« Preparing a Photo for Press in Black and White Using Photoshop | Main | One of a Hundred – page 83 – Devil Comes Back »
A Marriage From Agnosticism to Atheism to Christianity
By Julie | March 5, 2008
I was asked by our church to give a testimony about our marriage on differences of being married to an unbeliever, and then a believer. I’ve never been asked something like this before. Since I wasn’t sure what I’d say, I wrote it up. So, we decided to share it here. It is longer than our usual posts. But, here’s our story:
Our Marriage Testimony
I’ve been married almost exactly 9 ½ years. When I got married Marc, my husband, claimed to be agnostic. Later, for a couple years he said he was an atheist. Although I think he just wanted to tick me off the first time he said it, then he just continued to say it. This June will mark 3 years of him being a Christian.
Dating… sigh
We met when we were both working at Kinko’s. He worked 2nd shift, I worked 3rd. For several months before we started dating he would come in on my shift, to “use the computer”. Most the time it was just the two of us. We would talk for hours, and sometimes all night, as I worked. Finally, after several months, and with the urging of a co-worker Marc confessed, shyly, “I kind of like you.” We went on our first date the next day. We were both amazed by each other. Our pasts were similar, and so was the way we thought about things. I was so struck with how he’d laugh when he recounted the difficult times in his life, because people always thought I was crazy to laugh at rough times in mine.
He complimented me all the time, but in a sincere way. So many people in my life had been either fake, or critical of absolutely everything about me, from how I looked, to what I said, to what I did. But, no matter what I told Marc, he didn’t judge me. Usually he agreed and shared a similar experience in his own life.
He was so good to me, and it freaked me out. He opened car doors, and never shoved me or grabbed me, even when we were goofing around. That floored me, I had four brothers who were rough, in a boy kind of way, and so were some of the other guys in my life, never Marc. If he went to get a pop he always bought me a Mt Dew, even if he wasn’t going to see me for hours. He would go out in the middle of the night to bring me supper at Kinko’s. He went to Kinko’s in the middle of a snowstorm to make sure I was ok. Then, when he got stuck there for several hours because of the roads, he told me I had no business dating him if he gone to check on me.
Once, I had gone to his apartment to see him. I hadn’t gotten much sleep, and hadn’t taken the time to eat. I told him I was hungry and tired. He said he had a pot pie he’d make me, but it would take awhile to cook and told me to take a nap. He woke me when it was done. Beside me was a TV tray, with a Mt Dew, pot pie, and a candle, all the other lights were off. He said since I was tired he’d feed me. As sweet as I thought that was, I also found it freaky. I fed myself. Another time, he came to my apartment before I had to leave for work. When I got my work clothes out of the dryer they were still damp. I knew I didn’t have time to dry them, and I didn’t want to be late. Marc said he’d take care of it while I took a shower. He ironed my clothes until they were dry. To say the least, I was smitten.
We had so much in common, from our pasts to our interests. And we had so much fun together. Everything seemed perfect, except for that one pesky thing, he was agnostic.
We talked a lot about religion. He was raised Catholic, I had gone to a non-denominational church. It was his experiences with Catholicism that turned him away from God. I figured a more honest, biblical experience would make him a committed believer in no time. When I talked about my relationship with God he would say things like, “I never thought of it that way.” Or, “Wow, that is much different than how I was raised.” A few times he said, “I’d be more apt to believe that way.” He even started to read the Bible for a while. I was so happy, predicting he’d be a believer within the week, that I didn’t really pay attention to all the negative ideas he brought up. When he said things like, “You’re the only Christian I know who isn’t a hypocrite,” I really thought I’d be enough to change him.
And, if I couldn’t change him, I didn’t think it would be such a big deal. The majority of people I knew either didn’t believe, or weren’t going to let faith change their lives. I had good friendships with them. Plus, some of the Christians I knew hurt me more than any of the non-believers. I also knew of several marriages where one spouse was a believer and one was a non-believer. Those marriages were better than a lot I’d seen. I was such an idiot I used to think things like, “our love is stronger than that.” So, we developed an acceptance for each others differing faiths. But, inside, I still thought he was on the verge of a conversion. It was going to happen either right before, or right after we got married. Either way, it wouldn’t cause any problems with two people who loved, and accepted each other as we did.
I now pronounce you Man and Wife…
Then came our first year of marriage… and I realized I was the stupidest idiot on the planet to have bought all that crap. I never regretted getting married, I love him. But we were no longer two people who completely accepted each other. Marc was fine with me believing, until he crept into his life. If he interrupted me praying or reading the Bible, he’d say, “Oh, sorry. I’ll ask when you’re done.” If he saw a book on faith he thought I’d enjoy he’d buy it for me. If he could encourage my learning he did. But, he did not want it to affect him. So many times in our first year of marriage I’d share something about faith, and the next thing I knew we’d be in one of the craziest fights I’d ever witnessed. There were times faith wasn’t even mentioned, but he felt what I was saying related to my faith, then, BAM, we’d be fighting. We got into a huge fight one night because of something pretty crude on TV. I said, “If we ever have kids, we are really going to have to sensor what we let them see.” He said, I was using my faith to judge how other people live, and I was going to restrict our kids from having a life. At that point, we were trying to AVOID having kids. I hadn’t mentioned my faith at all, but the fight became about faith, and lasted most the night.
Topics: Encouragement, Faith, Life and Living | 1 Comment »
April 28th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
Great Sotry… Fantastic. God bless you are Marc and the kids.