A Tale of Two Hearts

Is it fate that two remarkably similar lives should one day collide?

Did God prepare, in advance, the day that Luke and Amilie would meet?

Whatever happened, God's hand was certainly evident as their relationship progressed.

Part One: Parallel Roads

Amilie and Luke have never been ones to approach life half-heartedly. When they’ve been up, they’ve been really up. But on the same token, when they’ve been down, they’ve been really down. Their lives have mirrored each other remarkably—and both are incredible testimonies to God’s faithfulness.

Amilie

From a very young age, I had a strong faith. I’ve got all my diaries from when I lived in Papua New Guinea and used to write to God a lot. I was exploring some deep and heavy stuff from a young age.

My heart was really open and God spoke to me clearly, I heard him in dreams. Mum and Dad were worried about how they were going to tell us kids that we were going to PNG. I had a dream and woke up the next morning remembering these words: ‘Overseas, missionaries, Papua New Guinea.’ I said to Mum and Dad, ‘I already know what you’re going to tell me.’

However, when I came back to New Zealand, at almost 16, I became disillusioned. After attending an International School in PNG, the kids at my New Zealand high school were rough and disrespectful, horrible and ignorant.

I tried to fit in, but when I finally did I was accepted by the wrong crowd. This was the start of the spiral.

On top of this, I was a pastor’s and missionary’s kid. So I felt that people expected me to be super spiritual and well-behaved—I didn’t feel like I could live up to that.

I was a bit ticked off with God. I saw my parents pour an incredible amount into other people. They are amazing people and I honour them for it, but at the time, instead of seeing God as my loving Heavenly Father, I saw God as my earthly dad’s boss.

My attempts to be accepted led to life becoming about partying and boys. After high school I studied fashion design and then left for Europe and the UK. Here, for three years, apart from six months where I had a flat, I lived out of a backpack.  

When I came back from Europe a relationship that I had been in, on and off, from ages 17 to 27 finally fell apart. It was then that I just spun out of control, falling into a deep depression. It got to the point where I was drinking about a bottle of wine every night and smoking—just trying to fill the void with everything I could. I had a good life, a good job, but I just didn’t want to be here, it was frightening.

That’s when I called my dad and said, ‘I think I need a church.’ He was extremely wise and said, ‘You don’t need a church; you need a doctor. You need to get well.’ My parents never once pressured me to go to church or get my life sorted out. I was still making stupid choices, but they were just there for me.

I started to notice that God was chasing me, and I was getting really mad about it. Everywhere I went, God would show up. It came to a head when I woke up one morning and said to Dad, ‘I want to come to church with you.’ It came out of my mouth before I had a chance to stop it.

At church that day an article was read out titled ‘Not a Christian.’ It defined what it really means to be a follower of Christ, how we can all find true acceptance in him. It completely broke me. It was as though someone had snapped my body in half and all the poison was coming out. It felt like it was just me and God in the room; it was so intense and started a huge process of healing.

All of a sudden I realised I could just be who I am created to be. He doesn’t want me to be this quiet little Christian girl who wears dowdy clothes; he wants me to be me. It was so freeing to all of a sudden have a clear idea of who God is and who I am in him—it was like this huge load had been taken from me.

Luke

I grew up in a Tasman church that my family has attended since the 1800s. After moving to the States when I was three, my family and I saw God move in huge ways.

One of the earliest memories I have as a kid was having literally no food in the house for dinner. Dad said, ‘We’re going to sit at the table, say grace and be thankful for what we’ve got.’ When my dad finished grace and said ‘Amen’ there was a knock at the door and one of our family friends walked in with bags full of groceries.

This happened again a couple of months later. Dad prayed, said ‘Amen’ and looked up to see a note saying there was a trailer load of food in the parking lot. It was great to have this knowledge that God is real so early on. Dad really set the culture of pushing into the deeper things of God.

As a teenager back in New Zealand, I was the good Christian kid on Sundays who knew all the answers and could recite all the verses. But there was a disconnect between that and real life. At school I was a foul-mouthed kid who swore more than a sailor.

Eventually I fell in with a different group of friends and really started going off the rails. It all came to a head when I was 18. I wanted to go somewhere where people didn’t know me. Scotland seemed good. So I moved there and dove head first into stupidity.

