A.C. and Debi Ndindjock

On a rainy, spring night in 2012, I packed my belongings leaving behind my wife and two sons. That night was the culmination of six and half years riddled with alcoholism, depression and financial crisis, which had led to anger, resentment, guilt, but mostly a sense of hopelessness for the restoration of our marriage. It was a time that felt like God had turned His face away from us, and our prayers for healing in our marriage had gone unanswered.

We had lived the first few years in isolation. Being away from our families in Africa, we surrounded ourselves with friends, but we failed to seek people who could speak godly wisdom into our marriage. Proverbs 15:22 says that, “Plans fail for lack of counsel.”

During the time of our separation, God used His people to minister to us individually. The stewardship team at our church was instrumental in helping Debi and the boys resettle into a new apartment and through the church’s recovery program, I began the process of addressing my problem with alcohol. It felt like in the course of a couple of months tremendous change was occurring. God was working in our hearts to produce this change.

We came to re|engage feeling powerless over our ability to fix our marriage and there the transformation began. People who were truly rooting for our marriage surrounded us. Every Wednesday night we got to listen to another couple’s story of grace. We had leaders who poured out their love, prayed for us and guided us through what the Bible says about a godly marriage as described in Ephesians 5:22-33. We walked this journey with a group of couples that became our friends and accountability partners.

The biggest transformation occurred with the realization that our marriage is a covenant and not a contract; it is a lifelong commitment that should not be broken depending on how “happy” we were. With our re|engage group, we officially threw “divorce out of the window”. In Mark 10:11-12 Jesus said, "A man who divorces his wife so he can marry someone else commits adultery against her.”

Over the past year we have seen God’s hand at work in such a mighty way. Not only in the restoration of our marriage but He has used what we refer to as the “locust years” to bring us to Him and for that we are eternally grateful. When Jesus walked the earth and performed miracles, He did not heal for healing’s sake, but rather it was a foretaste of something even greater. In the same way God healing our marriage was only a taste of the eternal salvation that He has given us. And just like Jesus said when He healed the man born blind in John 9:1-12, our hardship was so that “the work of God might be displayed”.

We often joke that the beginning of our marriage should be in the newly-weds “what-not-to-do” manual. We praise God that he took something so hopeless and is making something beautiful out of it. Even during the times when we felt God had gone silent on us, He was piecing everything together to mold us to who we were meant to be in Him. We thank Him for surrounding us with people who continue to love us through it all. We pray that our story may encourage those feeling hopeless or thinking that God has forgotten them. We serve a God who keeps His promises and He is working for your good and for His glory.

• AC and Debi