Tom and Laura
(TOM) I would summarize our nine years at Grace Church as a time when our merciful and faithful God humbled and healed my wife, Laura and I. We became Christians in the late 70's eager to serve the Lord. We met at church in 1978 while attending a one-year Bible school and were married in 1981. During the next 17 years, due to my poor leadership, spiritual immaturity and my own sin along with spiritual deception, I led my family into two churches where our faith and confidence in God and in other Christians was severely challenged. The brand new church we became members of when we were first married started out spiritually sound but slowly drifted away from the centrality of the Gospel. The leadership at the second church had little accountability and tended to lead subjectively rather than relying on the objective truth of Scripture. The inclination towards legalism at one church and unbiblical inconsistency at the other one along with our own sinful tendencies affected us with a slow slide back to reliance on our flesh.
At both churches, my dear wife was the first to discern that ‘something' wasn't quite right. I saw the negative affects these churches had on my wife but I stubbornly resisted leaving them partially because of my pride in being part of the leadership at both and because I was deceived. Laura was an excellent wife and mother during these 17 years. At her conversion, God delivered her from her sins including her idolatry of escaping life through alcohol and she completely stopped drinking. However, with the combination of false doctrine and fleshly leadership as well as succumbing to her own flesh, she eventually began to yield to the temptation to escape life through alcohol. She began to drink again about a year before we came to Grace Church. To make matters worse for her, I had a lot of anger and a "just get over it" attitude towards her when she shared her heart's concerns with me.
A good friend of ours told us about Grace Church and encouraged us to visit. I arrived with some resistance to embrace this new church and I had lot of anger towards my wife. Laura came in continuing to periodically use alcohol as a way of escape. After a couple of months at Grace, we began to counsel with Pastor Craig and our sins were addressed, we confessed them and we sought repentance. Sadly, during the next several years I continued to struggle with my anger, and bitterness and remained reluctant to receive all that God had for my wife and I at Grace Church. Laura continued to battle with alcohol, not drinking for periods of time but eventually relapsing. The church and small group leadership continued to patiently pray for, love and exhort us. God began to show me my sins of anger, pride and selfishness and how I had contributed to my wife's discouragement and sin.
I saw that I had to first "get the log out of my own eye." The Lord began to solidify His truth in my heart through sound Biblical teaching, worship and by the examples of the other men at Grace Church. I saw my own depravity in a new light, but more amazingly, the Lord reopened my eyes and filled my heart with a deeper awareness of His great love for me that was demonstrated on the cross. My attitude towards my wife changed and with God's grace I sought to love and encourage her. I was blessed by the love, humility and transparency of the leadership and other members of Grace Church that enabled Laura to feel ‘safe again' within a Christian community. Through Biblical truth, accountability, the love and prayers of the saints, including a couple of women who faithfully prayed for her for a number of years, God mercifully broke Laura's bondage to alcohol since December 2004. I am learning that what I am a part of is greater than the part I play and we have been greatly enjoying the fellowship of the body of Christ. "Bless the Lord, O my soul; And all that is within me, bless His holy name! Bless the Lord, O my soul, And forget not all His benefits; Who forgives all your iniquities; Who heals all your diseases; Who redeems your life from destruction, Who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies, Who satisfies your mouth with good things, So that your youth is renewed like the eagles." Psalm 103:1-5
(LAURA) I vividly remember our first Sunday at Grace Church. The worship was glorious, and the sermon was Biblical, grace filled, cross-centered and I particularly remember the gracious humility of the ushers. We joined the church and a home group. When I came to Grace Church, I was disillusioned and discouraged, had a troubled marriage, and was afraid of other Christians and of life in general. During the years we spent at our two previous churches, our foundation of Biblical truth had been shaken with distortion and wrong emphasis of God's Word that opened the door to a different gospel than the one we first knew. Rather than standing firm in the Biblical truth that I knew, I returned to the idolatry of escaping life through alcohol. I attempted to repent and wouldn't drink for periods of time but eventually I would fall again and the times of drinking grew closer together. This pattern continued even as we sought counsel from Pastor Craig.
I lived in a turmoil of fear, despair and selfishness. Eventually, I even stopped going to church on a regular basis and struggled with the fear of man as well. Through a series of very painful but ultimately loving circumstances, including church discipline, my Father God brought me back to Himself. He opened my eyes to my sins, pointed me to the cross of Christ and began to heal my soul with His Word by the power of the Holy Spirit. During this time, my husband and Craig, then Mark, and the pastoral staff and home group leaders continued to hold me accountable, and loved and prayed for me. When I returned to church, I was warmly and lovingly received without condemnation. The transparency, humility, fear of God and Biblical love from the leadership and the people of Grace Church as well as the cross centered, grace filled preaching, and worship has helped to heal my spirit and enabled me to walk more honestly before God and man. I am grateful for God's faithfulness and undeserved mercy and for the privilege of walking towards the ‘Celestial City' with the people of Grace Church. "He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay; And He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm." Psalm 40:2
