I love to tell the story...

It's amazing grace and merciful redemption, so I'll gladly tell it again today.

Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken. ~ Ecclesiastes 4:9-12

When Louis and I married on October 29, 1976, I was a 26 year old registered nurse working in radiation therapy at Shands Teaching Hospital in Gainesville and Louis was a 27 year old Navy veteran, college student and recovering alcoholic, with just 9 months of sobriety behind him. It was also our second marriage...to each other...and we were starting over on shaky ground.

My mom met Louis years before I did while he was still in high school. She was the bookkeeper for the grove caretaking business owned by his cousin and she'd met Louis when he helped out in the groves over the summers and during breaks at school. Mom always thought he was the nicest and most handsome young man. When I came home at the end of my first semester at the the University of Florida, mom heard that Louis, who was in that Navy at the time, was home on leave one, so she invited Louis and his brother John over for a cookout - secretly hoping I'd be attracted to Louis. She was not disappointed.

Hundreds of long distance phone calls and many hand-written letters later, we were married by my pastor uncle in my parents’ church in Winter Haven, Florida, on August 14, 1971. It was the beginning of Louis’ last year in the Navy and my last year of nursing school.

August 14, 1971

Shortly before Louis' squadron was scheduled to depart on a six month cruise the following January, his father died suddenly from pneumonia. Louis had been very close to his father and was devastated. Spiraling into a deep depression, he dulled the pain and grief with alcohol. Just two weeks after his father’s funeral, Louis called me from the county jail. He'd been charged with a DUI while driving from our apartment to his ship, which was scheduled to depart the following day. The Navy bailed him out, the judge suspended his driver’s license for six months (the time he would be overseas), and he boarded the ship as ordered. At the end of the cruise, his driver’s license was restored, and he was honorably discharged from the Navy, but his depression and drinking only worsened.

While Louis was at sea, I graduated from nursing school and began working the evening shift at the hospital. Louis had originally planned on returning to college after his discharge from the Navy, but in his depression, he was unmotivated. He found work every day, but the nights that I was at the hospital, he would drink…and when he was drunk, he was not nice. He  never hurt me, but he scared me. When I made the decision to leave Louis, my parents encouraged me. They had been worried about my safety. After just two years of marriage, I no longer recognized the man I married and I filed for divorce.

When we are given the opportunity to share our testimony, Louis tells the audience that my leaving him was the best thing I could have done for him at the time. But I believe that if I knew then what I know today, and had received godly counsel, I might have separated from him for a season, but I would not have divorced him. Louis did not want the divorce, but I did not know what else to do. (An excellent example of the kind of godly counsel I should have considered can be found in this post by Kevin DeYoung.)

Over the next two years, we both struggled to find sure footing. I continued to make decisions that were grounded in fear, and Louis continued to drink. We stayed in touch, and Louis even moved to Tallahassee, where I had moved after the divorce, and we tried to restore our relationship, but as long as he continued to drink, I was unwilling to let him stay. 

On December 26, 1975, Louis rounded a curve at a high rate of speed, flew off the road and totaled his car into a tree. Bruised and badly shaken, Louis was too drunk to remember the accident, and for the first time, he was forced to admit that his drinking was a serious problem that he was unable to deal with alone. Still depressed, he was not concerned about his own life. He didn't care if he had died in the accident, but the thought that he could have been responsible for the death of someone else, and not even remember it, frightened him enough to accept help.

Louis voluntarily entered an outpatient alcohol recovery program. Nine months later, he returned to his college studies, and on October 29, 1976, with my family’s blessings, we remarried in a small ceremony in the living room of our apartment in Gainesville, Florida.

Starting over, as we did in 1976, on such a precarious foundation, it is truly a miracle that we are still together. Both of us had been raised in the church and knew the gospel, but we had also both wandered away in our teens. When we remarried in 1976, we were still walking away from the Lord, and our second wedding was a civil ceremony outside the church.

While Louis continued his college education, we attended support group meetings for alcoholics and their spouses and were active in alcohol recovery programs. It was in these support groups that we made friends with believers who God used to begin the work of reconciliation in our lives, restoring our relationships with Him, individually, as well as our relationship with each other.

Our lives and our marriage are a testimony to God’s mercy and amazing grace and His power to bring life from death…but maintaining that life has been hard work. It's still hard work today. As in many marriages, there have been times when we have both wanted to walk away, but we have made a covenant commitment to each other that has been reinforced by our experiences of God’s work in our lives…and that keeps our marriage secure and on solid ground.

We are living proof of lives that are newly created. When I look at Louis, I don’t see and barely remember the young man controlled by alcohol, but the Spirit-controlled man he continues to become. For that reason, we don’t remember or celebrate the years of our marriage before October 29, 1976, only the years since, and the solid foundation on which we sometimes humbly crumble, but under which we never sink. 

We have shared our marriage and personal testimonies many times over the years in obedience to II Corinthians 1:3-4, that reminds us that we are to comfort others as we have been comforted by God and II Corinthians 5:19b, to be Christ’s ambassadors in the ministry of reconciliation.

Our story seems to inspire, encourage, and comfort, but inevitably someone will tell us they are amazed that we are willing to be so open and honest about our past. That is how our enemy works, he would like to shackle us in shame. But we rejoice in God's powerful work of redemption in our lives, and the celebration of 34 years of marriage.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.  ~ II Corinthians 5:17

Happy Anniversary Louis - You will always be my one and only true love. We - you, me and the Lord - are a threefold cord that cannot be quickly broken.

*Louis will celebrate 35 years of sobriety this December 2010. I'm button-popping proud of the man of God he has become.