Revive Our Hearts

Danna Gresh: Her husband was addicted to alcohol. Joy and her kids had to move out to be safe, but she didn't leave the marriage.

Joy McClain: I stayed with my husband for the simple fact that I had taken a vow. I had come to the place to understand that marriage is a living, breathing example of Christ and His bride. He never leaves His bride.

Danna Gresh: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of *Choosing Forgiveness: Moving from Hurt to Hope*, for May 29, 2026. I'm Danna Gresh.

How are you doing in your reading through the Bible this year? My mom and I were talking yesterday about our progress, and she was a little discouraged because she's so far behind. I just said, "Hey mom, pick up where we are today. You can come back to those passages you've missed, those chapters you've missed, another time."

So I encourage you, if you're behind, just start where we are today. If you're not in the plan just yet, it's not too late to just jump in with us. Sign up for daily emails related to reading through the Bible at reviveourhearts.com/bible2026. That's also where you can go to check where we're reading right now.

Today we're starting the book of Job. Job faced severe trials in his life. As a listener, you may feel like Job. Maybe, also like Job, some of your difficulties come from an unwise spouse. Today I want you to be encouraged as we hear the stories of three women who've navigated some choppy waters in their marriages. All this month, our emphasis has been on the freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness we find in Christ. There's a special kind of fruitfulness that comes when we persevere, when we endure something hard. The women we're hearing from today can attest to that. Nancy?

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: You may have a son or a daughter or a grandchild or a close friend who is in a really difficult marriage. I think you'll find Revive Our Hearts particularly encouraging today. Just yesterday I spoke with two women who, with tears, expressed that they feel like they are in a hopeless marriage. Perhaps you're feeling that way. If so, I hope you'll listen carefully, asking the Lord not just to change your husband's heart, but also saying, "Lord, would you use this difficulty to draw me closer to You?"

Danna Gresh: That is a great prayer. Of course, it's not where Vicky started. She was a member of high society in New York, and she was engaged to Bill Rose. Nancy, she told you that she knew something was off.

Vicky Rose: I got star crazy. He likes to sit a lot. He loves to watch sports on TV, and I like to go ice skating, not watch ice skating on TV.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: So you were realizing there were some differences?

Vicky Rose: There were some major differences, but I really had this driving force that I needed to be married. I really believed, Nancy, that getting married was the answer to my life. I pushed through those feelings, and yet I told my best friend at that time, "I don't think this is going to work, but I just want to get married. I need to get married. If it doesn't work," I told her, "we'll just get divorced. No big deal."

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Of course, at this point, you weren't considering what the Lord had to think about all of this. He really wasn't in your life.

Vicky Rose: God was nowhere in my plans, nowhere in the equation.

Danna Gresh: Vicky felt an emptiness, an emptiness she hoped being married would fill. Another woman, Joy McClain, could identify with that feeling.

Joy McClain: My expectations of marriage and my husband really became like an idol because I thought my husband should meet and make me happy. He should meet my needs. He should fill my wants and my desires, and no man is ever meant to do that. That was not God's plan. I didn't understand that at the time. I saw my husband as the man I loved. I poured everything I could into him. I wanted the same back to me in our relationship from him, and he was not able to meet those needs. I certainly made marriage, a godly marriage, my idol.

Danna Gresh: Today we're also hearing from Jimmy Ruth, who is married to Lorne Matthews, a well-known southern gospel pianist.

Jimmy Ruth Matthews: We're so much alike, but yet so very different. Lorne is the personality that is always wanting to party. Everything they do, they party. They have fun with everything they do. I am a very structured, boring, predictable person. I thought, "When is he going to settle down and grow up?"

Danna Gresh: Every marriage is the union of two unique individuals, and I might add, two unique and sinful individuals. Without Jesus at the center, things can disintegrate fast. Here's Vicky.

Vicky Rose: It went from bad to worse. We separated briefly for three months one summer. During that time, I started going to see a psychiatrist, and Bill started doing cocaine. He just kept saying it wasn't a problem, that he could do it when he wanted and not when he didn't. I didn't know anything about addiction. I didn't know, so I kept wanting to believe him, wanting to believe that this wasn't a problem.

