Kim & Dee's Story

I certainly wasn't gonna be one of those where wife goes to church and I didn't
But it was like being on the outside looking in
My name's Kim
My name is Dee
[Both] This is our story
I grew up in the home of Salvationist parents and it wasn't something they put on with their uniform
It was something that completely overwhelmed every day and every moment of their lives"
When I began going out with my wife, Dee, I realised that that was so deep in her that I wanted to find out why her faith was so unshakeable"
He said to me one day, "Do we have to go to church tonight"
And I said, "No, of course we don't"
And he said, "Oh great
And I said, "But I wanna go, because that's what I do, and that's who I am and if you can't understand my faith then you won't ever really understand me
But even that wasn't the warning bell that, that marrying somebody who wasn't saved was going to be complicated
There's a lot of temptations in the military lifestyle
Booze is cheap, there's a lot of partying
Friday night is party night
And most of experience of church and Christians had been quite touchy feely"
It can be difficult as a wife, a Christian wife of a non
Christian husband in as much as you think, "If I were a better witness, if I were better at living this out, at looking more like Jesus he'd really get this

We had this Christian men's group, we met at seven o'clock in the morning
And it was talking about making faith relevant for men
Which really made the difference
I woke up about 1:30 in the morning, and song running through my head about my chains fell off"
And I felt just a surge of heat running through my body
And a voice in my head saying, "You're forgiven
That was the point at which it became real for me"
I was absolutely elated and felt incredibly humbled because although I'd not been faithful in praying for Kim every day, God knew my heart for him
One of the shocking things was that a lot of people said, "We didn't know he wasn't a Christian
You can't assume because people live a good life that they actually are in relationship with Jesus
The impression that people have got of Jesus is of some almost feminine kind of person
But when we look at the life He led, He was trained as a carpenter
He could relate to working men and, as I look back, I realise there are many times when I could really have been in the poo
And it's only through God's grace that Jesus is my saviour
I feel that we are finally both travelling in the same direction
There is a bedrock now to our marriage that simply wasn't there before