Charlyne and I feel everything for the new book is corrected, we turn it over to several standers who proof the manuscript. The book you hold in your hand was proofread by standers ranging from an English major to a college professor to a medical doctor. Once everyone has signed off on the anticipated book, others will contribute to help pay the initial printing expenses.

      With much appreciation, Charlyne joins me in dedicating this book to everyone who has prayed, given and worked in the Ministry during the past 20 years to make possible everything you are about to read. Some of these people are now in Heaven. Others have moved on to live out their restored marriage.

      Regardless of where each person from the past might be today, may God bless them for helping us to proclaim that God heals hurting marriages.

      Bob (and Charlyne) Steinkamp

      Back to Table of Contents

      FORWARD

      I have been blessed to be a part of Rejoice Marriage Ministries, Inc. for several years – writing devotionals, replying to email, praying for standers and helping to proof several of the Ministry's books, including this one. I found this Ministry when I was seeking help and answers to my marriage problems.

      I have witnessed firsthand some of the events that are written about in this book. I have found the Steinkamps to be as real and transparent as their devotionals, teaching material, and books demonstrate them to be; consistently leading standers to seek the Lord and to put Him first in their lives.

      This book is a look back at what God has done to equip a couple who 25 years ago were facing divorce and moving on with their lives. Little did they know then what God had in store for them.

      God knew what He was doing when He called Charlyne to stand for her marriage to Bob after a divorce. He knew she would become a woman of faith who lived and breathed the Word of God. And He knew that He had long ago prepared Bob for the calling on his life and gave him just a glimpse of the work he would be doing for the Kingdom in the future.

      The Steinkamps will be the first to tell you that this Ministry was not birthed through anything they have done, but through the hand of God. They will be the first to point you to the Lord for answers, guidance, insight and direction.

      Thank you Bob and Charlyne for all you do for standers.

      Kim Abegglen

      Back to Table of Contents

      INTRODUCTION

      This morning as I stood before the mirror getting ready for another day I noticed the same kinds of things that you might notice when you look in your mirror. A new sag in one place or a deeper wrinkle in another. The hair, now that's another story. What hair remains seems to be turning grayer by the day. None of those things really distressed me though. After all, I will be 65 years old in a few months.

      It did not take a calculator for me to determine that it has been 25 years since my wife, Charlyne, and I started toward divorce. Those sags, wrinkles, and gray hair I was observing were earned by me. Sadly, many did not get there by years of labor serving our Lord Jesus Christ, but by my sinful behavior. Like too many men and women today, I fell victim to the grass-is-greener attitude and went searching for happiness outside of my marriage. I praise God that He allowed me the opportunity to correct many of my wrongs by remarrying my wife following our divorce.

      Despite the books Charlyne and I have written since that time and hundreds of Bible study lessons taught by my wife and recorded on cassette and on CD, the entire Steinkamp story of marriage restoration and Ministry has not yet been told. Even the hundreds of monthly newsletters combined with thousands of devotionals still leave gaps in our story.

      If I can share with you in the pages that follow even one concept that will help you in your quest for marriage restoration God's way, my efforts will be worthwhile. Regardless of how nice I might look lying in a casket one day, having those concepts in my head will help no one. So let's start a new chapter in the Steinkamp story together.

      There are some basic precepts we need to clarify from the onset. Foremost, neither my wife nor I, nor Rejoice Marriage Ministries, Inc. restores marriages. We can only offer you tips that will bring you closer to the Lord who can restore your marriage. Every time I read Bob and Charlyne, you restored my marriage, I worry because that is a person who has not caught on to Who has the power to change lives and thus to restore marriages.

      The second precept we need to clarify is that there are no perfect marriages, either the first time or the second time a couple goes to the marriage altar together. There is especially no perfect Steinkamp marriage on Seventh Street in Pompano Beach, Florida.

      It is impossible to combine a strong willed German like yours truly with a former administrator for 12 physicians and make a blissful match, especially when both came into the marriage carrying a ton of baggage. The good news for us, as well as for you and your spouse, is that Jesus can take a couple that are like oil and water and somehow make them into one flesh for His glory.