Over the next few years I could get away with all the things I wanted to do but couldn’t back in New Zealand. But through it all, I had this nagging weight of God calling me. It was kind of a Jonah situation. I knew that God had a big plan for me, but I refused to take part in it because of what it would cost.

When you’re running in the complete opposite direction to God, there’s this numbing emptiness that takes over. I would do anything to take my mind off it.

Yet, even in my most out-of-it moments, I could hear God saying, ‘All you need to do is just turn back. I’m still here.’

At that time Dad had his third stroke in three years and was in bed for three or four months. And Mum has MS and had a really bad MS attack about the same time. Being halfway around the world and feeling as bad as I was, this news broke me.

I called Mum and Dad in tears saying, ‘I need to come home. I’ve got no money because I’ve spent it all on booze and drugs. But I just need to get home.’ They said, ‘Well, God has actually been telling us to set money aside for tickets—he knew you were going to call.’

I hightailed it back to New Zealand. I was as low as I could possibly go. I felt like David when he said, ‘You reached down into the miry pit’ (Psalm 40). I read those verses when I came home, feeling up to my neck in filth and about to go under, but God called me out.

I had developed a pretty unhealthy drug habit—using heavily for about two and a half years. I told Mum and Dad that I really wanted to get clean. They said, ‘You can stay here as long as it takes, but if you do drugs in our house we’ll kick you out.’ So that was a good way to clean up, just going cold turkey.

It took about a month to get through it all, and in that time Dad and I would meet up in the lounge for about an hour each day to talk faith and theology. I didn’t have one of those deeply emotional revelations, coming back to God just clicked and made sense.

Through that month I came to the realisation that: a) I couldn’t run from God and b) why would I want to? He’s the answer to everything.

Part Two: The Crossroads

Amilie and Luke felt God reach out to them in incredible ways. God filled them with a feeling of acceptance and purpose in their lives; they began to live a new story in Christ. And they weren’t about to live it half-heartedly either.

This is the story of their new lives with Christ at the helm. 

A deeper trust

Since surrendering his life afresh to Christ, Luke felt a strong calling to study at Bible College. ‘I never wanted to go to become a pastor or anything like that,’ he explains. ‘I just wanted to deepen my understanding and relationship with God. So I felt God was calling me to study.’

As part of his studies at Bible College, Luke took up a youth internship at a Wellington inner-city church, working alongside some great role models. Being a youth leader helped satisfy another passion God had placed on his heart: sharing his own deepening faith with others. Luke says, ‘I had, and still have, a strong pastoral drive to see people grow in a deeper understanding and revelation of who God is and what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.’

For Amilie, with a career in fashion, coming back to God saw some big changes. ‘I felt that I could do more for [God] than a well-paid, 40-hour-a-week job in fashion. I prayed about it and the word that kept nailing me was “Trust”.

‘Trust. I needed it. Others needed it. Also, women kept asking me for fashion advice and I realised there were so many frightening slogans on t-shirts. So I began “trust clothing” which morphed into “trustyle”.’

Under this brand, Amilie launched a line of clothing that had trust as its core value and message. This same philosophy of trust carried through into styling advice for all sorts of women as well as many speaking engagements about God-inspired fashion.

Boy meets girl

Amilie explains, ‘When I came back to God, knowing the personality that I am, I made a decision that I wasn’t going to date anyone because I didn’t trust myself. I said to God, “If there’s a guy out there for me, you’re going to have to make it so clear and so obvious, because I cannot pick him on my own.”’

Luke had similar motives for creating ground rules for any future relationships. ‘All my relationships had been so horrendously dysfunctional; I decided I was going to spend at least two years with someone before getting engaged.’

It turns out that God had surprises for them both.

In 2006, during a small service in Wellington, their two parallel worlds collided. Amilie went forward to share something God had placed on her heart and immediately she had Luke’s full attention. Luke says sparks flew on his side when he saw this tall girl in black boots and a black dress who was also super tight with the Lord.

It didn’t take long for word to get around to Amilie that Luke was interested. She promptly sent Luke an email saying she wasn’t. Luke recalls the email said, ‘By the way, nothing’s ever going to happen between us.’

