Former atheist Lee Strobel was perfectly happy when he married his wife Leslie, but something changed in the course of their marriage that upset him to such an extent that he considered divorcing her: She converted to Christianity.
While talking about his newly revised New York Times bestseller "The Case for Christ," Strobel shared with The Christian Post that he loathed his wife's conversion to Christianity and feared that she would change for the worst.
"I had married one Leslie — the fun Leslie, the carefree Leslie, the risk-taking Leslie — and now I feared she was going to turn into some sort of sexually repressed prude who would trade our upwardly mobile lifestyle for all-night prayer vigils and volunteer work in grimy soup kitchens," he said.
He blamed her conversion to a woman who lived in the same condominium building where they lived. The two women became fast friends, and his wife's new friend then encouraged her to pursue a relationship with Jesus Christ.
It was too much for Strobel to handle, and his "initial reaction was to divorce her. "I didn't want to be married to a Christian, and I thought she was going to turn into some 'Holy Roller' or something," he said.
Back then, Strobel thought that God was not real — that He was only created by people's own fears. He considered the idea of God "absurd." Since people were so afraid of death, they deluded themselves into thinking there really was heaven.
But the changes Strobel found in his wife actually blew him away. "I was pleasantly surprised — even fascinated — by the fundamental changes in her character, her integrity, and her personal confidence," he said.
Because of the changes in her personality, Strobel himself became curious about the Bible and Christianity. "Eventually I wanted to get to the bottom of what was prompting these subtle but significant shifts in my wife's attitudes, so I launched an all-out investigation into the facts surrounding the case for Christianity," he said.
This led him to convert to Christianity himself. After doing so, Strobel's marriage became stronger than ever.
Now, he considers their union a true "love story." The changes they've experienced in their lives are so great that Strobel hopes to spread it around.
"I want to reach more people with the evidence for Christianity, and the truth of the faith, and the love of God," he said.