      The third precept is that I am not writing a history book. You are not about to read the same old stories that you have read elsewhere from either me or my wife. For the sake of clarity, parts of some of these events will need to be repeated, but nothing is being copied from one book or newsletter into this work.

      I am asking God to reveal to me more truths about marriage restoration that He wants included in this book. I am also praying that you will be reading with an open mind that God has something to share with you through my thoughts that might help you on your spiritual journey toward marriage restoration God's way.

      How will I know if this book is a success? Its success will not be measured by how many are sold, because that number will be minimal. Looking Back 25 Years will be a success if it helps the spiritual lights to come on for one more family; if one person turns to Christ as their answer to everything they face today.

      With all of this in mind, let's go back 25 years and look at our mess of a marriage and at what God has done and give Him praise.

      Bob Steinkamp

      Come and listen, all you who fear God; let me tell you what he has done for me. I cried out to him with my mouth; his praise was on my tongue. If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened; but God has surely listened and heard my voice in prayer. Praise be to God, who has not rejected my prayer or withheld his love from me! Psalm 66:16-20

      Back to Table of Contents

      CHAPTER 1

      OUR STORY

      Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes. For you will spread out to the right and to the left; your descendants will dispossess nations and settle in their desolate cities. Isaiah 54:2-3

      You were promised that this book would not be a history lesson. Nevertheless, to give God the praise He deserves for what He has done for our family, you need to know where we came from.

      In the fall of 1945, America was enjoying the end of World War II. Two of her families, half a nation apart, were enjoying the birth of their first born children. In Paducah, Kentucky, I was born on September 24, 1945 to Earl and Martha Steinkamp. Less than two months later, up north in Rochester, New York, Russ and Vernice Warrick celebrated the arrival of their daughter, Charlyne, on November 15, 1945.

      No one knew that it was in God's great plan for those two babies, born to families not even known to each other, to meet and to marry, and to touch the marriages of thousands of other couples around the world over 60 years later.

      There was no record of divorce in either of our families as far back as can be traced. At the time Charlyne and I were born there was a social stigma attached to divorce. Over the next 50 years we would see the pendulum swing the opposite direction. Not only would divorce not be considered shameful, the pendulum would swing so far that divorce would be considered acceptable. In this era, that pendulum has swung beyond divorce being acceptable. It has swung to the point that even pastors have been married and divorced multiple times. Naturally, they are going to suggest divorce as the only choice to people with marriage problems who come to them for counsel. We know because it happened to us. Much more about that later.

      Not only were Charlyne and I born into intact families, we each were born into large families. Early in her life, Charlyne's parents made a hard decision and left all their family in New York and moved to Arizona for the sake of Charlyne's health. She would grow up in California and Arizona.

      While Charlyne's family was moving around out west, my family lived in several different communities in Kentucky, Illinois and Missouri due to my father's employment as an engineer with a shoe factory.

      In 1955 my family also made a hard decision and my parents, my sister, and I moved to Pompano Beach, Florida, where my father had been promised badly needed employment. We came to town on a Greyhound bus carrying everything we owned except for three treasured pieces of furniture that had been placed in storage back in Paducah.

      Although Charlyne's family did not move to Pompano Beach until years later, they arrived in about the same economic condition as had the Steinkamps. Charlyne and I can laugh today that it might have been the same orange crates that both our families originally used for chairs.

      My wife and I have talked many times during our marriage about the sacrifices that each of our families made for us. They moved away from large families and our fathers worked long hours and hard jobs to provide for their immediate family. Today, not only will a mother and father not sacrifice for their children, but instead, in so many instances, they walk out on their family, leaving their spouse and children to practically fend for themselves. Somehow prodigal spouses feel that their personal happiness and pleasure are more important than the needs of a family.

      Can you see what keeps Charlyne and me up at night? We had fathers who fought for us and would do anything for us. Today we see fathers (and mothers) who forget what they promised God on their wedding day. They cannot look at their children and think of them as a blessing from God. All that matters are the lies that Satan has told that spouse about how they would be happier

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