For Better or Worse- Angel Saverance’s Story

Angel Saverance’s Story

David and I brought a lot of brokenness and trust issues into our relationship from day one.

We spent most of our time together intoxicated in some way. Around when we got engaged, I started sensing God telling me to lay down the life of partying and self-indulgence I had been caught up in for so long, despite having trusted Jesus as my savior years before.

We began fighting for our marriage rather than fighting in it.

A month after we married, we found out we were going to have a baby. David still held tightly to the party life, even though he also had made a commitment to follow Jesus in his youth. He said he supported the changes I wanted to make but was not ready to make the same. We fought constantly, and within a few months we were living in separate houses.

My sister had been inviting me to her church for months, but I always had some excuse. One Sunday her church was having a luncheon. Food was a great motivator for a pregnant woman, so David and I went.

Haunted by the Past

I knew from that visit that I wanted to start attending. Eventually we joined the church and decided that we would do whatever we could to make our marriage work. In no time, I was fully immersed in "church life," serving on committees, singing in the choir, and teaching a Sunday School class.

But David fought to stay awake in the services. He got something from a sermon every now and again, but he wasn’t catching the "fire" I was. He was still haunted by past struggles.

I prayed for years that Jesus would reveal Himself to David the way He was revealing Himself to me, but David only grew more distant. He told me for months that he wanted to see if there was a church where he would "get" what was being preached.

Fighting for Us

One day I was telling a friend about a youth retreat I had attended where hundreds of teenagers stepped forward to trust Jesus for their salvation. He replied "That happens at my church every week!" and invited us to NewSpring.

Our first visit was an eye-opener for David. The message was about your identity being in Christ—not your past mistakes. David found a great deal of hope in knowing he was NOT his past. We began attending regularly, and God moved in both of our hearts during a “Man vs. Wife” sermon about fighting “for our marriage” rather than “fighting in it.”

The Spoils of Victory

Over the next weeks and months, I saw David begin to change dramatically. He talked with me about things he was struggling with, rather than shutting down and closing me out.

He spent time with us as a family, rather than doing activities that took him away from us, and he became interested in our daughter's activities and schoolwork. He told me how much he loved me for the first time in what seemed like ages!

We became owners, and our lives have been growing in Christ ever since. Because of the "heart change" we have both been given through falling in love with Christ, we spend more time together as a couple and as a family with our daughter, and we have rediscovered why we fell in love in the first place!

Change of Heart

We were able to be part of our daughter praying to receive Christ as her Savior and her baptism at NewSpring! We are giving according to the belief that we can't out-give God, and we have been blessed through serving in KidSpring.

It melts my heart to see David walk through the room with all of his "kids" in his arms and holding his hands, or running across the room just to give him a high five on the way out. He has grown into the man I prayed for all of those years.

My daughter summed it up perfectly in her sweet prayer, saying, "Dear God, thank you for changing my Daddy's heart!" With tear filled eyes, I agreed "Yes, Lord! Amen!"