Pastor Keith writes: I became a Christian in 1975.  My wife Terri and I met at a notable Christian university in 1982. I had been saved for only a few years at that time, and Terri had supposedly come to the school already saved, but having been what she thought was “backslidden” for a number of years.  After she arrived, she went forward in a typical evangelistic service where an invitation was given for those who wanted to “get right with God.”  For the next few years, she attended school to prepare for some sort of “Christian service.” 

          When I met her, she was everything that, in my mind, appeared to be “on fire,” talking about the Lord all the time, reading her Bible every day, and writing home telling her family what the Lord had done for her.  I was looking for a Christian girl who loved the Lord, and so we were married and, shortly after, moved to another state where we both taught in a Bible college for four years, then moved to New Hampshire where I was interested in helping someone start a church in New England. 

          After a short time, around 1991, Terri began teaching in the public school, where she remained for the next several years while we were going through those “difficult years” of young children with both of us busy trying to “make ends meet,” as is so often the case. During those years, both of us were active in our large “Bible-preaching” church, singing in the choir, teaching Sunday School, Junior church, nursery duty, cleaning the church, being involved in “revival meetings,” “men’s fellowships,” “ladies fellowships,” missions conferences, etc., while I taught part-time in the Christian School.  I had always been taught that this was what “serving the Lord” meant, but all the while, our life was so busy that I failed to notice how cool Terri’s spiritual life had become, though she continued to teach biblical concepts to our children and talk a spiritual talk to some extent.

          Everything seemed to be going fine until one day I received a call from the counseling pastor of the church telling me that Terri had come in for counseling and that, to make a long story short, I suddenly discovered that my wife was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.  I was shocked and broken hearted, and over the next year and a half tried to work with Terri and the counselor to try to make everything right again.  During that time, the Lord brought me through the fire but did a great work in my heart. 

          The counselor during that time tried every idea he knew or could get advice on, quoted every relevant passage of Scripture to her, pleaded with her and spent over a hundred hours with her, but every gain seemed to be only temporary (although she continued to go to counseling willingly, sometimes even desperately).

          After about a year and a half, one day it dawned on this counselor what the problem was.  He preached at her that day as if she were unsaved, and pointed out that the fruit of her life was not consistent with a Christian testimony.  Until that time, in view of everything we had been taught about salvation, she had never seriously doubted it, nor had I, nor had the counselor. The next day, sitting alone in her chair and pondering the book of First John, she was gloriously saved in an instant.