Yet there were so many things we had planned to do that he didn't feel he'd get sick from doing too much cocaine. We couldn't go to my parents for dinner one night because Bill was not feeling well from doing too much. I'd call and say, "Oh, Bill's got the flu. We can't come." I started that slippery slope of covering up the behavior and just thinking that something may be wrong with me, that I wasn't good enough or a wife enough that he would do this instead of be part of us.

By this point, we had children, one and a half and four, as this cocaine habit escalated to the point that we separated. Our lives just were running parallel lines and then splitting apart, going away from each other more and more and more.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: So you really had no life together?

Vicky Rose: We had absolutely no life together once the restaurant got going. I was completely with the children and Bill was completely with the restaurant. He would come home at two, three, or four in the morning, not necessarily because the restaurant required it, but because he'd been doing drugs to stay awake all night.

Danna Gresh: For Joy's husband, Mark, his drug of choice wasn't cocaine. It was alcohol.

Joy McClain: I had always known Mark to drink, not on a level that was worrisome to me, more of a social type thing. When our first son was born, I realized I did not want my son to grow up in an environment where alcohol was being consumed in the home. I started to question him, started to ask, "Maybe this isn't a good idea." He became pretty resentful about that. "Why are you asking me these questions? Why are you challenging what I'm doing? I have a right to do it." In his eyes, I was being controlling. In his eyes, I was telling him what to do.

Danna Gresh: Jimmy Ruth's husband, Lorne, was attracted to another woman, a hairstylist who operated a salon from her home.

Lorne Matthews: I remember one time she was cutting my hair and we were alone. She reached out and she touched me very gently on my shoulders. I looked at her and I said, "What is that?" She said, "Haven't you figured it out by now? I'm in love with you."

I believe at that point I just went over the edge. I just said, "I want to see you tomorrow." The next thing you know, we were talking about divorcing our mates and getting married. We were in coaxed love. I came to my wife after 18 years of marriage, and I got the big head and said, "I don't feel any emotions for you anymore, and I want a divorce."

Danna Gresh: Addiction, adultery, they're symptoms of deeper heart problems. Many of Jimmy Ruth's friends had a casual attitude about marriage. They encouraged her to get out.

Jimmy Ruth Matthews: It was almost like, "Yippee, your husband's committing adultery. Now you can get a divorce."

Danna Gresh: Vicky's doubts and fears grew to the point that they were impossible to ignore.

Vicky Rose: By year four or three and a half, I'm thinking maybe I should get a divorce. This isn't going anywhere. I went and talked to two different pastors and this Christian counselor, and all of them said I definitely had biblical permission to divorce and that it was okay and that probably given the timing that things weren't going to change and I should go ahead and divorce.

I just didn't have a peace about that because I had really started to read God's Word. I had started to read the Bible from cover to cover. I didn't feel the freedom. I didn't feel like it was going to honor God. I didn't feel like it was a faith choice. It was a Vicky choice.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Now the marriage covenant is sacred, and when we stay faithful to our mate and our vows, we reflect the covenant-keeping heart of God and Jesus' relationship with His bride, the Church. But even if you're committed to your mate and your marriage vows, you may still have to make some difficult choices along the way. There are times when a physical separation may be necessary, especially if you or your children are in danger.

I want to encourage you not to try and process these kinds of situations alone. No matter what the condition of your marriage may be, be sure that you get into God's Word and stay in God's Word. That's going to be your light, your moorings, your anchor when you do face difficult situations.

Then it's so important to get and stay connected to the body of Christ. If your marriage is struggling, find an older, godly, wise woman who can help you navigate these difficult waters. Talk with the spiritual leadership of your church, your pastor, the elders. Ask them for biblical wisdom about your specific situation. Again, if there's abuse taking place at home, get help in getting yourself and your kids to safety. If there are laws that have been broken, it is absolutely the right thing to do to get civil authorities involved. In Joy McClain's case, she wisely consulted with the leaders of her church and she sought out additional godly counsel.

