March Lorbach's Testimony

After reading your post this morning I felt that I should share a bit of my story with you in the hope that it will offer some support through encouragement and further strengthen you.

I came to Christ in 2000, when I was 19. The sermon was preached on a relatively obscure passage from Micah which says “When I fall, I shall arise.” I met my now ex-wife in 2001, and when I met her I was told she was gay (which she confirmed), shortly after meeting we became involved and she decided to be with me. Our first year together was very difficult as she struggled with her sexuality and on a few occasions left as she backslid. She was very confused and didn’t know what she wanted, just that she wanted me too. Eventually things settled down and we were married in 2004, the same year our first son Lajon was born and I enlisted in the Air Force. It was while I was in training for the Air Force that I first heard and realised my calling into ministry. In 2006 our second son Phoenix was born and I commenced theological study and began working as a student minister in an Anglican church (the same as Episcopalian I think?). 


Life wasn’t perfect, but all was relatively well. We were settling into our life as a family and looked forward to a future serving God in our ministry together.Our major relationship issues had their root during the two rough years we went through after we met. But we were working through them and getting closer and growing stronger, or so I thought…In January of 2009 I was away in training for a deployment to The Middle East, when I returned home after just one week my wife said that she wasn’t sure she wanted to be married any more. It eventually came out that a colleague of mine spent every night with her while I was away. It seemed the demon of lust had stayed with her all those years, just aching for a new perversion. I was shattered, my true place in this world is as father to my two men. I became addicted to sleeping tablets, and eventually anti-depressants, on the bright side though I managed to lose 26kgs (I was pretty tubby ). Work suffered, I was no longer deployable . I eventually posted to Canberra (followed my ex), to be near my boys.


Unfortunately this only caused many more issues as her new partner (my former colleague) attempted to fight me whenever he saw me, and my ex accused me of domestic violence and other outrageous things.I was also told by the Anglican church that I could no longer go into ministry due to the divorce, which was echoed by the Air Force. It seemed as though all hope was lost…While all this was happening, just after moving to Canberra I met the most amazing person I have ever known, my beautiful wife Maddy (we met in McDonald’s, me with my boys and her with her son Aidan. Her daughter Zahra was visiting her father). She was also going through a horrific separation, much worse though. Her ex was extremely depraved and abusive toward her (too much to go into here), he stalked her and threatened to kill her and eventually me. Maddy hadn’t been to church before, but shortly after we met she dedicated her life to Christ and began to taste the joy that surpasses human understanding.


In 2010 I discharged from the Air Force and we moved to where we are now, we needed to start our lives together somewhere totally new. It was then that all the pieces of our lives came together, we found a church that has become closer than family and have found the space and time to stop and heal. Issues with our exes have continued but we have grown together, and grown strong. In worship I would often burst into tears, both through the sadness of being torn from my boys and in awe at God’s work. One night during a service of music led worship I had a powerful vision. I was on my knees in worship bowing down, and when I looked up I could see the cross, I was at the cross.As I looked up to gaze at Jesus I was held by God the Father, He put His arms around me and turned me away. He said to me that He didn’t want me to see the pain and hurt He went through for me. He held me tight with my head to His chest and He said that He loved me too much to put me through it. I asked Him to heal me, I told Him my heart was broken and I asked Him why I was hurting so much. 


Holding me He said that He was sorry, but that in order to make me into the man I was called to be, that He first needed to break what was - in order to rebuild me right.Since that night I have been prophesied over many times about the great ministry I would build and of the powerful gifts God would unleash through me. Maddy and I have been married and passed through the waters of baptism together, and just last month had a powerful word spoken over us – that we would have a child (that my vasectomy would be miraculously healed/reversed). Last week I preached the Word for the first time in almost three years, my ministry is picking up where it left off. My Lord and Saviour has rescued me – and has shown me the right direction.“No power of Hell, no scheme of man, will ever pluck me from His hand, for I am His and His alone.”You are doing a great work, and are still in training for what lies ahead. Dark days are in store for the world and we - as Christ's Church - will be the light that guides all Home.