Health issues lead a husband and wife back to Jesus and a reason for life.

About ten years ago, Marvin Saunders fainted at work. Not sure why, he went to the doctor. The doctor diagnosed him with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Marvin and his wife, Joan, had a hard time remembering the name of the disease, but not the result. Marvin's heart was dying. The doctor told Marvin that at 55 years old he had only three months to live.

LED BACK TO JESUS

When he arrived home, Marvin sat down in his recliner in the living room and there he stayed for weeks, depressed and waiting to die. His energy slowly dwindled as his heart lost strength. But, surprisingly, the three months came and went, and then a year went by. Though only functioning at 25 percent, Marvin's heart kept on beating. That's when Marvin and Joan decided they needed to do something. They both still felt that they had something to give. What they found was foster parenting.

Four years after the fainting spell at work, they applied for a foster license and went through all the training. They were certified as foster parents that same year. Together they decided that if they were going to take care of children, they should get back to church.

It had been a while since either of them had been in church. Joan was raised Catholic. After her first husband died at age 32 from an electrical accident in the attic of their home, Joan stopped attending church regularly.

Marvin was raised Lutheran and belonged to what is now The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). His first wife also died in a tragic accident. As the years passed, he too had stopped attending church.

Marvin and Joan met at work. As they shared their stories of tragedy and loss, they fell in love. They were married in 1985.

In the early years of their marriage, church was not a priority. But with foster children now on the way, they thought that it was time to get back. They began to visit churches.

About the time that Marvin and Joan were receiving the license to be foster parents, I came to Edna, Texas, as the new pastor of the local church. The local paper ran a short article about the new pastor in town and included a picture of my wife and me. Joan thought that we looked nice, so they decided to visit our church.

From the first Sunday, Marvin and Joan felt at home. They were surprised and delighted with the friendliness of the congregation. One member in particular took the time to sit with them and help them find their way through the service.

They also enjoyed the sermon. What they appreciated the most was that the message was taken directly from the Bible. Joan later confessed that she had never really read or studied the Bible. "If anything has changed," she says, "it's that you have led me to the Bible."