AMAZING STORY
Ridding a Heart of Anger to Restore a Marriage
By Shannon Woodland
The 700 Club
CBN.com -Chris Davis, threatened his wife. “I went and sat in the living room with a big old butcher knife and I said, ‘I dare you leave.’”
His wife, Morgan Davis had grown accustomed to her husband Chris’ threats - even when he held a knife. “I said, ‘Okay. Are you going to kill me now?’ That’s an example of how numb I became to his threats.”
Chris and Morgan met in the Marine Corps, where they became fast friends. Then the relationship turned physical, and Morgan got pregnant. They figured the right thing to do was to marry.
Chris admitted, “I did not love her. I don’t think you ask me then what love was I would have been able to tell you.”
Then Morgan miscarried. Still the couple decided to stick it out. There were good times but they often argued; neither was willing to give ground. Morgan said, “There was this psychological power trip between us both.”
Chris however, had to have the last word. To get his way, he would go into fits of rage and make threats. “I never physically hit her. I used psychological, emotional and verbal abuse.”
Even then Morgan was determined to stay. “I came into this marriage not with just the Marine Corps but with the street mentality of ‘I’m built for this.’”
One night Chris threatened her with a knife. This time she ran out of the house and called the police. Chris was arrested and committed to a psychiatric hospital. There it was discovered that he had intermediate explosive disorder. “I was considered a rageaholic,” said Chris. “So the one wrong thing I would blow up and literally black out.”
Medication kept things at bay and Chris was sent home. But he stopped taking it and soon the flare ups came back. In fact, they got him kicked out of the Marines. By now the Davis’ had their first son, Isaac.
“I didn’t think he would ever kill me because I was the mother of his child,” said Morgan. “Until that fateful day in February, I will never forget it, February 3rd, 2003.”
On that day, Morgan told Chris to leave – and he snapped. “At that time my mentality was to choke all life out of her.”
Morgan escaped and called the military police. This time Chris was put in jail. “My wife wants nothing to do with me. I can’t be within a thousand yards of her, her job, my son, his day care, anything,” explained Chris.
As reality set in, Chris remembered his grandmother always said to call on Jesus. So he started reading the Bible and going to chapel services. One day, Chris cried out to God and accepted Jesus Christ into his heart. When he got out a year later he felt like a new man, started taking his family to church.
But he never got help with his anger. It didn’t take long for the old Chris to re-surface.
“I felt powerless in my relationship with my husband,” wept Morgan. “I had no control, no say.”
For the sake of their son, Morgan stayed and they had two more children. By now she had all but given up hope on her marriage and her life. “Drinking for me was something that helped medicate the pain.”
She also had an affair with Chris’ brother. “He treated me more like a wife than my husband did.”
Chris was consumed with hate and anger. Then one day at church he says God spoke to his heart. “God was using my wife and my marriage to break me of me. Because what He was doing was bringing all that old junk to the surface so I could see how really ugly I was,” said Chris.
Chris realized he needed help, and once again asked Jesus Christ to deliver him of the sin that overwhelmed his life.
“Right there I started weeping. I’m in the church. People are around me don’t know what’s going on. It’s just streams flowing down. And I repent right then.”
Morgan says one night; she realized she needed God’s help too. “I had just slept with his brother and I was drunk and I was high. And all of a sudden I just start throwing up uncontrollably.”
Lying on the bathroom floor, she called out to God.
“I remember saying, ‘God I need you,’" sobbed Morgan. “I had felt that my life and my soul was really in the balance that night.”
Morgan gave her life to Jesus Christ and right before passing out, she called her husband. Chris came, but instead of taking her home, he took her to his grandmother’s. “And I woke up to his grandmother with my head in her lap praying over me.”
Chris’ grandmother shared with Morgan God’s love for her. And there, Morgan said, “That was my first encounter with this Savior who despite my sin took the road at Calvary and died for me.”
With counseling and God’s help, the Davis’ were able to forgive each other. Chris learned how to cope with his anger. He also learned how to love his wife, and Morgan learned how to respect her husband. They give God all the glory for what He’s done in their marriage and their lives.
“Despite knowing the sins that I was going to commit against Him, He still loved me,” said Morgan. “It’s unfathomable when you think about the love of God.”
Chris added, “When I look back at my testimony and at our testimony as a marriage you can’t see nothing but the love of God because of where we are now. That love and joy and happiness and excitement - we’ve been excited like this for the past four and a half, five years. And it gets better, it gets better!
CBN IS HERE FOR YOU!
Are you seeking answers in life? Are you hurting?
Are you facing a difficult situation?
A caring friend will be there to pray with you in your time of need.
