The vows we did not know we were making
When we said "for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health," we said the words the way most couples do. We meant them, but we did not yet understand them. The vows sound beautiful during the ceremony. Their true meaning only becomes clear when life changes without warning.
Our Marriage Ministry began in 2010, when God called us to walk with couples who were fighting for the promises they made at the altar. Since then, we have spent over 25 years in ministry, counseling, and coaching. But it was our own marriage that taught us what covenant really means.
“The vows sound beautiful during the ceremony. Their true meaning only becomes clear when life changes without warning.”
The year we almost did not survive
There was a season in our marriage when we were both drowning. Marlene lost her brother to cancer and her father to congestive heart failure within the same year. Her mother was battling cancer. In the middle of that grief, Marlene suffered an unexpected brain aneurysm. Terrence was caring for his own mother as she fought dementia.
We were both hurting. Both exhausted. Both being pulled in every direction. And still, we had to show up for each other and for our two children.
What almost broke us was not the grief. It was the silence. Terrence thought he had to be strong. Marlene thought she had to protect him from what she was carrying. We became roommates in the middle of the hardest year of our lives.
“What almost broke us was not the grief. It was the silence.”
What saved us
Our marriage did not survive that season because everything was easy or because we always knew the right thing to say. We survived because we finally stopped performing and started telling the truth. We prayed. We forgave. We surrendered our individual expectations and let God do the healing work in each of us we had been avoiding for years.
We learned that supporting a spouse does not mean ignoring your own pain. It means making room for both people to be honest about what they are carrying. We learned that intimacy during hardship is not always about sex. Sometimes intimacy is a held hand in a hospital room. Sometimes it is silence together on the couch. Sometimes it is one honest sentence: "You do not have to carry this alone."
“Sometimes intimacy is a held hand in a hospital room. Sometimes it is silence together on the couch. Sometimes it is one honest sentence: You do not have to carry this alone.”
Why we do this work
We built ONE GOD-ONE FLESH because we know what it feels like to be in a marriage that could have ended and did not. We know what it takes to keep choosing each other when every circumstance says give up. And we know how many couples, singles, and engaged people are quietly wondering if their relationship can survive what life has already delivered or what may still be coming.
This work is not theory to us. It is our own testimony. Every framework we teach, every assessment we designed, every coaching session we lead comes from vows we have had to live and a marriage we still choose on purpose.
If you are here, you are not alone. And you do not have to figure this out by yourself.
“This work is not theory to us. It is our own testimony.”