A pastor hit a crisis point in his marriage when, on their 10th wedding anniversary, his wife revealed that she had fallen out of love. But rather than echo the broken habits of the past, the pastor knelt then and there, in the footwell of his car, and surrendered to God. His wife did the same. And soon, the miracle of repentance manifested.
Ohio natives Pastor Dave Wilson, 64, and his wife, Ann, 61, have lived in Michigan for the last 37 years. Talking to The Epoch Times, the couple—who have authored two books on marriage and parenting—recalled the 10th anniversary that changed the course of their relationship and shared that faith is the only way to strengthen marriages and rebuild families.
“God can heal anything,” Dave said. “We feel called by God to tell our story. We all are wounded. It’s part of a broken world we live in. We have things in our life and our past. We bring that wound in, and we think our spouse is the healer. And then they are disappointed.”
Ann said: “Couples don’t realize the impact of their baggage that they bring in: the wounds of their life, the hurts and the things that they experienced growing up. If we don’t heal ourselves and let God heal us, then we try to find life through our spouse. And so we try to help couples realize that.”
United By Faith
When the couple first met, their shared faith was their driving force.Ann’s father was Dave’s baseball coach, and the pair knew of each other as teens. But it wasn’t until Dave returned home from college one Christmas break that he noticed the charming young lady for the first time.
“I really surrendered my life to Jesus as a 16-year-old,” Ann said. “Dave was an athlete, all the girls liked him. I thought he was very conceited and arrogant ... someone told me that Dave Wilson became a follower of Christ and I said, ‘There’s no way,’ because his reputation was so bad.
“That night we were at a basketball game, I was telling one of my friends how my life had changed because of following Jesus, and Dave happened to be sitting in front of me ... I remember when I left that game I thought, ‘Wow, Dave Wilson is the real deal. He’s really serious about his faith.’”
“I saw her fire for Jesus,” Dave said. “When I went back to college I was struck with, ‘Wow, that’s what a woman of God looks like.’”
When Dave caught his college girlfriend cheating, he fully surrendered to God for the first time. Ann, and the guidance she could offer him, was in the back of his mind. Elsewhere, Ann was pledging herself to God’s will while working a summer job. She asked God to please “bump her into” Dave, thinking he could be her mentor.
The Baggage and the Struggle
They started dating and were married nine months later in 1980. Dave was 22, Ann was 19. But Dave had baggage.“His parents were alcoholics. We never really thought through the baggage that would bring into our marriage,” Ann said. “Six months in I basically said, ‘Marrying you was the biggest mistake of my life.’ We struggled, but we really started growing.”
Dave and Ann welcomed their first son, Cody, in 1986, then two more boys, CJ and Austin. Dave’s church was growing and as traveling chaplain for the Detroit Lions NFL football team, he was often away from home. Ann was left to care for the children.
“Dave was gone all the time,” Ann said. “I had an image of what he would do, or what he would be like, and how he would lead or how he would serve ... and he didn’t live up to my expectations. I started out angry, anger turned to resentment, resentment turned to bitterness, and my bitterness turned to snow.”
Dave said: “We argued about everything. I did what I saw my parents do, I stuffed it away. I watched my mom and dad drink every night, and when they argued it got loud and abusive and ended up in divorce. [While] Ann came from a home where they talked through things and worked it out, so she’s literally following me around the house, trying to resolve conflict, and I’m running upstairs and getting in my car, driving away.
“I was judging my life based on how successful my job was, and it was doing well. I didn’t realize, no, the home and my kids and my wife are more important than anything else. Until that 10-year anniversary date, I needed a wakeup call, and that was the wakeup call.”
Repentance Brings Miracles
Ann shared that they had different ideas of how their marriage was doing. While Dave would set their relationship at 10/10, Ann would say it’s a “point-five, or possibly a one.”Dave, oblivious, pulled out all the stops for their anniversary by taking Ann to a fancy restaurant. He commissioned their waiter to bring Ann ten roses, one by one, and shared a memory of each year of their marriage for every flower. After dinner, he drove Ann to a middle school parking lot to see the venue that would become their new church. He leaned over for a kiss, but Ann drew back.
“I told Dave I had lost all my feelings for him, that I had nothing left,” she said, adding that she expected him to be defensive. And Dave did reach behind the car seat for his planner, hoping to prove that he had been home, he had been present; but then he thought better.
“In that moment, God really did a miracle,” Dave said. “I sensed that He was saying two things. First, I heard him say, ‘Shut up. Listen to your wife.’ So I did ... and [then] I heard God say, ‘Repent.’ It wasn’t about Ann needs to change. It was I need to change. God was just saying, ‘When I’m first in your life, you will have the power to save this marriage.’”
Then and there, Dave knelt down in the cramped footwell of his Honda Accord and pledged his surrender to God’s will and guidance.
He said: “I pushed the seat back, got on my knees in the driver’s seat and said, ‘God, I repent, you were not first in my life ... I’ve messed up my life and my marriage. I’m asking you to help me be the husband I need to be, the dad I need to be, and give me the power to do that.’”
Ann said: “I was listening to him pray ... and I felt that same spirit of God speaking to me, saying, ‘Ann you’ve been trying to find your life through Dave. You’ve taken your eyes off me. I am the source of life. Your husband was never made to fulfill you. He was never made to meet all of your needs. He’s not to meet all your expectations. That’s God’s job. That’s my job.’
Making Changes
We are conditioned to believe that our spouse will be our savior, Dave said.“We need to look in the mirror and say, ‘This isn’t about them. This is about me. How can I be a better husband? How can I be a better man? How can I be a better dad? We should be humble, and say, ’God, I’m the one that needs to change.‘ Because our selfish nature says, ’No, they’re the one who’s more messed up than I am.’
“If I’ve learned anything in 42 years, it’s my perspective of a marriage was totally wrong. I thought it was to bring me happiness. As crazy as it sounds, marriage is for me to lay down my life and bring her happiness. It’s not about me, it’s about serving her, sacrificing for her. ... the Bible [teaches] ‘love your wife as Christ loved the church.’ And he died for the church. So that’s the model. And this would be true for a wife too. To be the man, the woman that he’s called you to be, which is serving your spouse.”
Ann said: “It’s finding life through God, making him the priority.”
After their shared prayer in the middle school parking lot that day, Dave and Ann made changes to their marriage. They began looking vertically for answers—toward God—rather than horizontally, to one another. They built “rhythms” back into their life: daily prayer, weekly date nights, and an annual retreat.
Dave has learned not to run from conflict, and Ann has adopted the role of “speaking life” into her family by talking to them the way God would, in a loving way.
The couple also regularly posts on their social media channel, @daveannwilson.
The couple hopes their story will remind others to put God first in their relationships.
“Everyone has a different view of what God is like. And we would say he’s the giver of life. He’s the giver of life in every way,” Ann said.
Dave said: “He’s the foundation. He is our life. It is the most important relationship in our life. When I find life there, I come back to my marriage, and I’m not trying to get or take from her, I am giving—because I’m overflowing out of a real relationship with a real God who gives real life.”
