Woman reaches out for marriage help, finds Jesus as Savior

Nicole* discovered that her husband had a girlfriend whom he had been seeing during their separation. She saw this as a betrayal, for she had thought that she and her husband were trying to work things out and reconcile. Now, she figured divorce was their best option, as her husband seemed unwilling to do anything to help their relationship.

Needing somewhere to turn, Nicole reached out to “Need Him,” an evangelism platform whereby questions are answered and the Gospel is shared through online “chat” messaging. Katie Marcus, a master’s student at Southwestern Seminary, has been volunteering for “Need Him” this semester, and so she intercepted Nicole’s figurative cry for help. 

“Through our conversation, I asked several questions to determine if she had a relationship with Jesus,” Marcus recalls. “She was a professing Christian, but as we talked about the Gospel, it became clear to both of us that she had never fully put her trust in Jesus and confessed Him as Lord. She was eager to do so!”

Marcus walked Nicole through the Gospel and prompted her in how to voice her prayer to God. “While chatting from her office computer,” Marcus says, “she prayed to accept Christ as her Lord and Savior!”

The two women rejoiced together over Nicole’s spiritual rebirth, and Nicole was excited to tell both her mother and her pastor about the decision she had made. Marcus also talked to her about following up this decision with believer’s baptism. 

Having resolved Nicole’s eternal problem, Marcus then turned to Nicole’s temporal one—the one that had driven her to “Need Him” in the first place. She asked Nicole to consider “pressing pause” on her current divorce initiations. 

“I encouraged her to commit to 30 days of prayer and fasting for her husband and their marriage,” Marcus says. “I reiterated to her that it was God’s will that they remain married and become faithful to each other.” Reflecting the life-transforming decision she had just made, Nicole agreed to do so. 

Though Marcus has no means of staying in contact with Nicole, since their conversation, she has prayed for Nicole’s growth as a believer. “I also pray for reconciliation in her marriage,” Marcus says. “I pray that she did stall the divorce process and that she has been surrounded by wise counsel. I pray that her husband has left his extramarital relationship and that he is also seeking the Lord.”

*Name changed to protect anonymity.