David & Tracy Smith
David and I have been married for 20 years this year. As a young woman I spent a lot of time trying to find acceptance and unfortunately made some very bad choices when it came to relationships. When we were married I did not know the Lord and while David did he was not walking with Him. We had only been married about a year when my relationship with Christ began. In 2003 David and I surrendered our lives to the full time ministry. In 2010 David was called as the Pastor of Nucla First Baptist Church and God began to lay the ground work for Married4Life Ministries. When our close friends' marriage was near complete collapse God told us we had to do something. We needed to be very intentional about getting them to know and understand the importance of letting God into their lives and into their marriage. David and I created our first Marriage retreat for this purpose. We invited a couple we knew who could give testimony of how God works to restore marriages, who lived close and who would spend the time to help our friends stay focused. We also invited another couple we knew who hadn't been married long. Our friends gave their lives to the Lord and almost 5 years later they walk close to Him and their marriage is better than it ever was. Success!!! God is good. We could not have done it without Him. A couple years later we held another retreat with the same 4 couples and God again proved Himself faithful. What we thought was just some close friends getting together to encourage each other in Christ has be come something so much greater. Over the next year God gave David and I a vision of continued ministry, by creating a place for marriage retreats. David and I talked, prayed, sought out wise council and Married4Life Ministries was born. Our heart overflows when I get the opportunity to see a marriage restored through Him. We are truly blessed to be a part of such a great work.
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Josh & Michelle Umberger
"In April 2013, Michelle and I were sitting at our kitchen table trying to split ten years of a family, fighting over who got what and trying to decide what days each of us would see our 4 kids. 3 months later, we both met Jesus Christ. We got our own beginning path as a Christian but together we started fighting for a better reason...to save our marriage. Some amazing friends that had been praying for our marriage long before we knew what praying was decided they wanted to have a weekend retreat where we could learn what marriage should look like. So in September we went for a weekend away together. Fast forward 4 1/2 years later, here we are enjoying our marriage and loving each other as God wants us to. M4L is dear to our hearts because without this ministry and the amazing people fighting for marriages behind it we wouldn't be together to share our testimony or show our love and support to others who have similar issues."
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Sean & Ila Crocker
"In July of 2013, we started an amazing journey with a group of people who have continued to inspire us daily. At the Night Vision concert in Olathe, CO, a couple we had never met before set up their shade tent next to ours. As we talked with David and Tracy Smith, we shared what God had done in our lives and our marriage through trials and infidelity, leading us to ministry for other couples having similar trials.
David asked us if we would speak at their marriage retreat in Bedrock, CO. We were honored to have the privilege of sharing God’s faithfulness in our lives and marriage. As we all got to know each other better, God did amazing things through these friendships and through the teachings that God gave David for the retreat. Here, the marriage ministry began to take shape.
With another retreat in Rico, CO, in 2015, this wonderful group of friends has regularly met together, encouraging and ministering to one another. In September 2017, David and Tracy shared the vision God gave them for the expansion of this ministry to others and Married4Life Ministries was born.
Married4Life Ministries provides us a wonderful tool to use our spiritual gifts to pour into hurting marriages, facilitating healing and communication. It provides a safe place to unplug from distractions and spend focused time on the healing process. We continue to marvel at God’s faithfulness as we offer this amazing opportunity for healing, ministry, encouragement and growth to other married couples."
Amanda Tomlinson
"God gave me such a precious gift in my husband (whose name means “Gift from God”) and I cannot be more thankful. He was amazing! A better man than I ever would have imagined existed, let alone would love me. And love me he did, beyond my wildest dreams.
But something in me could not shake the slinky of destruction. We had ups and downs and moments of sheer bliss. We had times of chaos and heartache. But never once did he think that giving up was even an option, nor did he want to. I on the other hand, had times of panic, knowing I could never be good enough for him or deserve his love. So in my destructive ways I let fear and a lack of trust in God, or in my husband take me into a tail spin.
Still, God was not going to give up on me and neither was my husband, nor the incredible friends and spiritual help God had blessed me with. At the very moment when I was my very worst self, they loved me through it. They stood in the gap. They fought for me when I was not capable of fighting for myself. And through it all, I surrendered to God, I gave up fighting against love. Putting God first and my husband second, then letting God lead us in our marriage was the VERY thing that saved our marriage. Not only made me whole, made us whole and made us new. Then God blew our minds and called us to share in the ministry He created through the fires that we (and the other outstanding couples in Married4Life Ministries) faced. He took our struggles, trials and lessons learned and turned them into a lifeline for other couples.
Nathan Tomlinson
" I am so lucky to have found the wife that I have. We started a marriage for all the reasons that many people do, which is pretty much every reason except the right one. We soon realized that it needed more then what it had. So we decided to work on having our first child. So after a couple months we learned we were going to have our first. We had an amazing daughter and after we laid our eyes on the most precious girl ever, we realized what it was that we truly need. It needed to be centered around God and then and only then would life begin to become what I have always wanted it to be. Near that same time a new Pastor came to the church right by my house. Amanda went a few time to get a feel for what he had to say and finally got me to go :). Soon after I started going regularly, and for the first time enjoyed it and I haven't looked back. We moved for about a year and in the time we were away from the church, we slid away from where we had worked to get, we were attending church but it just wasn't the same. After we moved back we went to the second retreat and it was just like we were home. With people that cared about us and we cared for as well. We sat around a campfire and just talked, about real stuff, no fear of judgement, the darkest corners of yourself. Your problems and what you consider to be unforgivable about yourself. Simply amazing
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