Joy McClain: Mark had been confronted more than one time out of love and out of respect by the elders in my church and by the pastor. They had so many times reached out to him. Sometimes he would talk to them, but never would he be willing to get help, to get some treatment, to do some type of intensive counseling. He shut down on them. I did not want a divorce. Divorce was not an option that ever even entered conversation, but I did have to set up some type of environment for my children to be safe.

Right after I came to accept Jesus as my Lord and Savior, I started reading Bible stories to the children at breakfast, kind of to calm the morning crazies down with a little book called *Leading Little Ones to God*. One morning, Douglas said, "Mommy, we should pray for Daddy to come to know Jesus." In my head I thought, "Pray for him? I'd rather kill him."

Thankfully, I didn't say that. I said, "Douglas, you're right. Let's pray for Daddy to come to know Jesus." Every morning at breakfast we would pray and ask the Lord for Daddy to come to know Jesus. Every night when I tucked them into bed, we'd pray the same prayer. Then I started to ask my friends, everyone at Bible study, to pray for Bill Rose to come to know Jesus.

I did not want to get back together. I had a lot of fear around going back to Bill and to what our marriage had been like. In the process of praying for Bill to come to know the Lord with the children, God started to change my heart toward Bill. I started to love him again. Love doesn't just go away, but those feelings of love came back. I started to desire what God's best would be, which would be for our family to be together. Ultimately, that was my desire. I did not want to be divorced. I did not want to be a single parent. Single parenting is a difficult, one of the most difficult jobs. I wanted us all to be together, and I longed for intimacy with him.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: You're wanting a divorce during this time.

Lorne Matthews: Yes, I asked her. I said, "I'm committing adultery, so you have a right to divorce me, so go ahead and divorce me."

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: You wanted her to divorce you?

Lorne Matthews: Please divorce me. Here's the papers. You can own the home, the car. She took the papers and signed everything so that she would own it, but then she wouldn't sign the divorce papers.

Jimmy Ruth Matthews: I was concerned that maybe he might sell our home and things like that. When he signed the papers over to me, then I just thanked the Lord for protecting.

The woman called me one day and she told me, she said, "God has shown me that Lorne and I are going to be married." I said, "Well, there's one problem. It goes contrary to what the Word of God says, and it won't work." She said, "Well, we'll see who wins in the end." It was like warfare was declared.

Danna Gresh: Anytime we hear the stories of others on Revive Our Hearts, there's a danger we must avoid. It's the danger of superimposing your own circumstances onto someone else's testimony. It's easy to think if God worked in this way in Vicky's marriage, or Joy's, or Jimmy Ruth's, then I just need to do exactly what they did and everything is guaranteed to turn out great for me. Watch out for that kind of thinking because your situation is unique. But we share testimonies because the underlying principles, like the value of trusting the Lord, of waiting on His timing, those things are timeless. They don't change, and you and I can learn from them. Here's Joy's son, Jordan.

Jordan McClain: So many people would have just left him immediately. If not immediately, a couple years into it, five years, ten years into it, but she stayed with him.

Joy McClain: I stayed with my husband for the simple fact that I had taken a vow. I had come to the place to understand that marriage is a living, breathing example of Christ and His bride. He never leaves His bride. I knew that my role in this was to pray for my husband. You're one with this man, and this relationship has been severed. What an amazing thing that is to understand when you understand Christ and His bride, the Church, and how important and how intimately we are to walk with Him. No one would cry out for my husband like me and his children.

I had so often talked to my children about prayer. It was just constant, no matter if they'd spent time with their dad and they came home discouraged. My answer to every one of these things was simply, "Just pray. Let's pray for your dad right now. Let's just stop and pray." I needed that. I needed that constant communication with my Father and just that constant plea.

I didn't realize just how seriously Jenna especially took this until one day I was putting something away in our little rental home in her closet. I noticed that the entire closet, the walls of the closet were full of prayers written on paper. I had literally just stepped into a place, I felt like I was stepping onto holy ground, where she had spent hours and hours going before the throne, just lamenting and pleading with God to save her dad and her parents' marriage.

