She Nearly Gave Up Too Soon

In recent blogs, we have been talking about not giving up too soon. Over a year ago, I received this testimony from a wife who nearly gave up, but decided to try one more thing by attending a Love and Respect Conference.

Here is her story:

My husband and I have been married for 13 years. We got into a huge fight three days before the conference. I knew it was Satan attacking our marriage and did not want us to attend. I kept my mouth closed as I was so very upset with my husband that I knew if I said anything we would not go to San Diego. I wanted to give this a chance and told myself I was going to look for a place to live when we returned home. I wasn’t going to divorce yet, but have some sort of separation.

When we arrived at the conference we were not really speaking to each other and by the end of the first night we left holding hands and talking. Saturday morning my husband was up before me and called me into the room and opened your book. As he read the first page he started to weep. It crushed me that I never told him that I respected him for being a Godly man, going to this conference with me, willing to die for me and for his family, being in the military, protecting his family, going to work every day, on and on. There was a list of about 15 reasons why I respected him but I never said those words! On Saturday I was so convicted as I never realized that I had not been giving or telling my husband how much I respected him. I said the first day - this is not rocket science! It was so simple. I had never realized that as a Christian woman I was actually sinning and needed to repent and ask my husband for forgiveness.

My husband and I stayed in San Diego 2 more days and we were so much in love and had the most wonderful time together! It was better than our honeymoon! We both actually feel born again. The best part is that your message was all Christ centered. Thank you and God Bless you!

And one year later, she writes:

We would be honored for Emerson to use our testimony. We have since told couples that if his conference was in Iceland and their marriage was hurting it would be worth it to attend...Our marriage is very good as we always go back to "It's not right or wrong, it's just different" when we disagree on things. We laugh about it when one of us brings up that saying…we just saw that a video conference is coming to our area in February and I mentioned to my husband that I would like to attend this just for those "Crazy Cycle times." Our daughter got married last March and we actually paid for and gave them as a pre-wedding gift two tickets for the conference that Emerson had in Chino last year. (Audrey & John from CA)

May this remarkable testimony encourage you this Christmas week, no matter your circumstances.

Sarah and I would like to wish you all HOPE and a very Merry Christmas!

Emerson