I want to tell our story, not to tell how bad I was or how much I’ve changed, but to give hope to someone who may be in the same situation that my wife was in.

My wife Robin and I were married Dec. 14, 2009. We soon started growing apart. I was drinking too much, and we didn’t agree on marital things, kids and everyday decisions. We did not have a good marriage to say the least. Then to top it all off, my wife started going to some church. She was bringing home these beliefs that I did not understand. She told me that Christmas was against God! Everyone knows that Christmas is a religious holiday and is all about God, right? Then she tells me that Church is on Saturday, the Sabbath is not Sunday, and that people like my grandmother were wrong their whole lives!

Let me tell you, I wasn’t going to take that. How dare she or any church tell me that everything that I was raised to believe was wrong!

So I rebelled. I said very mean things, like telling her she was part of a cult and asking her if her church was going to have her drink Kool-Aid (referring to the Jim Jones incident).

This went on and on. There were times I wanted to leave and probably more times that she wanted me to leave. If someone would have told me that she was going to leave me, I would have said, “Good!” I was done with her but did not believe in divorce.

That is, until one fateful day: the day that I received a text from Robin saying that she was not coming home. She would be staying with a girlfriend for a few days.

For some reason over the course of this day, I felt different, and by the next day I was totally humbled.

I prayed to God and told Him that if He would bring my wife back to me, I would walk His path with her side-by-side.

That evening she called me. She told me that she was at her parents’ home talking, and she would be coming home to me shortly.

When Robin got home, she told me that she went to see a lawyer. She told me that he told her how much money she needed to pay for his services, and she left to get the money. But before she brought the lawyer the money, she decided to stop and tell her parents what was going on. Her dad told her that she needed to go home, give me a hug, and tell me that she loves me. Robin told her dad that I didn’t love Jesus the way she did, and that bothered her. Robin’s dad then asked her, “How could he love Jesus if he doesn’t know Him?”

I was so touched by that. It still brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it.

I had never felt so close to my wife as I did that evening. I suddenly found beauty in Robin that I had never seen before.

The next day I went to work and told my boss that I could no longer work on Saturdays. I told him that I know we are expected to work (and I usually worked every Saturday) and I was prepared to quit. I told him that I could start early, stay late, do whatever I had to do to get my work done, but I could no longer work on Saturday. He told me that he did not want me to leave, so he would talk with his boss and try to work something out. I was shocked! I figured my job was gone. A year earlier they would have told me, “Good luck.” So now I start work two hours early every day to get my projects done each week.

So the next day, which was the first Sabbath of Robin’s and my “new relationship,” I went to services with her. The service happened to be the annual service they hold at a member’s home. All I can say is that I was shocked. I had talked so badly about this church, these people, and now here they are accepting me and treating me as if I were one of their own.

I was so touched. When I met the pastor all I could do was apologize for the things I said. He didn’t care. He was just glad that I was there.

Later I found out that Robin had talked with many of the members, told them about the hard times I had given her, and she told me that they prayed for me. Let me tell you, that will bring tears to toughest guy’s eyes.

I was so amazed. I had never in my life met such a forgiving, loving bunch of people, and I am proud to call them my family.

Robin and I were baptized together on Sept. 25, the eve of the Feast of Trumpets. We also just recently experienced our first Feast of Tabernacles and met even more loving people that we get to call our family.

God has so clearly been a big part of our lives since that day that Robin came home to me, and He has shown His presence many times.

I pray every day that God will continue to help me with my temper and my lack of patience and help me be a better husband and Christian. But now, instead of turning away from Robin to a drink, I now turn to God. God has made things so much better.

Robin and I still have our differences, but now they are much easier to work out, and we never stop loving each other.

I don’t know what God’s specific plan is for Robin and me, but I can’t help but think that there has to be more cases like ours out there. I hope that by telling my story, I can give someone hope who may be in a similar situation to ours.