Friday: Inside Story – My Wife Left Church
By Daniel Gatan
My wife has stopped attending the Seventh-day Adventist Church, but I have not given up hope. Here’s why.
During repressive Communist times, a woman in my home country, Romania, learned about the Adventist Church and began to attend Sabbath services regularly. This infuriated her husband.
Daniel Gatan
Image © Pacific Press
“Where are you going at the same time every Sabbath?” he asked.
“Honey, I am going to the Adventist church”, she said.
“I already know that”, he snapped. “You can keep going but under one condition: You cannot be baptized. I don’t want to hear that you’ve been baptized, or I’ll kill you.”
As the woman read the Bible and learned more about Jesus, she became convicted that she needed to take a public stand for Jesus through baptism.
Church members surrounded the newly baptized people after the Sabbath ceremony. They offered hugs and colorful flowers. Everyone was smiling except for one woman. She wasn’t sure how her husband would react.
That afternoon, she found her husband in the front yard when she returned home with flowers in her arms. He was sitting at a wooden table with a sharp knife sticking out of the top.
“Where are the flowers from?” he asked.
“I was baptized today”, she replied.
His face turned purple with rage.
“Did you not believe me when I told you that I would kill you if you were baptized?” he said, pulling the knife out of the tabletop. “Get ready to die”, he said and lunged at her.
His wife fled to the back of the house, where the couple had a garden. Her husband caught up to her in the cornstalks. As he raised the knife over his head, the woman begged for one last wish: to pray. The husband agreed and watched as his wife knelt. He loomed over her as she spoke to God, holding the knife high above his head.
Suddenly, the knife blade silently slide out of the handle and fell harmlessly to the ground. The man’s face turned pale. His whole body began to tremble, and he fell to the ground beside the blade. His wife jumped to her feet and helped him up. Wordlessly, they went into the house.
After some time, the husband was baptized. God changed his heart.
If God can change this man’s heart, I know He also can touch my wife’s heart. I can trust in God even when all hope seems lost.
Daniel Gatan, 68, is a retired construction worker from Plosca, Romania.
Produced by the General Conference Office of Adventist Mission. Find more mission stories at adventistmission[dot]org
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Its a touching mission it teaches that we should not give up in whatever we want to do' God will never live you alone.
With prayer everything is possible. I remember I prayed for something for 15yrs and God answered my prayers now I'm a happy mother with my family.
May God bless that family.
This story is one I can relate to. My deceased husband was a jealous man due to our age difference, he tried to take my life. The doctor told him due to a fall from a fifth floor building the internal damage to his organs would end his life in one year. He tried to take me with him by shooting me in the head while I slept. God protected me. My husband woke me up when the gun jammed on him two times and said to me: "I pulled the trigger two times while the gun was at your temple and the bullet would not come out. I know the gun works because I tested it. You have a divine power watching over you". He got up from the side of the bed he was sitting on and left the house. I do honestly believe for the first time in his life he realized the power of God. Before he died I heard him listening to gospel music and he asked me for my forgiveness. I forgave him the minute he recognized the power of God. I share this experience of near death whenever I can.