She wanted to let me go because I wasn’t a Christian!

The girl that I wanted to marry wanted to let me go because I wasn’t a Christian. She desired to design her life, marriage and family according to God's perspective. It wasn’t enough for her that I lived more or less according to Christian values and once in a while was going to church to please my parents and her.

Deep down I knew there is a God, but I didn’t care much about it although I had seen faith in action in the life of my parents. They weren’t at all super-Christians, but their faith was real, also in hard times of sickness and loss. Fortunately they let me free to choose my path, because I needed to find out myself.

Actually my girlfriend introduced me to a dilemma: committing myself to God and to her, or continuing my life without God and therefore without her. Because I knew she really loved me and wanted to marry me, I took her challenge seriously.

In that struggle, I realized that I in fact didn’t want to give up my independence. I thought that following Jesus would not be liberating, but limiting. What a surprise that it turned out to be the other way around when I prayed that Jesus would come into my life and guide me into a future with him and with my wife.

Now I have been married with this girl for more then 40 years. I became father and grandfather in between. Until today my life is one big adventure. Sometimes I experience God closely, sometimes on a distant, but He is always there. Because I am quite analytical and pragmatic, I still sometimes ask myself if there really is a God or that He only exists in my fantasy, but if I honestly look at what God has done in and through my life it really is impossible for me not to believe in Him.

Around 40 years ago I felt put under pressure by the girl that now for decades has been my wife, but I need to admit she really helped me taking the most important step in my life!