Pastor Darryl Baker and his wife Patrice (left) helped Charles and Brandy Fraley restore their marriage.

PICKERINGTON, Ohio – Charles Fraley had walked away from God long ago, and he had even moved out of his house and left his wife and 6-year-old son behind when God drew Brandy Fraley to a marriage class at Change City Church in Pickerington, Ohio.

With her marriage all but officially ended, she tearfully told Pastor Darryl Baker and his wife Patrice what was happening. “I had seen Change City on a Facebook ad,” Brandy told Baptist Press. She had been looking for a new church earlier this year after being out of church for a while, and she desperately needed God’s intervention in her marriage.

Charles, a veteran and the grandson of a pastor, agreed to meet with Baker simply to get Brandy to stop mentioning it. “He listened to my story, and he shared some things about his life with me, which actually made me feel a little better,” Charles said.

Even so, the husband was determined to get out of his marriage. “I was angry. I was confused. I was bitter. I was just lost. I was a ship with no rudder,” he said.

“While this was going on, I just had no peace. One day, I was in my son’s room looking at his toys and his bed and everything, and I realized something was really wrong with me and I didn’t know how to fix it.” 

For the first time in years, he prayed. Later that day, he heard a voice telling him to go home. Though he didn’t understand and didn’t want to go home, he obeyed. 

The couple started going to counseling and to the marriage classes at Change City, and they began to slowly rebuild their relationship, Charles said. “I have to be completely honest. I can’t give any credit to anyone but God because I know where my mind was,” he said. “There was nothing that no man could say to me or do to me to change my course.”

The marriage classes helped the couple learn to have healthy arguments and how to bring everything back to God, Brandy said. Though they had premarital counseling and had a church background before, they “still didn’t understand what God’s calling for us as husband and wife was until we took that marriage class and learned it.”

Baker sees the change in Charles and Brandy and says their lives have made a 180-degree turn from when he met them only a few months ago. “It’s like a totally different couple, and they both serve in the church now.”

If people can learn what God’s Word says, they can apply it to marriage, parenting, finances and other areas of life that present challenges, Baker said. 

“When you feel you have absolutely nothing, you do have something. You have God. I had to learn again that I’m not alone in this world and read His Word and see what it says,” Brandy said.

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