We started collectively a prayer journal, and it's something that we passed back and forth. The main idea was that they are daughters of the King of Kings. Though their earthly father had deserted them, though he had walked away, their Heavenly Father would not ever do that. It was an important tool and really a treasure that I still have of those dark times where we were searching for truth in God's Word and helping each other do that through this little journal.

Over and over again, God kept taking me back to the place of trusting Him. "Do you trust Me that your daughter just overdosed? Do you trust Me that your daughter is cutting herself? Do you trust Me that your husband no longer eats but drinks his meal? Do you trust Me that your son is a heap on the floor crying? Do you trust Me that you don't know where your rent's coming from?" Over and over again, it was that message, so simple: "Do you trust Me?"

Lorne Matthews: My wife is hanging on. She won't give up. This woman is controlling me so much with all this spooky stuff. I knew something was wrong, but I had developed a very dependent, weak Ahab spirit. I was not a strong man of the Word of God. I was blinded by my lust, blinded by anger, blinded by "poor me, my wife can't give me what I need," blaming everybody else. The blame game. Finally I said, "What should I do?"

I said I'm going to get away from both of them. I said goodbye to that other woman and went with some friends of mine in gospel music. I started playing gospel music and traveling away from both of them. It was during that time that I really discovered how rotten and filthy my flesh was because during that time as I was traveling and trying to minister, I sat down in church one day in Houston and I saw another woman. I was drawn to this other woman who had been divorced.

I began quickly another relationship with her. After about four or five days of that, I went to the pastor and I said, "John, please help me. My problem is not my wife or this other woman or even this woman. My problem is me. I need help." He helped. He talked to this dear person and told her to get away from me. But I was so weak and so dependent, I thought I had to have a woman for my identity. It was at that time in my life that God began to turn me around.

Danna Gresh: The biblical term for turning around is repentance. It's a moment in time, but it's also a process.

Jimmy Ruth Matthews: God designed marriage to last until death parts you. So I just prayed for God to kill him. So you have a murderer and an adulterer here expounding on your program today. I had to come to the place of repenting of what was in my heart. I even had a plan for God. I said, "God, if You'll just get him on a slick highway and push him over a steep embankment, then I can look good and You can look good too."

I just had to deal with me. I couldn't settle Lorne's problems. I had to deal with my problems when I saw how desperately wicked my own heart was. I was trying to get him to change, and one day the Lord showed me in Galatians 5 the fruit of the Spirit is listed and the last fruit is temperance, which means self-control, not husband control. I remember looking in the mirror and thinking, "I really don't like that woman." I started asking God to show me the things that were in my heart that He wanted to change and to start focusing on me. That's what I encourage most women when I talk to them: you're likely not going to change your husband, so just get off of his case and start asking God what He wants to change in you.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: That's pretty amazing. Anybody listening to this story—and a lot of our listeners have been right where you were—hears this story and thinks, "Well, the sinner in this case is the unfaithful husband." Or it could be the other way around, but you're thinking it's Lorne who needs to repent, which was clear. But for you to say, "I'm the one who needs to change, and I need to repent." Some people would say, "What did you need to repent of? You weren't the one who was unfaithful."

Jimmy Ruth Matthews: It was what was in my heart. My heart was desperately wicked. The starting place was coming to the point where I could thank God for the way that He made me. When I sang, I wanted to sing like other people. When I would be in church and I would see other people worship, I would think, "I wish I could worship like that." One day the Lord spoke to me and said, "You don't have to worship like anybody else. You don't have to sing like anyone else. I created you because I long for the kind of praise that only you can give me." I started becoming comfortable with me. When I started focusing on me and dealing with me, I think that was one of the points when Lorne felt drawn back to me.

Danna Gresh: So he came home and they all lived happily ever after?

Vicky Rose: Not exactly. It was a year until Bill came home from when he prayed to receive Christ, and we went through some really difficult things in our counseling. Very helpful things, but it was hard. It actually was several months of turmoil. Is that a good word for what followed?

Bill Rose: It was. It was a slow process that year because I was still the sporting club and I wasn't ready to make a total commitment to the Lord, to Vicky, both. Really to Vicky, to get out of one lifestyle and go to the other. I knew once I moved back in, that was a huge step, and the things that were sort of, I thought were fun, I had to put aside and put away.

