A Christmas Reconciliation for Couple

“I could feel the stillness in the peace of Christmas,” Tammy said. “I knew it was a miracle what had happened.”

Christmas holds a special meaning for Ben and Tammy Stahl. For them, it marks the time, nearly a decade ago, when they were blessed with a wonderful reunion they thought could never happen. Before then, back in 2008, Ben and Tammy decided they were ready to marry after dating for 4 years. They were excited for the bright future they had planned together in their home state of Michigan, but then the bottom fell out of the housing market and the financial turmoil that followed quickly began tearing their relationship apart.

“It was a nightmare,” Ben said. "I had been a realtor for about ten years and I ended up losing my house that I built basically with my own hands. I did have to make the choice between, you know, paying bills and putting food on the table. There's a lot of pressure there and a lot of tension. And so there was a lot of arguments and fighting.”

“That was my introduction to being married,” Tammy said. “When it should have been peaceful, when it should have been happy, it was absolutely devastating. It got so bad we sold our stove to pay the rent. Our power got shut off. I just expected him to fix it all, and that's when the real fighting began. Yelling, shouting, screaming, slamming the door.”

Ben applied to more than one hundred jobs during that time, but he never received a callback. Desperate, he started competing in poker tournaments hoping to make enough money to get by until he found steady work. He did well – for a while.

“I actually borrowed money from Tammy and I said, ‘I'll have it back to you by the end of the night and I’ll have a bunch more.’ But I lost it,” Ben said as he fought back tears. “And that's when she moved out.”

“I said, ‘I don't want to be here anymore. I want to go to Nashville, because I’ve been there before and I was a singer.’ I'm the one that filed for divorce out of pride,” Tammy said. “We were very much in love with each other, but I did it to show him that I was serious and he better listen to me. I honestly didn't think the divorce would go through. I went to the courthouse and I was positive he was going to show up and save the day and tell me not to do it. He never showed up. That's what broke my heart.”

After their divorce, Ben enrolled in college, while Tammy took their son, Tony, and moved to Tennessee to pursue a career in music. Ben was hurt that Tammy left, but he stayed in touch and sent money to them when he could, while Tammy fell into depression. She grew up a Christian, so in her grief she sought out God at a local church, eventually joining the worship service. Then, nearly four years after the divorce, God showed her something.

“One day I was on stage singing and I just felt the biggest burst of God's presence I've ever felt in my life,” Tammy said. “I literally saw a vision of Ben and I holding hands at an altar. The Lord wanted us to come back together. In His eyes, we were still married. So I went home that day and immediately called Ben on the phone. I told him what happened to me. He was thinking about it, contemplating what I said.”

“I sensed this peace with her that I never noticed with her before,” Ben said. "I was like, ‘What's going on here?’ I started thinking, ‘Hey this is real, this is a real change with her. I want to be around this.’ The faith was coming off of her. The more we were communicating, the more I was realizing we might have a chance.”

Tammy continued to pray throughout the next few months that they would be able to reconcile – and then it happened. Ben hopped on his motorcycle and drove from Michigan to Tennessee, getting a speeding ticket along the way, to surprise Tammy and ask her back.”

“I was like, ‘What?’ I couldn't believe it was Ben,” Tammy said. "He came in and the first thing he did is grab me and kiss me. He was basically like, ‘You want to get married and come back home? Because I want to be with you the rest of my life.’ And it just melted me. I was like, ‘Yes.’”

Tammy packed up and moved her and Tony back to Michigan, officially rejoining Ben on Christmas Eve.

“It was just God's way of showing us that He still answers prayers and He's around and that He loves us," Tammy said.

Ben and Tammy remarried and have since had two more children, Gwendolyn and Benjamin. They are now financially prosperous, operating a business together. They say the key to the loving marriage they have today was deciding to put God’s will first.

“I started realizing I needed to change my expectations to more what God wanted and not so much what Ben wants,” Ben said. “I love Tammy so much, I wouldn't be complete without her. God's brought her into my life and we are inseparable. That's how much I love her.”

“It's really not what we did to make it work, it's having Jesus at the center,” Tammy said. "Because the days that aren't perfect now, if I don't have Him to cry out to or pray to, I would just take it out on Ben. I am so grateful to the Lord that He reconciled the marriage because I can't even think of what my life would be like if I wouldn’t have got back with my husband. He's an amazing father, great leader. Immerse yourself with God, because if you stay on that track, it'll be worth it in the end and you can spend the rest of your life together.”