I became a follower of Jesus on November 23, 1978. A close friend, who himself had just come to be a Christian, listened patiently as I shared the difficulties I was having in my former marriage and the sense of hopelessness that I felt. Without wasting time or words, my friend told me boldly yet gently that I needed to confess my failures to Jesus and ask for forgiveness of my sins. In my desperation it was made crystal clear to me that this message was true and I needed God to help me. So, on that day before Thanksgiving, 1978, I asked Jesus to forgive my sins and fix my marriage. Immediately a sense of peace and joy came over me and I was filled with an inner assurance that something had truly changed in my soul.
Minutes after my decision to follow Christ, my friend handed a Bible to me and said I should start reading it. I read for some 15 hours straight, seeking to understand more of what it was that God did to me and in me. Never before was the book of Romans more alive than in those hours immediately following my conversion. I still recall the profoundly penetrating passage of Romans 7:14-25, and can recount most of it by memory to this day.
Despite my joy in knowing Jesus and experiencing the new life he gave me, my former wife made it clear she wanted nothing to do with my new “religion.” After approximately six months she deserted me and filed for divorce. Little did I know that the very hope I had in God fixing my marriage would become a means of its demise. And so, the last day I saw her was the first day I abandoned my Christian commitment and began wandering in a desert of despair. After all, I reasoned, why follow Christ if this is where it leads? Deep down, however, I knew that I was not living in accordance with my faith commitment and a tremendous amount of cognitive and existential dissonance was my daily lot for almost 3 years. Despite the wanton lifestyle that I lived seeking to fill the hole in my heart, the angst grew more intense with each pitiful day that I lived serving only my nerve endings and psyche.
“But God, who is rich in mercy,” introduced me to my present wife in April, 1981. While on our second date I shared my experience of becoming a Christian and, through a series of circumstances, God graciously drew her to himself. One evening in July, 1981, upon reading the same passage which years earlier had tugged on my heart (Romans 7:14-25), she became discouraged and confused over God’s promptings within her. All I knew to say in the moment was to invite her to confess her sins to Jesus and to ask for his forgiveness. The truth of this message became immediately clear to her as it had to me years earlier. As she pleaded with Jesus to forgive her, I knelt at her side and re-committed my life to the Lord of life.
We married two months later and have, by God’s sustaining grace, steadily been growing closer to one another and to Jesus. Since that day in July, 1981, we have remained committed, however imperfect, to one another and to God’s kingdom purposes on earth as they are in heaven. Our marriage is based upon mutual submission to one another under the Lordship of Christ. When either of us fail in our responsibilities (and we do), the other graciously seeks to restore the relationship under the influence of God’s Spirit and through the guidance of God’s Word. Gradually but certainly God is finishing the work he began in our lives by the glorious gospel of Christ. To this end we are called and to this end we shall, by His power, continue.
Pressing on toward the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus,
Paul D. Adams