Vicky Rose: You prayed to receive Christ in December and then you went into rehab in February. We started counseling. Bill was still living someplace else. We would go to counseling once or twice a week. We would go to church together on Sundays.

Bill Rose: One of the guys that we were counseling with, he said to me basically, "It's time to make a decision." He put it in more harsh terms. He said, "You got to make a decision. Either you're with her or you're not with her."

Vicky Rose: It's a daily process. I think even just before coming here to do this with you, these last two or three weeks have been a challenge again. We go through seasons in our life, in our marriage.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: I assume that even back at that time, there were things you all had to work through, and you'd been apart for five and a half years.

Vicky Rose: We've been back together a little more than 14 years. Back at that time, everything was a challenge. Just about everything. I had gotten on all sorts of committees while Bill was in the restaurant business, and so he would be out late at night but home in the morning. So I canceled all of my morning activities. That would be the only time we would have together alone. I just knew I was supposed to do that. God just led us both to do different things like that to start building our marriage. We really started from scratch. We started to read the Bible. I was in a serious Bible study, and that's what kept us going was the Word of God. It says, "Don't let the sun go down on your anger," God says, and so we would try not to go to sleep angry.

Danna Gresh: Three wives, each in a difficult marriage situation, each encouraged by others to leave, but each decided to wait on God to work on her husband's heart. Each realized that the Lord was working on her heart at the same time.

Joy McClain: My heart was evil. My heart was cold. My motives were impure. God showed me and revealed to me the evil in my heart, the selfishness in my heart. He desired to do a work in me just as much as He desired to do a work in my husband. I really understood how much it is up to God and how it really is for His glory. Whatever that looks like and however He chooses to do that is not for me to say, so that He will get the glory. I think that too was part of peeling away of self, more of my heart, peeling away more of pride, what I want, my desires, my dreams, my hopes. They had to fall away.

Jimmy Ruth Matthews: I'm not superwoman by any means, but I started focusing on the Word. When I read the Word, I started looking for the things that I as a woman was to be, as a wife and a woman of God. I saw that this was all God's design for us as husband and wife.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Whether you're in a crisis or you're in a season of smooth sailing, we all need to be asking: who or what is at the center of my world? Is your life built on a relationship with Christ, or is someone or something crowding Him out? I hope you'll take a moment today to just take stock and let the Lord search your heart and say, "Is there anything or anyone that is taking Christ's place in my life?" and to say afresh, "Lord, I want my life to be all about You, about bringing glory to You."

Danna Gresh: We've been listening to the pieces of the stories of Vicky Rose, Joy McClain, and Jimmy Ruth Matthews. Their marriages are still a work in progress as we all are, but these women have tasted the sweet fruit of persevering through a horrendous trial. They've grown more dependent on the Lord in the process, and they've seen Him work in amazing ways.

We're placing links to the full testimonies of Vicky, Joy, and Jimmy Ruth in the transcript of this program. You'll find them when you go to reviveourhearts.com and click on today's episode. James chapter one says, "You know that the testing of your faith produces endurance, and let endurance have its full effect so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing."

Everything we do at Revive Our Hearts is meant to call you to a greater degree of freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ. If the Lord has used Revive Our Hearts to do that, would you consider making a donation while it's still May? We're getting ready to close the books on one ministry year and kick off another on June first. Your support today will help set us up for a better summer when donations are typically lower.

We need to hear from you before Sunday. As a thank you for your gift, we'll send you the booklet that's all about freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ. It's titled *Called to Thrive*. Ask for it when you contact us with your donation. Listeners outside the U.S. and Canada, you can request a digital download of the booklet.

To make a donation and request *Called to Thrive*, visit reviveourhearts.com or call 1-800-569-5959. Hope to hear from you before this month is over. Again, it's 1-800-569-5959 or donate online at reviveourhearts.com.

Speaking of June first, on Monday we're kicking off our Summer in the Psalms, and Nancy will help us look at what King David called his "one thing." I hope you have a great weekend. We'll see you next week for Revive Our Hearts.

This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.