Fast-forward three years, Amilie found herself in Norway visiting her sister, where she prayed a simple prayer. ‘I finally said to God: “If you want me to be single, I’m okay with that. Thank you for my singleness.”’ Two days later things started happening … via Facebook of all things.

‘I was online,’ describes Amilie, ‘and I saw Luke was on too. I was like, “Hey, that’s that guy from church; I wonder what he’s up to now.” So I said to him, “How’s it going?”’

A five-hour online chat transpired. The significance of it inspired Amilie to copy and paste the entire conversation. Looking back she says, ‘It’s amazing the topics we covered, the things we talked about. It was very God-centred and very deep, but light-hearted. Some people wonder what they talked about on their first date, but we’ve got it written down!’

The next day a similar chat took place. Having long given up on anything happening between them, all the time they were chatting, Luke was oblivious to the idea that this could lead to something. Amilie wasn’t so unaware.

‘My sister said, “What are you going to do? Are you just going to spend all this time on Facebook or are you going to say something?” I said, “Well, I think I like him.” She said, “Well, maybe you should tell him.” And I said, “Well, no, because I’ve already shot him down.” Then she goes, “Well why don’t you write down what you’d say to him if you had the chance?” I did and she reached over and pressed send.’ Thus, the relationship began.

God first

‘When I sent it, I expected Luke to be like, “Whoa, game on!” because I knew he had liked me before,’ explains Amilie. ‘But his response was, “I think we should get off Facebook and pray about it for a few days.”'

After a few days they were confident that this was right and God was in it.

Luke describes their meeting two weeks later when Amilie had arrived back in New Zealand, ‘Literally the second night that Ams was back in New Zealand we talked and she said, “I don’t want to get into this unless it’s for the long haul.” So much for Luke’s two years of dating before making up his mind!

They started dating in April 2009, were officially engaged in July, and married in November that year.

Although this might sound like a quick turnaround, it was the groundwork they had put in beforehand that paved the way for the relationship to progress. ‘When we came back to the Lord,’ says Amilie, ‘we went to whatever length it took to get healing.

‘We went as far and as wide as we needed to get into the space where God wanted us to be. I could see this in Luke and he could see it in me. Witnessing this separate growth and openness to God has made things a lot smoother since being a couple.’

When Amilie was 19, doctors told her that the chances were very high that she might never be able to have children. However, at a church camp, shortly before the wedding day, the guest speaker, who did not know Amilie, suddenly came up to her and said, ‘God gave me a vision for you: There was barren ground and God wants you to know that he has changed that for fertile soil. Where once you were told nothing would grow, he is going to plant a seed.’

Luke says, ‘I remember the exact place where I was talking to Amilie about it. I said to her, “I have no hesitation that God will restore your body and we’ll have kids. I have no doubt about it in my mind.”’

Just over nine months after the wedding day, Amilie gave birth to a very healthy baby boy, who they named Ezekiel.

Crossroads becomes home

As the birth of Ezekiel neared, the couple looked to find a church that was closer to home and more suitable for raising a family. Just two weeks out from the due date they walked into The Salvation Army Hutt City Corps (a.k.a. Crossroads).

‘We walked up the stairs and were blown away by the welcome,’ says Amilie. ‘We both separately felt really at home there, and we were offered help for when the baby arrived. They said, “If you want your groceries done or your washing just give us a text, here’s the number, we’re on it.” This was backed up when Zeke was born. People came around with meals and helped us out.’

They were also impacted by the global and local mindset of the church; that it was not just ‘a Sunday kind of place but makes a difference in the community and has a real family focus’.

Luke says, ‘We both [believe that] church isn’t a spectator sport. It’s about becoming part of a family and getting stuck in. As soon as we worked out that [The Salvation Army] is where we were supposed to be, the next logical step for us was to become soldiers. It lined up with what we wanted to do anyway.

‘The awesome thing about the Sallies is that it’s about helping people at the ground level; having an open building that people who are just on the fringes can walk in to. They’re the people we have a heart for’.

As told to Hayden Shearman (adapted for web from War Cry magazine)