Sharon Williams-Bennett, Contributor

Joanne was lost. She felt as if her world had come crashing down on her, and she didn't know what to do. It had been two days since her husband had moved out of their home and told her he wasn't coming back. It was two days since she had slept or eaten a morsel of food. He told her he didn't want to be married anymore and that the pressure of being married was too much for him. She hadn't got the chance to tell him that she was pregnant with their first child.

She knew they had been having problems and she had become nagging and possessive, but he had started coming home late, claiming that he had work to do. She had tried to talk to him, but he had become so aggressive that she just left it alone - now he was gone. She had cried so much in the last couple of days that she didn't think she had any tears left. He hadn't even called her - just told her before he left that he was coming back to pick up the rest of his clothes.

What went wrong? They had been so happy together, they had had so many plans - he had told her that he would never leave her - she was the best thing that ever happened to him. Now, after so many years, she was alone again and didn't know how to function without him.

She went to church that Sunday. She had always been a church-going, God-fearing person but had been so caught up in marriage that God had taken a back seat in her life. When they first got married she and her husband had gone to church, not every Sunday, but at least once a while - but even that had stopped when he started going to dances with his friends.

Joanne knew she looked awful. She had lost weight during the last two weeks and even though she was supposed to be eating for two - she hadn't been able to keep anything down. Her face was drawn and there was extreme sadness in her eyes. Ricky had finally called her, telling her that he was staying with friends and had asked her how she was doing. She still hadn't told him she was carrying his child, and even though she wanted to beg him to come home, she didn't. She still had her pride.

The real message

The message that day was 'The Wonderful Grace of God', with the pastor saying that even when we make a mess of our lives, God is there to help us clean it up - all we have to do is seek Him and ask for Him and ask for His forgiveness. For the first time in two weeks Joanne felt hope and when they made the altar call - she went up for prayer, tears streaming down her face. Right there at the altar she faced up to her problems and passed them over to God. On the way home from church she found herself humming the tune All to Jesus I Surrender and felt a burst of pure joy inside her. It was finally going to be all right!

Ricky came over that night and instead of the bitterness and longing she had felt before - she felt at peace and that she could cope with anything. They talked at length and she finally told him that she was pregnant. He didn't offer to come home, only told her that he would always be there for her and his child but he needed space to think and sort himself out. Joanne didn't break down and cry, she didn't beg him to change his mind, she only told him that she too needed space to start a relationship with her Lord and Saviour, Jesus, and she was going to use this opportunity to do so. She encouraged him to find a way to get back to God, because she had discovered that that was the only true way to happiness.

Joanne discovered the joy of reading her Bible and talking to other brothers and sisters about the love of Christ. For the first time in years Ricky wasn't the first person she thought about and the last when she went to bed. She now realised that she had let him take the place of God in her life - no wonder her marriage had ended in disaster. She still loved him and wanted him back in her life but on different terms. He started coming around more often and he was always there to take her to the doctor and as soon as she called him he was there. They talked freely for the first time in years and Joanne realised how much damage she herself had done to the relationship.

Church invitation

One Sunday, she invited him to church and to her surprise he came, albeit reluctantly. It was the beginning and Joanne knew that she had to allow God to have his way in her husband's life. She had the support of her church family and she had learnt to lean on them in her times of need. They had taken to coming around to check up on her and sometimes her house was so full of people that she had no time to be lonely or even depressed.

Joanne was six months' pregnant and Ricky still had not come home. He came around regularly and attended church with her now and then, but Joanne could see that he was torn and that her husband was going through something that he wasn't sharing with her. Although tempted to worry, Joanne took it to the Lord in prayer. It had taken the break-up of her marriage to discover The wonderful grace of God!