Omar and Miriam’s marriage was in trouble after years of poor communication, unfaithfulness, and disagreements on how to parent their two young boys. Omar would often leave home without telling Miriam where he was going or when he would return. Miriam felt lonely and neglected.
When Omar and Miriam first began attending John and Shirley Wind’s HomeBuilders group in Yucatan, Mexico, they seemed very cold to each other and wouldn’t even sit close together. “There were five couples who participated,” says John, “and this couple really stood out. It was obvious that he had been dragged in. He didn’t seem to have a lot of interest in being there.” But over the course of seven weeks, God did some very special things in their lives.
One night, the couples wrote love letters to each other and read them out loud to their spouses over dinner. Omar starting reading his letter to Miriam and expressed his love in ways he had never done before. “My love, I ask you to forgive me for failing you when I was walking in the way of the world,” he said. “You are the best gift that God has given me.” Eventually, he couldn’t even continue reading—he was crying. He handed the letter to Miriam. She finished reading the letter and was so touched by his expressions of love and repentance for the ways he had hurt her that she began crying, too.
Other couples in the group experienced breakthroughs in their marriages as well as they confessed their love and asked each other for forgiveness for the ways they had failed. “The love letters are more than just a romantic thing,” says Shirley. “It’s something God can really use to save their marriage. We have seen over and over again how God has used that to break through in marriages.”
A couple of weeks after the HomeBuilders study ended, the five couples got together for a special dinner to reflect on their time together as a group. They began discussing how they had changed after being involved in HomeBuilders. One couple said they were communicating better. Another couple said they had started praying together regularly—something they hadn’t tried before. Another couple said that they had started dating each other again.
HomeBuilders leaders across the world have seen time and time again that God can use these groups to save marriages and draw couples closer to Him. And now Omar and Miriam are living proof.
