Leadership Journal

Eighteen months after our wedding day, we had our first child. One month later we started seminary, eagerly looking forward to a life of ministry.

Ten years later our marriage had degenerated from ministry dreams to marital nightmares. We were ministering to other married couples while our own marriage was a mess.

Although we never used the word divorce, we both knew our marriage was sinking. Like two drowning victims, we frantically fought each other, gasping for air, until it was almost too late. This is the story of what went wrong. But it's also the story of our surprising encounter with God's grace, which healed and restored our marriage.

p Julie: After four stressful years of seminary—agonizing with my husband through Greek and hermeneutics, scrounging for canned vegetables at the local food pantry, delivering two babies, working until 1:00 A.M. as a waitress—Matt finally graduated. We had the prize, and now life would get better, easier, and "normal."

That June we moved to our first church, a small congregation in rural Minnesota.

I had expectations and even dreams for this little church. On a practical level, I assumed that they would pay us well.

On a spiritual level, I was excited about standing proudly beside my husband, sharing my gifts, ideas, and my passion for ministry.

The reality of church life quickly shattered those dreams.

During our first Christmas there, I planned a special gift for the church—an open house at the parsonage. I spent hours creatively laying out my offering of love—trays of cut vegetables and hot appetizers, steaming spiced cider, new Christmas lights, and beautiful luminaries on the sidewalk.

The time came, but no friends did.

After waiting an hour, one church member finally straggled in to my party.

So much for any excitement about sharing my gifts!

By summer I was willing to try again. This time I decided to work my way through the church directory, inviting every family into our home for homemade ice cream.

We started with the Andersons, a family with three wild boys. Instead of eating my homemade ice cream, they smashed it into the carpet and couch, leaving a trail of destruction, and staying until nearly midnight. We stopped at the Andersons and never made it to the Zieglers.

These incidents epitomized a larger pattern: I didn't feel accepted or valued at our church. I didn't know how to fit in. I think we were both trying to figure each other out but, through no one's fault, we just didn't seem to connect.

Once at the meeting for our women's group, they passed a basket collecting money. I leaned over to an older woman and whispered, "What is this Sunshine Club for anyway?"

"You don't know what the Sunshine Club is?" she snapped. "Well, we'll see if you ever get a card when you're in the hospital!"

Living in a small town, surrounded by strangers and a culture I didn't understand, I felt like I'd been tossed into the middle of a lake in a dense fog. I was supposed to swim to shore, but I had no idea ...