A HAPPY MARRIAGE
CHRIS: After 31 years has our marriage always been happy?
DEBRA: That’s a trick question.
CHRIS: We had a pretty tough, first 10 years of marriage. It was all about me and it was all about whatever you wanted, and there was no all about us. And it for sure had nothing to do with God. When you add drugs and alcohol and all that other stuff in the middle of that, and you have a recipe for disaster.
DEBRA: And not all was bad. We had some good times, and two beautiful girls in the middle of that. They’re the ones that actually brought us to the Lord.
THOUGHTS OF DIVORCE
CHRIS: I think there were two times that I can remember that I actually talked to lawyers about getting a divorce. One early on in our marriage, probably five years in or something like that. And then another one right at 10 years. We had done horrible things to each other. And I couldn’t really find any love for you then. And there was just nothing in me that had it. But instead I had unforgiveness.
MY BREAKING POINT
CHRIS: Debra and I were a mess. We had this unforgiveness with one another, so I really didn’t see a future with us. But I had these two girls, Sammy and Tabby, and I felt a responsibility that I was supposed to raise them. And I was so far off track that I knew, if something didn’t happen to me, that I wasn’t going to be able to raise them because I was a mess. I was raised in church, I realized, man, I gotta go find some help. And so I found myself at church. And eventually, I surrendered my life to the Lord. And he changed me. And he put that forgiveness that I needed for my wife in me. And things begin to change.
A TIRE SALESMAN CHANGED OUR LIVES FOREVER
CHRIS: Before I even met the Lord, I remember at work one day, it was one of those times when I was contemplating getting a divorce. I was telling a few of my coworkers what I was contemplating (because I knew that they would “back me up” when a tire salesman walked into my work. So I’m talking with him, and I told him what I was contemplating. I told him that, “ I think I’m gonna get a lawyer and divorce my wife. I don’t have love for her anymore and I don’t feel that feeling anymore that I had.” And, and I’ll never forget it, it changed the trajectory of my whole life. And he said, “Love is not a feeling. It’s a it’s a commitment.” And that resonated in me. I thought, “hmm, it’s a commitment.” And then he told me, “Whatever you do, fight for your marriage.” And man, oh, man, those words he spoke to me was a huge deal.
DEBRA: I had been serving the Lord for almost a year at that point. My husband was still a dealer at that time, and I was a Christian and it was like Heaven and Hell in the same home. And I remember thinking, “I’ve done all I can do, I can’t keep living like this.” And so I was okay with a divorce, we were both okay with it. And he called me one afternoon after he had spoken with this tire salesman, and he said, “Listen, I just want you to know, this is what I know. Love is not a feeling. Love is a commitment. And we need to fight for our marriage.”And it ticked me off because I already set my determination on just ending something that was so difficult to work through.
CHRIS: Even though that was spoken to me and it began to change my thinking, we were toxic because of the unforgiveness we both had. Like fire and gasoline.
FORGIVENESS
I still had the unforgiveness, and I had no idea what to do with that. And so my life was running out of control. And so I long story short, I surrendered my life to Christ. And, man, he changed me. And the one thing that I’d struggled with for a while was forgiveness. When I received Christ, that’s the first and immediate thing that I knew is that he’d forgiven me. And that was huge. So the forgiveness thing was a little bit easier for me after that. But still, there was this thing between Debra and I, and we just couldn’t forgive each other.
DEBRA: I had done so many things to him and he had done so many things to me, that were by the world standards, unforgivable.
CHRIS: But I had this new love, Christ. He was working in my heart and I didn’t understand it, my attention went to Him. I just started falling in love with Him.
A HOLY TOUCH FROM GOD
This was all taking place pretty rapidly, within a few months or so. We were separated at the time, I hadn’t seen my kids in a while, because of my choices and my involvement with drugs and all those things. I had a house in town, she still had a house out in the country. It was around Thanksgiving time, and she was going to let me see the kids for Thanksgiving. I was so excited, she was bringing the girls to my house and I was trying to make everything just right for them. And I really could care less about Debra at the time, because I had moved past that. And there’s a few times in my life maybe more than a few times that I really sensed that God touched me. And this was one of those times.
Debbie had just got there and we were all on the porch, and I’ll never forget it. All of a sudden it was like *whoosh* right on top of both of us. And that hatred and that unforgiveness that I had towards her just disappeared. All I could see was forgiveness and love. That was a Holy touch from God that happened at the same time to both of us. We’ve been married for 31 years, but that was the beginning.
A DIFFERENT KIND OF LOVE AND HAPPY
DEBRA: We had no idea when we were 19 that could really happen. There’s a song Sara Groves sings that says “Better than the promises, is the day we got to keep them.” I wish those two that got married when they were 19 years old, I wish those two could see us now. They never would believe that there are different kinds of happy, and that’s what this is ended up being. We would have never, ever told our 19 year old selves, “Hey, you’re going to walk through drug abuse, and you’re going to have infidelity that to deal with, and you’re gonna say the worst things possible to each other. But then you’re going to love each other again,” because we would have ran! We would never have made a holy union together, we would have ran from that. But there are different kinds of happy in the end of this because we put God first. I love God more than I love my husband. He loves God more than he loves me. And that’s how we love each other with a different kind of love.